K5 doesn't save pics to SD

photobydale · 07-31-2011, 07:39 AM

Ok I'll try and explain this the best I can. I was shooting a job yesterday and my
K5 ate some files.

I had shot about 400 images on a Lexar 16gb Platinum SD Card. Then the counter rolled as I had reached IGP9999, so a new folder was created automatically by the camera to start back at IGP0001. Folder one was called 100_0730 and the new folder to was called 101_0731. All normal. However anything that was written in the new folder was wiped as soon as you turned off the camera. I repeated this about 3 times and all the new images that started after the counter rolled and went into the new folder would go bye bye once the camera was turned off. Now the really strange thing is that the image counter on the lcd of the camera accounted for all the images that had been taken, but they clearly werent on the card. I loaded the card on a laptop and the new folder was there but no files and it said 0 bytes in the folder. I suspected a card error so I loaded the card into my k-20 and there was no issue at all. I tried another card in my K5 and there was no problems either. I tried the card that was giving me problems back into my K5 this morning and the issue seems to have resolver itself as the new images are now staying on the card.

So my question is has anyone expeirienced this before? It seems to have something to do with the counter wrapping and the images not writing properly to the new folder. Very confusing and was extremely frustrating.

JeffJS · 07-31-2011, 08:30 AM

Strange indeed. The worse part of it is now you cannot repeat the problem. The absolute worse part of it is, if it Does repeat, you won't know it until you put the card in a reader and look at it with a computer.

Did the photos show in review on the card in the camera?

I would format the card and move on. Sounds like a glitch that hopefully you won't see again for another 999x shots if at all.

Rupert · 07-31-2011, 08:47 AM

Yes Yes! I have suffered this same problem. Narrowed it down to one specific card, a PNY card and no longer use it in my K5. It was even stranger than your situation....if the battery was fully charged it did this...if the battery was somewhat depleted, it worked....most of the time. In the K20D it works all the time no matter the battery level. Strange happenings!
Regards!

photobydale · 07-31-2011, 09:05 AM

Rupert, was it also happening when the counter rolled and the camera created a new folder?

**G_Money** · 07-31-2011, 01:29 PM

I also had a Lexar 16gb Platinum that would randomly drop images. I ended up getting it replaced under warranty and chalked it up to just a bad card. The thing is, the images were on the card and could be recovered with Photorescue, but it wasn't a speedy procedure.

rawr · 07-31-2011, 02:52 PM

Yet another reason to stick to Sandisk cards.

**G_Money** · 07-31-2011, 05:18 PM

Originally posted by rawr

Yet another reason to stick to Sandisk cards.

Well, I've had Sandisk cards that had the lock tab break off, so they're not exactly problem-free, but Sandisk cards do carry a lifetime warranty vs. Lexar's 10 year warranty. But then in 10 years a 16 gb card will probably be worth less than the postage it would take to mail in the claim.

Rupert · 07-31-2011, 05:49 PM

Originally posted by photobydale

Rupert, was it also happening when the counter rolled and the camera created a new folder?

Never got that far to roll it over. Photos showed on the LCD but not on the computer. Works fine in the K20D, where I will use it...if I ever use the K20D again.....
Regards!

JeffJS · 07-31-2011, 07:46 PM

I have a sandisk 8gb 30mb/s class 10 card that sometimes my card reader doesn't like. Works fine in the camera (I typically download via USB anyway) but sometimes I have to format it IN the camera in order to get the card reader to recognize a card is even inserted. I have a transend c6 8gb that I've never had a problem with.

All cards can have issues of some kind.

rawr · 08-01-2011, 03:30 AM

I always just stick to the card brands Pentax says it has checked and found compatible: Panasonic, Toshiba, Sandisk:
K-x Recommended Memory Cards | Pentax Support
K-7 Memory Card Compatibility | Pentax Support
Optio W90 Recommended Memory Cards | Pentax Support
etc

George Lama · 08-01-2011, 04:01 PM

That is just like a car manufacturer saying they recommend Michelin or GoodYear tires. In the end it means nothing as to how long that tire will last or how well it will perform.

From Pentax's articles linked above:

"The information above is given for the convenience of customers and does not guarantee complete compatibility with the K-7"

""Recommended" denotes only that the operation of the product has been checked by PENTAX and in no way constitutes a guarantee to customers that the product is suited to their requirements."

Fact is some cards are built better than others, and with the tens of thousands of photos I've taken and hundreds of times those cards have slid in and out of camera, SD Card reader, and card case, only three times have I had a card fail: card stopped responding outright (Transcend), separated along the shell casing (Patriot), and crack (SanDisk). And I still have a dozen cards that work just fine.

Sadly no SD card is quite built like CF cards are. While CF cards are solid and can take abuse, SD cards are inherently thinner and more likely to crack or split. I for one wish either Pentax would add support for CF cards or SD card manufacturers would build a spec for a tougher SD shell. I'm not holding my breath on either one of those possibilities.

Note: Just to be safe, I always format the cards in camera before each job. Also, I stick to 8 GB cards and backup the cards as I go. Although I would love to use 16 or 32 GB cards, the thought of keeping that many eggs in one basket is a bit unnerving.

apac · 08-01-2011, 04:34 PM

This happened to me just recently, the images would dissapear once camera was turned off. I realized my memory card was full but never got the error message from the K-5. The memory card gets corrupted. I had to format the card for it to work fine again.

pentax fan · 08-01-2011, 05:34 PM

This has happened to me a couple of times with off-brand cards, here are my experiences:

32GB Wintec Filemate Professional Class 10 SDHC, K-x
A) The card was used as-is out of the box, no formatting applied
B) Gradually filled up the card to more than 8GB
C) Turned on the camera, took some photos in burst mode until the camera stopped to process the photos, turned off the camera in hurry, then turned it on again: photos were gone
Solution: copied all the photos off the card onto my computer hard drive, then put the card back into the camera, formatted the card in-camera, worked fine

32GB PNY Professional Class 10 SDHC, K-5
A) Before using the card, formatted in-camera
B) Gradually filled up the card to more than 8GB
C) Turned on the camera, took some photos in burst mode, waited until the photos were saved and the camera was ready, turned off the camera, turned it on again: photos were gone
Solution: took the card out, blew some canned air (gently, from a distance) into the card slot, blew canned air over the card itself on the metal contacts, put the card back in, worked fine

Not sure what causes the problem, but it seems that in general, off-brand cards larger than 8GB are finicky to deal with. Before this happened I didn't realize that cards could be formatted in the camera (apparently this is better) or while hooked up to a card reader on your computer (apparently this is not as optimal). I have 12 different SDHC cards, and I have never had a problem with the Panasonic or ProSpec (Calumet's brand) cards. Also have never had a problem with any cards that are 8GB or less in capacity, off-brand or no. Finally, when this first happened I was in a hurry, I am not sure if I was being careful about waiting until all the photos taken in burst mode had safely been stored before turning off the camera.

Based on experience I would say that if you buy a cheap high-capacity, high-speed card, make sure to format it in the camera first, then test it by copying out 8+ GB of photos from your computer, put it in the camera, and see how it does. Test the card by taking photos in burst mode and see how the card behaves when it is at near capacity. And make sure to blow the dust out of the card slot.

Now whenever I copy photos off a card I always format it in-camera before filling the card up again. Have not had any problems since, have filled up the 32GB cards more than once. I also keep my camera firmware as up-to-date as possible, as I believe one or more updates have addressed some related card capacity issues. (Though not this issue in particular, as far as I know.)

One thing I did not test (but I have a suspicion happened): whether the photos that I lost were actually saved on the card. The recovery software I use (Recuva) is handy for things like getting back pictures accidentally deleted. It would be interesting to scan the card with Recuva or other recovery software and see if the pictures were saved, but something went wacky with having them show up as saved. I am willing to bet that the pictures are in fact saved on the card when this happens. Though of course, if you take more pictures and they overwrite, or if you format the card, that data is gone.

In general, it would be nice to always buy Panasonic cards (my favorite brand) but a few times the off-brands were so cheap it was hard to pass up! Illogical I know, but there it is. If buying a card on vacation or for a photo shoot or in some other situation where playing around and testing it first was not an option, I would probably avoid the off-brands no matter how cheap.

**G_Money** · 08-01-2011, 07:00 PM

Originally posted by pentax fan

This has happened to me a couple of times with off-brand cards, here are my experiences:
Though of course, if you take more pictures and they overwrite, or if you format the card, that data is gone.

My experience is that even if the card is reformatted, the old images are there, provided that any new images don't overwrite them. Interesting theory on the 8 GB limit, though. I never had any missing images on my 8 GB cards, perhaps I should make that my new default size.

photobydale · 08-01-2011, 08:44 PM

i tried a bunch of different recovery software and managed to pull 2 files off the card. Photorescue advanced found the most files and worked the best. However all the preveiws are showing up at around an average of 112kb in size. I cant seem to recover any full res files other than 2, very frustrating. I have learned a good lesson and I am going to start using smaller cards 4 or 8 gb and back up as i go.

07-31-2011, 07:39 AM	#1
photobydale New Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 4	K5 doesn't save pics to SD Ok I'll try and explain this the best I can. I was shooting a job yesterday and my K5 ate some files. I had shot about 400 images on a Lexar 16gb Platinum SD Card. Then the counter rolled as I had reached IGP9999, so a new folder was created automatically by the camera to start back at IGP0001. Folder one was called 100_0730 and the new folder to was called 101_0731. All normal. However anything that was written in the new folder was wiped as soon as you turned off the camera. I repeated this about 3 times and all the new images that started after the counter rolled and went into the new folder would go bye bye once the camera was turned off. Now the really strange thing is that the image counter on the lcd of the camera accounted for all the images that had been taken, but they clearly werent on the card. I loaded the card on a laptop and the new folder was there but no files and it said 0 bytes in the folder. I suspected a card error so I loaded the card into my k-20 and there was no issue at all. I tried another card in my K5 and there was no problems either. I tried the card that was giving me problems back into my K5 this morning and the issue seems to have resolver itself as the new images are now staying on the card. So my question is has anyone expeirienced this before? It seems to have something to do with the counter wrapping and the images not writing properly to the new folder. Very confusing and was extremely frustrating.

08-01-2011, 04:01 PM	#11
George Lama Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Buffalo/Rochester, NY Photos: Albums Posts: 1,133	That is just like a car manufacturer saying they recommend Michelin or GoodYear tires. In the end it means nothing as to how long that tire will last or how well it will perform. From Pentax's articles linked above: "The information above is given for the convenience of customers and does not guarantee complete compatibility with the K-7" ""Recommended" denotes only that the operation of the product has been checked by PENTAX and in no way constitutes a guarantee to customers that the product is suited to their requirements." Fact is some cards are built better than others, and with the tens of thousands of photos I've taken and hundreds of times those cards have slid in and out of camera, SD Card reader, and card case, only three times have I had a card fail: card stopped responding outright (Transcend), separated along the shell casing (Patriot), and crack (SanDisk). And I still have a dozen cards that work just fine. Sadly no SD card is quite built like CF cards are. While CF cards are solid and can take abuse, SD cards are inherently thinner and more likely to crack or split. I for one wish either Pentax would add support for CF cards or SD card manufacturers would build a spec for a tougher SD shell. I'm not holding my breath on either one of those possibilities. Note: Just to be safe, I always format the cards in camera before each job. Also, I stick to 8 GB cards and backup the cards as I go. Although I would love to use 16 or 32 GB cards, the thought of keeping that many eggs in one basket is a bit unnerving. Last edited by George Lama; 08-01-2011 at 05:03 PM.

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07-31-2011, 08:30 AM	#2
JeffJS Inactive Account Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Michigan, USA Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 7,484	Strange indeed. The worse part of it is now you cannot repeat the problem. The absolute worse part of it is, if it Does repeat, you won't know it until you put the card in a reader and look at it with a computer. Did the photos show in review on the card in the camera? I would format the card and move on. Sounds like a glitch that hopefully you won't see again for another 999x shots if at all.

07-31-2011, 08:47 AM	#3
Rupert Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Texas Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 25,123	Yes Yes! I have suffered this same problem. Narrowed it down to one specific card, a PNY card and no longer use it in my K5. It was even stranger than your situation....if the battery was fully charged it did this...if the battery was somewhat depleted, it worked....most of the time. In the K20D it works all the time no matter the battery level. Strange happenings! Regards!

07-31-2011, 09:05 AM	#4
photobydale New Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 4 Original Poster	Rupert, was it also happening when the counter rolled and the camera created a new folder?

07-31-2011, 01:29 PM	#5
G_Money Site Supporter Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: London, Ontario, Canada Posts: 598	I also had a Lexar 16gb Platinum that would randomly drop images. I ended up getting it replaced under warranty and chalked it up to just a bad card. The thing is, the images were on the card and could be recovered with Photorescue, but it wasn't a speedy procedure.

07-31-2011, 02:52 PM	#6
rawr Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 11,913	Yet another reason to stick to Sandisk cards.

07-31-2011, 05:18 PM	#7
G_Money Site Supporter Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: London, Ontario, Canada Posts: 598	Originally posted by rawr Yet another reason to stick to Sandisk cards. Well, I've had Sandisk cards that had the lock tab break off, so they're not exactly problem-free, but Sandisk cards do carry a lifetime warranty vs. Lexar's 10 year warranty. But then in 10 years a 16 gb card will probably be worth less than the postage it would take to mail in the claim.

07-31-2011, 05:49 PM	#8
Rupert Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Texas Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 25,123	Originally posted by photobydale Rupert, was it also happening when the counter rolled and the camera created a new folder? Never got that far to roll it over. Photos showed on the LCD but not on the computer. Works fine in the K20D, where I will use it...if I ever use the K20D again..... Regards!

07-31-2011, 07:46 PM	#9
JeffJS Inactive Account Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Michigan, USA Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 7,484	I have a sandisk 8gb 30mb/s class 10 card that sometimes my card reader doesn't like. Works fine in the camera (I typically download via USB anyway) but sometimes I have to format it IN the camera in order to get the card reader to recognize a card is even inserted. I have a transend c6 8gb that I've never had a problem with. All cards can have issues of some kind.

08-01-2011, 03:30 AM	#10
rawr Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 11,913	I always just stick to the card brands Pentax says it has checked and found compatible: Panasonic, Toshiba, Sandisk: K-x Recommended Memory Cards \| Pentax Support K-7 Memory Card Compatibility \| Pentax Support Optio W90 Recommended Memory Cards \| Pentax Support etc

08-01-2011, 04:34 PM	#12
apac Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Metro Detroit Photos: Gallery Posts: 139	This happened to me just recently, the images would dissapear once camera was turned off. I realized my memory card was full but never got the error message from the K-5. The memory card gets corrupted. I had to format the card for it to work fine again.

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08-01-2011, 05:34 PM	#13
pentax fan Inactive Account Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 1	This has happened to me a couple of times with off-brand cards, here are my experiences: 32GB Wintec Filemate Professional Class 10 SDHC, K-x A) The card was used as-is out of the box, no formatting applied B) Gradually filled up the card to more than 8GB C) Turned on the camera, took some photos in burst mode until the camera stopped to process the photos, turned off the camera in hurry, then turned it on again: photos were gone Solution: copied all the photos off the card onto my computer hard drive, then put the card back into the camera, formatted the card in-camera, worked fine 32GB PNY Professional Class 10 SDHC, K-5 A) Before using the card, formatted in-camera B) Gradually filled up the card to more than 8GB C) Turned on the camera, took some photos in burst mode, waited until the photos were saved and the camera was ready, turned off the camera, turned it on again: photos were gone Solution: took the card out, blew some canned air (gently, from a distance) into the card slot, blew canned air over the card itself on the metal contacts, put the card back in, worked fine Not sure what causes the problem, but it seems that in general, off-brand cards larger than 8GB are finicky to deal with. Before this happened I didn't realize that cards could be formatted in the camera (apparently this is better) or while hooked up to a card reader on your computer (apparently this is not as optimal). I have 12 different SDHC cards, and I have never had a problem with the Panasonic or ProSpec (Calumet's brand) cards. Also have never had a problem with any cards that are 8GB or less in capacity, off-brand or no. Finally, when this first happened I was in a hurry, I am not sure if I was being careful about waiting until all the photos taken in burst mode had safely been stored before turning off the camera. Based on experience I would say that if you buy a cheap high-capacity, high-speed card, make sure to format it in the camera first, then test it by copying out 8+ GB of photos from your computer, put it in the camera, and see how it does. Test the card by taking photos in burst mode and see how the card behaves when it is at near capacity. And make sure to blow the dust out of the card slot. Now whenever I copy photos off a card I always format it in-camera before filling the card up again. Have not had any problems since, have filled up the 32GB cards more than once. I also keep my camera firmware as up-to-date as possible, as I believe one or more updates have addressed some related card capacity issues. (Though not this issue in particular, as far as I know.) One thing I did not test (but I have a suspicion happened): whether the photos that I lost were actually saved on the card. The recovery software I use (Recuva) is handy for things like getting back pictures accidentally deleted. It would be interesting to scan the card with Recuva or other recovery software and see if the pictures were saved, but something went wacky with having them show up as saved. I am willing to bet that the pictures are in fact saved on the card when this happens. Though of course, if you take more pictures and they overwrite, or if you format the card, that data is gone. In general, it would be nice to always buy Panasonic cards (my favorite brand) but a few times the off-brands were so cheap it was hard to pass up! Illogical I know, but there it is. If buying a card on vacation or for a photo shoot or in some other situation where playing around and testing it first was not an option, I would probably avoid the off-brands no matter how cheap.

08-01-2011, 07:00 PM	#14
G_Money Site Supporter Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: London, Ontario, Canada Posts: 598	Originally posted by pentax fan This has happened to me a couple of times with off-brand cards, here are my experiences: Though of course, if you take more pictures and they overwrite, or if you format the card, that data is gone. My experience is that even if the card is reformatted, the old images are there, provided that any new images don't overwrite them. Interesting theory on the 8 GB limit, though. I never had any missing images on my 8 GB cards, perhaps I should make that my new default size.

08-01-2011, 08:44 PM	#15
photobydale New Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 4 Original Poster	i tried a bunch of different recovery software and managed to pull 2 files off the card. Photorescue advanced found the most files and worked the best. However all the preveiws are showing up at around an average of 112kb in size. I cant seem to recover any full res files other than 2, very frustrating. I have learned a good lesson and I am going to start using smaller cards 4 or 8 gb and back up as i go.