Help: with a smart-media card used in Olympus E-10

[HarryMYoung]

this one is the 32MB card; I was using SHG compression, so the card holds 11 images. shot 9 images; viewed several. later I read the card thru SanDisk reader into computer. Tried to 'copy' the entire folder of images ... LAST TWO copied. The others -each- said "jpg ender tag too short" ... or some such.
Now: card in reader on computer shows NO images, BUT Mac "get info" says 20MB used, 10MB available!!
Does -anyone- know how to retrieve these 7 images? And to somehow make them viewable?? [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[objektiv]

Sorry I can't help you retrieve your images. I will say I have had alot of trouble with smart media cards in various cameras. Corrupt images, cards going bad, etc. Ever since I got my E-10 I've been using Compact Flash exclusively and have never lost an image.

[StMarc]

I think what you got was the notorious "jpeg header" error. This means your files have been corrupted - and may not have been recorded properly in the first place. (Even though your camera was able to display them.) Try putting the card back in your camera and doing a review. If the camera chokes, the files are toast. If it doesn't, try hooking the camera directly to a computer and d/ling. If that works, toss the reader - they're cheap enough that it's not worth it to fool with one that might be a file-eater.

So far as I know there is no fix for this problem. One thing that sometimes works is to load the card and then run a disk-utility like Norton Utilities on it - to your computer, it's just another disk and disk-utilities work just fine.

32MB cards are cheap - I'd throw this one away and get a new one, or better yet a bigger one. You might also want to do some tests on your reader, even if you think it was the camera or the card.

St. Marc

[dksun]

If you're running OS X, try Photorescue. This is commercial software, but the dowloadable, unregistered version lets to preview the recovery. If the program doesn't see any images to be recovered, it won't work and you don't pay them.

I had a problem with a flakey CF card and was able to recover most of the "lost" images. It's now part of my digital toolbox.

[orlphoto]

Use compression on any media that contains important information...why you ask..because sooner or later there WILL BE file corruption...

from my many moons of experience I learned this the hard way...thought I was saving bucks by compressing...ended up costing me more than a few dollars in the long run...

good luck on the recovery.

[HarryMYoung]

for later use .... OS-Jaguar SanDisk reader said that card was unreadable! Oh, well; 9 pix lost. It could have been much worse; could have been one of my 128MB cards!!

thanks again everyone. really nice to know there IS help out there!