Alan,

On Mon, 29 Jan 2007 11:05:01 -0000, Alan B. Pearce wrote:

> I have an old Canon Digital Ixus camera which has a 1GB Sandisk 
> (supposedly - it was bought off ebay) that has died. The card claims to be a 
> SanDisk ultra II 1.0GB, but has no serial number on it anywhere, but another 
> SanDisk card that a colleague owns has a serial number and country of origin 
> printed on the edge, so I suspect it to be a rip off card.

I'd bet folding money on it - SanDisk always have a serial number on their cards (on the edge of CFs, on one of the faces of thinner cards like SD).

>... 
> So I put the card into a USB CF card adapter, and the PC saw it as a drive 
> for a short time, but then it went awry, and now will not work in the 
> adapter, or the camera. The camera will not format it, nor will another 
> camera here at work that takes CF cards.
> 
> Is anyone aware of any reason why the CF card could die when used like this?

It could easily be a broken connection inside, caused by bad manufacturing and vibration/shock, or even just electrical load.
 
> If the card has no likely means of recovery, I am tempted to try and open 
> it. It looks like there is a metal cover each side which should pry off 
> easily enough. 

I've never taken one apart (amazingly - I do that to everything else :-) but there were photos on a web site, I think Digital Depot, who have a shop in 
Stevenage, of a real and a failed fake card from a famous maker, and the differences were obvious.  They found and photographed the failure, and it 
was a visible physical break in a connection between the chip and the external contacts.  If yours is terminal, as it seems, I see no reason not to 
dissect it and have a look.

Cheers,


Howard Winter
St.Albans, England


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