Russell McMahon wrote:

> Old camera was a Minolta 7Hi "prosumer" 5 MP. Very nice camera. Now =

> dead after 200,000+ photos.

You don't shoot much, do you...

> Brands that failed were mixed and quality =

> in most cases. Included a Kingston 256 MB (London, very hot weather - =

> totally unreadable by any means I've tried). Another 512 MB in Taiwan =

> in hot but not so hot as London was evening weather. And a second 512 =

> MB failed within minutes adding weight to the camera related =

> suspicions.

Yep.
Card electronics slow down with heat (higher resistances)
and so the timing was probably too fast to reliably write the flash.
Definitely correctable in firmware. Might also have been a
design flaw in the card (RC timer changing too much with temperature).

> Camera gets very hot under extended shooting which cannot =

> help.

NOPE! Next to static, heat is a big killer of electronics.
How about a copper heat plate to draw heat out of the CF card area?

> Of these one was able to be reformatted and another appeared =

> dead-dead. On trying it in several cameras, USB download, USB-card =

> reader, CF adaptor ... it was dead. BUT on trying it in my new 7D DSLR =

> recentlyish it would display in the camera sometimes (nice to see =

> photos I thought were lost) but won't download (:-( ).

Even if the card was left in the camera? Suggests a directory structure
problem since the camera is likely sequentially accessing the directory,
while Winblows is trying to get the whole directory at once before
pulling down the files. You might want to try using a DOS window
(so that the card mounts as a drive letter) and using the XCOPY command
to pull the images off one by one.

> - When viewed =

> as a drive via USB the file names are scrambled and there are many =

> rubbish directories and no tool I have will touch it BUT camera can =

> read it in camera.

This suggests that the card has some disconnected data leads that
'make' when inserted into the camera, which may be changing the forces on
the pins. You might try squeezing the card gently, or bending is slightly
when inserted into an external reader to see if you can make it more
readable. If flexing causes changes in the data, you can probably fix
it with a shotgunning solder job (reheat all connections).

If its an internal chip bonding issue, freeze spray sometimes works
(it did for me on a dead hard drive).

> ie card is probably logically scrambled but OK. =


If the camera can read it, it's likely not logically scrambled.

> I =

> have had very occasional other failure which was soft formattable =

> recoverable.

Suggesting corruption of the FAT or directory by incomplete writes.
Hot flash takes more energy to write. The card may well have been
writing in temperatures well past it's specifications.
You should look at Sandisk Extreme III cards.

http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Catalog(1024)-SanDisk_Extreme_III_CompactFl=
ash.aspx
# Built to perform in the most extreme environments and temperatures=97from
-13=BA F to 185=BA F
-25=BA C to 85=BA C

I'll bet they hold up in your camera.

Also try reading the flakey CF card after you freeze it very cold.

>  I think I've had one other 512 MB failure with all frames =

> lost but reformat recoverable.

Those frames were probably recoverable with a low level card editing tool
since the writes are sequential, and you just have to search for the JPG
header (JFIF...) to find the start of each image. The image recovery
tools basically do a low level read and then try to reconstruct a
valid FAT structure by looking for recognizable stuff (like the headers).

> My new camera has USB on-the-fly download to PC capability. (Minolta =

> maxxum 7D DSLR, 7 MP).
> =

> Note that the very top cameras have two card slots (usually different =

> media types) that can be run either sequentially OR written =

> redundantly in parallel. The latter facility suggests that the pros =

> also expect some failures (or that the design engineers hold CF =

> company shares :-) ).

Or they were sensible and figured that as long as they had two
media slots then might as well offer the user the option of using both.

The big problem I am finding in researching this, is no one seems to
make JUST the card connectors. So far all I find are complete card 'kits'
and connectors with guides. Obviously there is no room for guides inside
a CF cavity.

> I will ask further about CF loss in action. However, having been burnt =

> enough so far I can't assume all will be well in crucial shoots in =

> future. Download to PC on the fly may turn out to be the way to go for =

> critical stuff, with auto background file copy to an external drive =

> incrementally. Wedding or other photographer wearing a laptop PC in a =

> backpack (plus extra battery capacity) would be a sight to see :-). As =


Not to mention a pain in the back.
With a long telephoto lens on the camera, you might get mistaken
for a ghostbuster (movie characters who used backpack powered ray
guns to snag ghosts).

> I sometimes wear a 3 or 4 lens quick access bag at my waist and a belt =

> bag at the back with a ?5? AH 6V SLA therein and quick change cable =

> the step to wearable laptop may also be feasible :-). Almost. My 2 x =

> Librettos are not quite up to the task. A Linux box with dual drives =

> would do but camera software is not compatible.

Not yet anyway.

> This is a 'hobby' btw - not my 'day job'.

Some hobby.
I'd hate to see what you needed if you went 'pro'.

> far, have every frame that i have not purposefully deleted. All online =

> on this LAN too fwiw.

How big is the hard drive they're on? Redundantly I expect.

Good like pulling images of the partially dead card.

Robert

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