My datacards, have no video on. Can anyone help?

[Paul R Johnson]

You missed John's point, Ryan - he is saying that the brand doesn't really matter. Test them to make sure they work. If they work fine - then they'll probably stay fine.

[Greg Miller]

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

One thing to test is to put a file from your computer ONTO the card and see if the camera reads it.

I certainly would not do that. As soon as you start recording new data on the card, you risk over-writing a "missing" file that you want. And if you over-write even a few bytes in the middle of a desired file, you greatly reduce the chance of successfully recovering the entire file. Every data-recovery software that I've used gives this same warning. You don't even want to recover the files back onto the same card. You want to recover them to some other drive altogether.

Likewise if you put the card back in your camera, do *not* try recording a new file.

Don't record anything whatsoever until you've figured out what's going on.

The first thing I'd do (aside from looking for directory structure when your computer is reading the card) would be to put the card back in the camera, and see whether the camera can read anything at all.

[Greg Miller]

Originally Posted by Ryan Elder

I am reluctant to do this as I fear that may make the problem even worse, if any changes to the disk are made?

Absolutely right! I have had chkdsk turn an entire disk into thousands of tiny little file fragments. They were audio. And each fragment played okay for the few seconds of its length. But there was no way to figure out the correct sequence and reassemble them again. I will never again run chkdsk /f.

[Greg Miller]

Originally Posted by Ryan Elder

I don't have to use the card again, that's no problem :) I just thought it was an issue of turning off the camera to soon before the camera was finished writing to the card, and not a problem with the card itself.

The point is, Ryan, that you ought to try to be logical about this.

You do not know why you had this problem.

Therefore it MIGHT be that the card is failing.

Do you want to risk losing another day's worth of shoots? Maybe stuff that cannot easily be redone? Just to save a few dollars?

This is not even a gamble ... there is one and only one logical and safe answer. Trash that card and get a new one!

(And please, for your own good, do not do what you've done in the past ... say you're going to do something, and then go ahead and do the opposite. For your own good, throw that card in the trash right now, and come back here and post saying "OK, guys, I just threw that card in the trash." If you do that, I guarantee that we will all stand up and cheer!)

[Paul R Johnson]

Greg - concur, but I was commenting to what he said about getting new cards. I ALWAYS test every new card before using it. If one has a problem - then it gets put in a special place to try recovery, and THEN, it's in the bin - too risky for the price.

[Pete Cofrancesco]

I suspect for his own protection someone looks after his finances and makes his purchases. As well intended our advice is and as frustrating it might be as professionals, most of our advice and efforts are in vain.

[Greg Miller]

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

but I was commenting to what he said about getting new cards. I ALWAYS test every new card before using it.

Paul, sorry. I think the quote came from post #3 and I had not seen any mention of new cards.

I do agree with you, test every new card (mic, cable, recorder, camera, etc.) before using it to capture important content. Unless this is just a hobby, and nobody except you will be pissed if you get home and find you don't have what you set out to capture.

And, BTW, I found testing still doesn't always solve the problem. I think back to my experience with MiniDiscs. I bought a Sony, brought it home, tried it, had problems. Took it back, got a Sharp, tried it, it seemed OK. Tried a few blank discs, they seemed OK. Drove five hours to make my first actual recording, which fortunately was for my own personal hobby use. Played back the recording at the venue; it sounded fine. On the way home (someone else was driving) I played a bit in the car; it sounded fine. Got home the next day, patched minidisc output into my USB sound card, pressed play, got an 'unrecoverable error' message. I got a can of air and blew out the machine in case it had some dust or hairs, I gently wiped the disc, I tried again, 'unrecoverable error.' I tried a few more test recordings, on a different batch and brand of disc ... the errors kept popping up intermittently. I knew I was too stubborn to quit using the machine, and knew it would really burn me some day, so I gave it one final adjustment ... with a 16-oz. claw hammer. That is how you solve an intermittent problem ... you make it permanent!

[Josh Bass]

Originally Posted by Greg Miller

That is how you solve an intermittent problem ... you make it permanent!

This is genius. If you came up with it YOU'RE a genius. If you're didn't, you could still be genius, I don't know. But either way you're pretty cool.

[Greg Miller]

Ha! I suspect I'm not the only person who's arrived at that conclusion.

I could tell you some funny stories about the years when I owned a stereo repair shop. (Yes, the statue of limitations has expired.) I applied that policy for only a few specific products. Even then, the customers got back working equipment. I should have named the shop "Happy Endings" but people might have thought it was a massage parlor.

[Josh Bass]

It's 2020. No reason it couldn't be both.

[Greg Miller]

"Service while you wait in our customer lounge ... we offer complimentary K cups."

[John Nantz]

Ryan,

Originally Posted by John Nantz

Not only can name brand cards have a problem as manufacturing isn't perfect, but the counterfeit cards can also have problems. Trying to find a genuine card at a good price is difficult. Just like with manufacturing, products are made to within a certain percentage of failure, buying something, like a genuine card, will have a certain percentage of failure. In Vegas, sometimes the house wins.

Originally Posted by Ryan Elder

Oh okay. The card is a sandisk card.

Just want to clarify ... just because the card LOOKS like a Sandisk card (or whatever brand one wants), doesn't mean it IS one. Counterfeiters will take a cheap manufactured item/card and put whatever label they want on it then pawn it off to unsuspecting buyers as the real thing.

While a genuine item doesn't guarantee 100% perfection, the counterfeit one that typically looks like the real thing will almost be guaranteed to be lesser quality.

Unfortunately, the counterfeit item that fails can result in a consumer rant in a public space about how bad the item is, all the while without the knowledge that their item was actually counterfeit. The sad part is the counterfeit cheaply made item is typically imported into North America and then sold at a good profit, all to the detriment of the good company that did all the R&D, good manufacturing with quality control, and advertising for their product. This is akin to economic warfare.

Sometimes there are web pages that describe how to determine the real thing as opposed to the counterfeit. However, as the counterfeiters get found out, they tend to up their game and fix the flaw. The game of Cat & mouse comes to mind.

Sennheiser, Shure, AKG, B&W filters, headphone companies, are all targets of counterfeiters. Oh, and also Sandisk.

[Josh Bass]

I had never heard about counterfeit cards! Hopefully that’s easily avoidable depending on where you buy from (e.g. B&H vs ebay)? Otherwise, yikes. The fake mics I personally had issues with and after TWO from two different ebay sellers I gave up and got a full price real one (shure sm58, a very popular target) from Guitar Center.

[Greg Miller]

I've gotten fake USB flash drives. I don't even recall whether they were branded. The issue was that the actual capacity of the drive was significantly lower than advertised. It was very sneaky. If you plugged in the drive and used "my computer" it would report, for example, 32GB. But after you put files on it, they would not all be there. And a diagnostic program would show the *actual* size of the drive, which was maybe 8GB. I read an explanation once, but I can't recall the details now. Suffice it to say it somehow tricked "my computer" or "Windows explorer" into thinking it had much more capacity than it actually had. So until you tried to put a significant amount of data on it, you'd never know.

Kind of like the pet food poisoned with melamine, or the toothpaste poisoned with anti-freeze, or the children's toys painted with lead paint.

[Josh Bass]

Ah but from where did you purchase yon drives?