Corrupt files - what , who, why?!

Zafar Iqbal · 11-29-2015, 06:12 PM

Got home with a whole bunch of photo's today and while transferring them to harddrive, I got few copy/read errors.

I looked at the content of the SD card, and there are two files with jibberish filenames, at 1.8 and 1.3 GB in filesizes, beside many of the photos.

When looking at what was copied, I could see about 10 photos were missing. When I looked at the SD Card again, even more photos were missing now!

So, in a way I don't think my camera corrupted the files or card - but maybe it still did something that later became worse. Or maybe the PC (Windows 7) or the card reader did something?

Any ideas?

The SD card is a Lexar Pro 32GB 633x and though used before, still one of the newer cards I have. It was purchased during this summer.

I never fornat cards in Windows - I also always eject properly.

Luckily, EasuUS Da Recovery was able to recover the missing files.. phew - I first tried Recuva, but it was not able to recognize the missing files - hopyfully they will all import well into Lightroom.

This is the second time I've had issues while I've own K-3 II (and the USB card reader), but I'm not sure at all what happened the first time. Back then I didn't notice the missing photos till a a couple of weeks later.

mee · 11-29-2015, 06:19 PM

Were the issues with the same card? I've had this happen a few times with my cameras and suspected the SD card as faulty but never looked into it too thoroughly to confirm since the issue was very rare.

That Easus software is really nice indeed. I bought a K-r early this year at auction that happened to come with an SD card still inside. Was able to scan the card with the Easus recovery software and find photos of a guy in the old Pentax USA warehouse making a PB sandwich (in burst mode) and goofing off with the camera. hehe

**jatrax** · 11-29-2015, 06:25 PM - **1 Like**

Camera->Card->Card reader->computer. Hard to say where the issue is so all you can do is try troubleshooting. Which is very hard with intermittent issues.

I have a fairly strict policy on SD cards, they get one error and they go in the garbage. I cannot afford to take the risk.

So in your case I would replace that card without question. I would next look at the SD card reader and make sure the drivers are up to date and it can handle the newer cards. I ran into an issue with my old card reader when I started with newer cards, it would read sometimes but not always. Turned out the reader and drivers were not certified for SDXC cards. In fact they were not supposed to work at all but still did sort of. A new reader fixed the problem.

The least expensive parts of the chain are the card and reader, so I would replace those right away. If the problem returns then you know it is either the camera (unlikely) or the computer (even more unlikely).

**ramseybuckeye** · 11-29-2015, 08:26 PM

Simple question, but have you formatted the cards in camera? I format the card after every download, maybe overkill a little but it doesn't hurt the card. Definitely dump that card, unless it has not been formatted.

ZoeB · 11-30-2015, 01:02 AM

You say USB card reader? Do you mean that you plug the camera straight into your computer, or use an external card reader that connects to your USB port?

It could be as simple as the cable you're using.

stargazer · 11-30-2015, 02:20 AM

Always format the sd cards in camera, and do this every time you download the pictures to your PC. The large files in the card could be either a temporary trash folder left behind by windows or a file left by your photo manager (profiling, styles, etc).

**Odinz** · 11-30-2015, 05:10 AM

I also never move the files to my computer, I copy the files and then after the copy I delete the files in camera.

Oldbayrunner · 11-30-2015, 05:35 AM

Usually it's not the camera but bad sectors on the storage media. Often this can be corrected by doing a low level format which will map out any bad sectors. Since your camera cannot perform this type of formatting then you need to use another method. This software is designed to do that with SD cards via your computer. https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

Download this and make sure to read the manual. If using make sure this time to utilize the Full format option.

stargazer · 11-30-2015, 07:12 AM

Also beware of root kits and non certified software...they tend to be installed on new peripherals that you plug in to your pc without warning (wonderful world of windows and mac), same for the .trash folders.

Zafar Iqbal · 11-30-2015, 07:04 PM

I've succesfully imported to and exported from Lightroom without any obvious problems along the way, with any of the photos.

mee: I didn't notice it right away the first time, and therefore did not pay attention to which card it may have been.

jaxtrax: Both the card and reader in question are about 3-4 months old and I've transferred lots of photos since then. The first issue *could* have been user related and I'm not sure at all because I didn't catch it in time. I bought the reader in a shop and when asked about it, it was claimed it should be reliable.

ramseybuckeye: I always format in camera and especially before a job. I rarely selectively delete photos even from the camera and when I do, it's when I'm doing superficial shooting like testing a lens and stuff like that.

ZoeB: I'm using an actual reader. I have two, one which I've had since I built the system and the other (the one in question) is few months old. I bought the latest one to half the transfer speed. At the time of purchase I was facing a 3 day job, where I was out for 15-17 hours + plus time spend of next day prep and photo transfers, during these 3 days. I was going to need all the sleep I could get. With just a single reader and USB 2 speeds, I'd face very long transfer times.

Odinz: Ofcause, I never move from the card - that would be stupid IMO.

Oldbayrunner: Is SD Formatter supposed to report errors? I didn't get any when I completed a full (overwrite) format.

r0ckstarr · 11-30-2015, 08:33 PM

Eliminate the card readers all together, and use the USB 3.0 in the K3 with one of these cables:

Amazon.com: AmazonBasics USB 3.0 Cable - A-Male to Micro-B - 6 Feet (1.8 Meters): Computers & Accessories

Oldbayrunner · 12-01-2015, 05:14 AM

Originally posted by Zafar Iqbal

Oldbayrunner: Is SD Formatter supposed to report errors? I didn't get any when I completed a full (overwrite) format.

Not that I know of. Question, do you delete in camera a lot of photos vs leaving and formatting?

Zafar Iqbal · 12-01-2015, 05:24 AM

Originally posted by Oldbayrunner

Not that I know of. Do you delete in camera a lot of photos vs leaving and formatting?

I format and only delete photos on rare and non-critical situations - both in camera.

**Digitalis** · 12-01-2015, 07:11 AM

Originally posted by Oldbayrunner

Usually it's not the camera but bad sectors on the storage media. Often this can be corrected by doing a low level format which will map out any bad sectors. Since your camera cannot perform this type of formatting then you need to use another method.

I had a colleague who used Olympus cameras - and his camera could perform this kind of card formatting.

As for me, I use a Colorspace hyperdrive to recover images in the field, it does an excellent job. They are intended to be used to store images in the field, when equipped with an SSD they are incredibly fast at this task and SSDs also increase battery life of the device.

It was even able to retrieve images from this spectacularly corrupted card.

stevebrot · 12-01-2015, 03:02 PM

Originally posted by Oldbayrunner

Since your camera cannot perform this type of formatting then you need to use another method. This software is designed to do that with SD cards via your computer. https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

Download this and make sure to read the manual. If using make sure this time to utilize the Full format option.

What he said...

I would also seriously consider jatrax's advice. The cards don't last forever in terms of read/write cycles.

Steve

11-29-2015, 06:12 PM	#1
Zafar Iqbal Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2010 Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,229	Corrupt files - what , who, why?! Got home with a whole bunch of photo's today and while transferring them to harddrive, I got few copy/read errors. I looked at the content of the SD card, and there are two files with jibberish filenames, at 1.8 and 1.3 GB in filesizes, beside many of the photos. When looking at what was copied, I could see about 10 photos were missing. When I looked at the SD Card again, even more photos were missing now! So, in a way I don't think my camera corrupted the files or card - but maybe it still did something that later became worse. Or maybe the PC (Windows 7) or the card reader did something? Any ideas? The SD card is a Lexar Pro 32GB 633x and though used before, still one of the newer cards I have. It was purchased during this summer. I never fornat cards in Windows - I also always eject properly. Luckily, EasuUS Da Recovery was able to recover the missing files.. phew - I first tried Recuva, but it was not able to recognize the missing files - hopyfully they will all import well into Lightroom. This is the second time I've had issues while I've own K-3 II (and the USB card reader), but I'm not sure at all what happened the first time. Back then I didn't notice the missing photos till a a couple of weeks later.

12-01-2015, 05:24 AM	#13
Zafar Iqbal Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2010 Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,229 Original Poster	Originally posted by Oldbayrunner Not that I know of. Do you delete in camera a lot of photos vs leaving and formatting? I format and only delete photos on rare and non-critical situations - both in camera. Last edited by Zafar Iqbal; 12-01-2015 at 05:41 AM.

12-01-2015, 07:11 AM	#14
Digitalis Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Melbourne, Victoria Photos: Gallery Posts: 11,694	Originally posted by Oldbayrunner Usually it's not the camera but bad sectors on the storage media. Often this can be corrected by doing a low level format which will map out any bad sectors. Since your camera cannot perform this type of formatting then you need to use another method. I had a colleague who used Olympus cameras - and his camera could perform this kind of card formatting. As for me, I use a Colorspace hyperdrive to recover images in the field, it does an excellent job. They are intended to be used to store images in the field, when equipped with an SSD they are incredibly fast at this task and SSDs also increase battery life of the device. It was even able to retrieve images from this spectacularly corrupted card. Last edited by Digitalis; 12-01-2015 at 07:19 AM.

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11-29-2015, 06:19 PM	#2
mee Veteran Member Join Date: May 2010 Posts: 7,403	Were the issues with the same card? I've had this happen a few times with my cameras and suspected the SD card as faulty but never looked into it too thoroughly to confirm since the issue was very rare. That Easus software is really nice indeed. I bought a K-r early this year at auction that happened to come with an SD card still inside. Was able to scan the card with the Easus recovery software and find photos of a guy in the old Pentax USA warehouse making a PB sandwich (in burst mode) and goofing off with the camera. hehe

11-29-2015, 06:25 PM - 1 Like	#3
jatrax Site Supporter Join Date: May 2010 Location: Washington Cascades Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 12,991	Camera->Card->Card reader->computer. Hard to say where the issue is so all you can do is try troubleshooting. Which is very hard with intermittent issues. I have a fairly strict policy on SD cards, they get one error and they go in the garbage. I cannot afford to take the risk. So in your case I would replace that card without question. I would next look at the SD card reader and make sure the drivers are up to date and it can handle the newer cards. I ran into an issue with my old card reader when I started with newer cards, it would read sometimes but not always. Turned out the reader and drivers were not certified for SDXC cards. In fact they were not supposed to work at all but still did sort of. A new reader fixed the problem. The least expensive parts of the chain are the card and reader, so I would replace those right away. If the problem returns then you know it is either the camera (unlikely) or the computer (even more unlikely).

11-29-2015, 08:26 PM	#4
ramseybuckeye Site Supporter Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Hampstead, NC Photos: Gallery Posts: 17,291	Simple question, but have you formatted the cards in camera? I format the card after every download, maybe overkill a little but it doesn't hurt the card. Definitely dump that card, unless it has not been formatted.

11-30-2015, 01:02 AM	#5
ZoeB Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Tromsø, Norway Posts: 886	You say USB card reader? Do you mean that you plug the camera straight into your computer, or use an external card reader that connects to your USB port? It could be as simple as the cable you're using.

11-30-2015, 02:20 AM	#6
stargazer Senior Member Join Date: May 2013 Location: France, Annoisin-chatelans Photos: Albums Posts: 109	Always format the sd cards in camera, and do this every time you download the pictures to your PC. The large files in the card could be either a temporary trash folder left behind by windows or a file left by your photo manager (profiling, styles, etc).

11-30-2015, 05:10 AM	#7
Odinz Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Virginia, USA Photos: Albums Posts: 259	I also never move the files to my computer, I copy the files and then after the copy I delete the files in camera.

11-30-2015, 05:35 AM	#8
Oldbayrunner Pentaxian Join Date: Mar 2013 Posts: 1,665	Usually it's not the camera but bad sectors on the storage media. Often this can be corrected by doing a low level format which will map out any bad sectors. Since your camera cannot perform this type of formatting then you need to use another method. This software is designed to do that with SD cards via your computer. https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/ Download this and make sure to read the manual. If using make sure this time to utilize the Full format option.

11-30-2015, 07:12 AM	#9
stargazer Senior Member Join Date: May 2013 Location: France, Annoisin-chatelans Photos: Albums Posts: 109	Also beware of root kits and non certified software...they tend to be installed on new peripherals that you plug in to your pc without warning (wonderful world of windows and mac), same for the .trash folders.

11-30-2015, 07:04 PM	#10
Zafar Iqbal Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2010 Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,229 Original Poster	I've succesfully imported to and exported from Lightroom without any obvious problems along the way, with any of the photos. mee: I didn't notice it right away the first time, and therefore did not pay attention to which card it may have been. jaxtrax: Both the card and reader in question are about 3-4 months old and I've transferred lots of photos since then. The first issue could have been user related and I'm not sure at all because I didn't catch it in time. I bought the reader in a shop and when asked about it, it was claimed it should be reliable. ramseybuckeye: I always format in camera and especially before a job. I rarely selectively delete photos even from the camera and when I do, it's when I'm doing superficial shooting like testing a lens and stuff like that. ZoeB: I'm using an actual reader. I have two, one which I've had since I built the system and the other (the one in question) is few months old. I bought the latest one to half the transfer speed. At the time of purchase I was facing a 3 day job, where I was out for 15-17 hours + plus time spend of next day prep and photo transfers, during these 3 days. I was going to need all the sleep I could get. With just a single reader and USB 2 speeds, I'd face very long transfer times. Odinz: Ofcause, I never move from the card - that would be stupid IMO. Oldbayrunner: Is SD Formatter supposed to report errors? I didn't get any when I completed a full (overwrite) format.

11-30-2015, 08:33 PM	#11
r0ckstarr Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Texas Photos: Gallery Posts: 3,507	Eliminate the card readers all together, and use the USB 3.0 in the K3 with one of these cables: Amazon.com: AmazonBasics USB 3.0 Cable - A-Male to Micro-B - 6 Feet (1.8 Meters): Computers & Accessories

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12-01-2015, 05:14 AM	#12
Oldbayrunner Pentaxian Join Date: Mar 2013 Posts: 1,665	Originally posted by Zafar Iqbal Oldbayrunner: Is SD Formatter supposed to report errors? I didn't get any when I completed a full (overwrite) format. Not that I know of. Question, do you delete in camera a lot of photos vs leaving and formatting?

12-01-2015, 03:02 PM	#15
stevebrot Otis Memorial Pentaxian Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Vancouver (USA) Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 42,007	Originally posted by Oldbayrunner Since your camera cannot perform this type of formatting then you need to use another method. This software is designed to do that with SD cards via your computer. https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/ Download this and make sure to read the manual. If using make sure this time to utilize the Full format option. What he said... I would also seriously consider jatrax's advice. The cards don't last forever in terms of read/write cycles. Steve