Older card readers newer bigger cards..??

[trog100]

not sure how common this one is but i just bought a 512 meg SD card..

bunged it in my camera took about 300 megs of pics...

put it in my less than a year old card reader and did as i norrmally do and drag and drop wise moved the pic folder from my card to my hard drive.. all seemed well all the pics showed up.

when i got to viewing the last 30 or so pics i got "cant read file header" error messages. hmmm

duff card duff camera or just a fluke.. in the end it turned out to be a card reader problem basically my card reader dosnt have any idea what a 512 card is.. it only reads/stores properly up 256 meg any thing over isnt readable.. i had to bang off 500 megs or so of pics in the camera and use the camera to transfer the pics to find this out for sure.. but its definitely the card reader..

the bad thing is the card reader appears to read and copy/move the pics.. files names show up and everything appears to work okay.. but after move/copying they are just unreadable over 256 meg..

something worth noting i recon it could have lost me a lot of pictures.. like 256 megs worth.. he he

its safer to copy as apposed to move.. this is what killed mine.. copying would have at least left the pics on the card.. at least make sure that the pics are on the hard drive before deleting em off the card..

trog100

[Peter_AUS]

My brother in law puchased a bigger card a while ago for his digital camera, was an SD card. He went through a lot only to find out the card wasn't compatible with the camera. The camera would only take a certain card size in megs. Maybe you are getting similar problems. Need to know more about what camera it is, before heading down that track.

Can you transfer the images via the camera.

Can you view all 300 images on the camera, like scroll through them.

There is a few programs around that might be able to recover the images for you.

[trog100]

yes its obviously a problem with bigger cards.. both with camera not coping with them and card readers.. but in my case it was the card reader that wouldnt go over 256 meg..

my camera is the panasonic FZ20.. now exactly what size card it will cope with i dont know.. but it does handle 512.. ???

this is definitely something that has to be gone into before folks go out and buy the currently available larger cards..

trog100

[Peter_AUS]

Yes I totally agree with you. I have an 8 in 1 card Reader/Writer USB 2 which cost me not all that much. Seems to handle my 1G Sandisk Ultra II without any troubles. I don't know anyone now that has any of the other cards to test the otherside of the reader, so can't comment on it.

It is basically a generic no named brand card reader other than the name Omni written on it, but that means little to me.

Looks like the camera will handle up to 1G SD card.

http://panasonic.co.jp/pavc/global/l...fications.html

Click on the link down towards the bottom about SD Memory Card Data Capacity, it has a pretty definative chart in there.

[Liz]

A camera that new has to take bigger cards than a 512!

Hi Trog! Have a good weekend. You're a real asset to PR!

Liz

yes its obviously a problem with bigger cards.. both with camera not coping with them and card readers.. but in my case it was the card reader that wouldnt go over 256 meg..

my camera is the panasonic FZ20.. now exactly what size card it will cope with i dont know.. but it does handle 512.. ???

this is definitely something that has to be gone into before folks go out and buy the currently available larger cards..

trog100

[trog100]

why thank u liz and the same to u...

course that does leave me wondering about my two year old Digilux 1 that takes SD cards.. it also leaves me wondering just how i go about finding out for sure without fireing off 300 or so shots just to test it.. he he

trog100

[Peter_AUS]

Same way as the other post I made to you with the link in. Look at the specs for the camera.

88 images, what would that equate to size wise with the images you take with it now. It mentions it comes with a 64meg card, that is a fairly decent size card to get supplied with.

http://www.leica-camera.com/imperia/...igilux1/19.pdf

[trog100]

a 64 meg was a decent size back then and cost more than a 512 card would now.. SD cards were the "new kid on the block" things and lots of folks didnt like em..

i have a feeling that 128 was the biggest available two years ago and very pricey.. not sure thow.. the image numbers that leica quote are based on the 64 meg cards that came with the camera..

unless some has been there done that.. i am still inclined to think that bunging a 510 or bigger card into the camera and loading it with pics is the only way to find out.. thow there is a leica digital forum out there the subject had probably come up..

thanks for your imput.. i have downloaded that nice pdf manual.. same as the paper one but i can never find those.. he he ..

trog100

[Michael Fanelli]

Hey, here's a thought! Have you tried to do selective multiple copies to get the photos off the big card, each total less than 256 Meg?

Most cameras made in the last 3-4 years format the card using FAT32 rather than FAT16. This is what determines how big of a card the camera will take. Did you format the card in-camera (best choice)?

I am surprised at the card reader as I believe the software that runs it is part of XP. My card reader had no extra software to install. If that is the case, it will read the big cards without a problem. My no-name CF card reader is a couple of years old and has no problems, at least up to the 1 Gig card downloaded for a friend.

[trog100]

i think its a driver problem with the card reader i do use 98se and it did require a driver install.. but i have a dual-boot system with xp available out of curiosity i will try the card reader in xp and see if that makes a difference.. as u say it has its own drivers on board and i cant see any other reason for the reader not working over 256 meg other than drivers.. the reader is a Tevion 6 in one thing bought less than a year ago..

it might seem odd that i use stiil use 98se when i have XP on the same machine but 98 is set up how i like it and it would take me a week to reinstall all my software and get xp even vaguley right. so far i aint found the need.. he he.. one day perhaps..

trog100

[trog100]

right.. useing windows XP i just tried copying 333 megs of pics over to the 512 SD card via the card reader.. then copied them back to the hard drive.. all appeared to go well in both operations but just like in 98se any thing over the 256 limit when u attempt to open it comes up with "cant read file header.. unkown format".. so i get exactly the same results in XP and 98se.... there would be two seperate drivers in use here... doing a properties on the reader showed the correct amount of data..333 megs and the file system showed up as "fat" no fat32 or fat16 just fat..

however leaving the card in the reader and rebooting from XP back into 98se then trying to read the card showed mostly garbage.. back to XP still the same mostly garbage.. the card also showed 497 megs of used space as opposed to 333 as it did before.. probably 10% of the pics were still viewable.. I have XP set up as Fat32 by the way so it isnt a case of different file systems doing this..

all very odd but i think the reader genuinely cant cope with anything over 256 megs with an SD card.. i think it buggers up its fat table somehow...

course being as bigger CF cards have been around for longer the reader might well cope with these but i cant put it to the test cos i dont have any CF cards larger than 128 meg..

i aint got around to bunging 300 megs of pics on my two year old leica yet but i will put it to the test shortly.. i will just substitute the reader for the camera and copy the same 333 megs of pics to and fro and see what happens.. i will also format the card in the camera before i do this..

trog100