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04-30-2007, 01:55 PM   #1
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Some files on SD card can't be imported

Happened again today. There were about 100 Raw (PEF) files on the SD card. When I tried to import them into Adobe Lightroom, I was told that five of them could not be imported for various reasons. Lightroom tells me the file names of the files it can't import. I wrote down the names of the files, quit Lightroom, opened the card on my desktop, and copied those five files to a folder on my hard disk. Then I tried to reimport those files from that folder. One of them was imported this time, but Lightroom now told me that the other four were either damaged or in a file that is not supported.

This has been happening fairly often - often enough to be annoying. Almost every time I import more than a few photos, at least one file won't survive the import process, at least not when I do it from within Lightroom. Fairly often, I'm able to copy the file directly from the SD card to a folder on my hard disk, and then import from that folder - and that works. But not always. Today it worked for only one of the five problem files. Today's photos were mainly test/practice shots and I didn't lose anything valuable. But in the past, well, I'm not sure.

The five files that wouldn't import today were all from the middle of the shoot. Four of the five files were consecutive pairs, that is, if the files were numbered 001 to 100, the ones that didn't import were numbered
027
044 and 045
059 and 060
I'm stumped. Don't know whether it's the camera, Adobe Lightroom, my computer, or what. Any suggestions?

By the way, I have and use three different cards: a Transcend 150x 2GB card, a SanDisk Extreme III 2 GB card, and a Kingston 1 GB card. It was the SanDisk card that had problems today, but I've had problems with the others as well. I format the cards in the camera - usually by simply erasing all the images (rather than by using the Format option in the Menu).

Will

04-30-2007, 02:11 PM   #2
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Will,

Did you try opening these images from the card with another image viewer like Irfan View which can read K10D PEFs. If you can open the file there then it's probably a light room problem....are you sure you don't have a duplicate in the Ligthroom database?

I had problems with Lightroom doing this same thing in both the beta's and in the test of ver1.0.

In the final analysis, I took a pass on Lightroom and have gone with a workflow with stand alone elements that let me use the images directly from my Windows directories. I use IMatch as my data manager and it lets me have access to an unlimited number of editing programs and it keeps track of all the resulting file changes.

The latest version of Irfan View supports the K10D PEF and does a great job opening them...the bonus is it's FREE (check Tucows or the Irfan View website).
04-30-2007, 02:24 PM   #3
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QuoteOriginally posted by dmdctusa Quote
Did you try opening these images from the card with another image viewer like Irfan View which can read K10D PEFs. If you can open the file there then it's probably a light room problem....are you sure you don't have a duplicate in the Ligthroom database?
Thanks for the reply.

No duplicates in Lightroom database.

Don't have Irfan View or another program installed at the moment and would rather figure the problem out. Can't imagine living without Lightroom right now. If no one here has a suggestion that I can make sense of, I'll move over to the Lightroom forum at Adobe.com and see what I can come up with there.

The fact that Lightroom reads the vast majority of my files without a problem suggests to me that it is NOT a problem with Lightroom. As I said earlier, the five files today that had problems consisted of one lone image, and two paired images. All in the middle of the shoot. Makes me suspect either the card (bad sectors?) or possibly the camera. Fact that I've had this problem with all my cards doesn't make me want to blame the card. But I don't really know.

Will
04-30-2007, 02:25 PM   #4
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Removing file is not the same as formatting. Press the buttons a few extra times and reformat the cards when reinserting them into the camera. See if that helps.

04-30-2007, 02:32 PM   #5
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QuoteOriginally posted by Jonas B Quote
Removing file is not the same as formatting. Press the buttons a few extra times and reformat the cards when reinserting them into the camera. See if that helps.
I understand that deleting files is not the same as formatting. I will try reformatting all three cards and see if I continue to have problems. That's a good idea.

Still, it doesn't seem to me that one should have to reformat frequently. Don't have to reformat my computer's hard drive in order to empty the trash. And I recall someone here a while back reporting similar problems - I could not find the thread.

Will
04-30-2007, 03:00 PM   #6
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I had this problem a while ago, also using Lightroom. The files were corrupt and couldn't be opened in ACR or Pentax Browser. I switched to a different card and haven't had the problem since. I don't know if it was a bad card or just a fluke.
04-30-2007, 03:20 PM   #7
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QuoteOriginally posted by WMBP Quote
Still, it doesn't seem to me that one should have to reformat frequently. Don't have to reformat my computer's hard drive in order to empty the trash. And I recall someone here a while back reporting similar problems - I could not find the thread.
I agree. I just know that reformatting is what is recommended by "everyone". I see no technical reaso for this but I do it anyway. I also remember the thread here from some time back and I have seen other reports as well. Maybe it's some glitch with the K10D, but why should it? FAT should be a well known and stable file system. It is strange as one basically would expect absolutely zero problems with this.

Are you sure you have this problem with all your cards?

04-30-2007, 03:24 PM   #8
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I hate inconsistencies !!!! I am all about 'root cause' as well.

Formatting the card is a good idea with the camera - there may be bad sectors on the card and so whenever a photo is in that location it becomes corrupt. If it continues try and attach it to your PC and run some a scandisk on it (just remember to reformat it when back in the camera) so if any bad sectors are flagged

How are you importing them ? Card left in the camera and USB cable or with the card out of the camera?

Are you using a usb card reader ? How many USB devices you have ? If USB is it powered independentalty or via the USB port itslef ? I find too many USB devices causes grief sometimes.

Is it a Laptop / desktop with built in card reader ? Check device manager to ensure from a hardware perspective all is ok.

Checking the Lightroom forums also a good idea - I cringe at anything that has v1.0 on it ;-)

Good luck .........
04-30-2007, 03:26 PM   #9
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QuoteOriginally posted by Jonas B Quote
Are you sure you have this problem with all your cards?
Fair question. When I made the original post, I was quite sure. I cycle the cards - Transcend one day, SanDisk the next, with the 1 GB Kingston card getting called off the bench when necessary. I have been having the problem pretty regularly: nearly every import of more than a few images has had at least one "unreadable" file.

However, until I made a note today regarding the problem with the SanDisk card, I hadn't actually been noting which cards were failing. I have been noting the FILES that weren't being read, but not the cards. I'm going to reformat ALL of the cards and see what happens. If prefer to solve computer problems with an explanation. But a solution without an explanation is often all that I get, and it's better than no solution at all. :-)

Will
04-30-2007, 03:31 PM   #10
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QuoteOriginally posted by daacon Quote
How are you importing them ? Card left in the camera and USB cable or with the card out of the camera?

Are you using a usb card reader ? How many USB devices you have ? If USB is it powered independentalty or via the USB port itslef ? I find too many USB devices causes grief sometimes.
I never import from the camera. Always take the card out and use a card reader. The reader doesn't use a cable - it plugs directly into a USB port. At the time of the failure today, I had three USB devices plugged in: my mouse, the card reader, and the 120 GB external drive that the photos were being copied to.

I also never import files or for that matter do anything that involves external drives unless my laptop is plugged into the power source. Never do this using battery power.

QuoteQuote:
Checking the Lightroom forums also a good idea - I cringe at anything that has v1.0 on it ;-)
Oh, there is 1.0 and then there's 1.0. I've been using Lightroom since the fall, while it was still in beta but fairly late in the process. I've never had any other problems with Lightroom - it's been rock solid for me. Still, I will check the Adobe forums if formatting all my cards doesn't eliminate the problem.

Will
04-30-2007, 03:32 PM   #11
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If this is happening pretty regularly, with the same card and a similar number of bad files, I would put money on bad "sectors" on your flash card.

If you have a reader that shows your sd card as a removable drive (and are using windows) you can open your command prompt and type in : "chkdsk x: /f" where x is the drive letter assigned to your SD card, the /f tells the application to mark the sectors as bad you can leave that off if you just want to check for bad sectors. IF there are problem sectors this will decrease the size of your SD card, but in my opinion thats better than losing shots.
04-30-2007, 04:34 PM   #12
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Somewhere I was told that USB was a shared interface: several devices all using the same physical pathway. Sometimes things don't behave well together: I cannot use my large format printer with any type of external diskdrive plugged in at the same time (on the laptop). My GPS doesn't play well with the weather station, which also doesn't play well with anything in the pcmcia slot. A game controller in a USB really dislikes the Wacom Tablet--watching the cursor with this combo will give you nightmares. Syncing a PDA doesn't go well while downloading from a flash memory device of any type.

I went to a local cable shop; got some USB extender cables and plug them in the USB sockets on the side of the laptop then hang them off the front edge of the desk. Then it's one perpherial at a time-no problems.

Formatting a flash memory card is NOT like formatting your harddrive. First it's much faster. Second, your HD doesn't go traveling without shielding. And third it's much faster.

I've got 20+ CF for my ist-D, including two microdrives--never a lost image, never a failed card; always reformatted. I've got 10 SD for the K100/K10ds in my bag. Always reformatted in camera. No problems so far.

Your recovery choices are limited: Irfanview or something proprietary, Some companies offer a free SW but Sandisk has such a utility too, so does Delkin--about $30.00US. It's a fifty-fifty proposition as to success.
04-30-2007, 05:06 PM   #13
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You may want to try exporting them directly from the camera or a secondary card reader to see if the problem lies with the card reader you are using. As it is a simple way to eliminate this potential much like reformating the cards.
Best of luck getting it worked out.
Kenn
04-30-2007, 05:26 PM   #14
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QuoteOriginally posted by WMBP Quote
I never import from the camera. Always take the card out and use a card reader. The reader doesn't use a cable - it plugs directly into a USB port. At the time of the failure today, I had three USB devices plugged in: my mouse, the card reader, and the 120 GB external drive that the photos were being copied to.

I also never import files or for that matter do anything that involves external drives unless my laptop is plugged into the power source. Never do this using battery power.




Will
First thing I'd do is not copy the files to another USB device, just copy them to your native HD, then move them to the external. Sounds like (my guess) a USB problem.
04-30-2007, 05:26 PM   #15
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Format the card!!

It does much more to clear the card than removing the files does, which only removed access to the files, but they are still there. I always format the cards and have never had a problem like this.

Tom
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