TM 900 - a moment of panic

[Alastair Traill]

I have no idea how it was triggered or the exact wording used but my TM 900 suddenly announced that there was a problem with an SD card and that if it could not repair the damage it would delete the affected files. Rather than have my files deleted I turned the camera off and placed the card in my iMac. There the card behaved normally and I safely downloaded the few clips that it contained. All the downloaded clips played OK so I have lost nothing.

I then returned the card to my TM 900 where I was told the card contained no data. Rather than format the card I used it to record another clip that played back normally in the camera. When I returned the card to the computer I found it now contained two sets of files - the originals that I had previously down-loaded and a new set that contained the most recent clip. All played OK. For some reason the TM 900 does not recognise the original set of files.

Any ideas as to what might have happened?

[Chris Soucy]

Hi, Alastair...........

Any ideas

Without having a clue how a TM 900 does it's thing with files, not a one.

I can guess plenty though.

Whatever happened, it wasn't going to have a bar of the original files, even though it still realised they were, somehow, still there.

Hence why they were still retrievable the second time around.

Best option?

Re - format the card (which renews whatever it's using for a File Allocation Table) and then use the iMac to completely overwrite the entire thing with data (yep, all x GB's of it). Use shed loads of short files, so that it has to really excercise that FAT, which is reserved for that very purpose.

If the iMac can read the lot, it would appear to be good and it was some kind of TM900 lunacy..

If it can't, you most probably have a duff card.

Yeah, maybe that's an idea, after all.

Sorry I can't shed more light.

Keep us posted.

Regards,


CS

[Andy Wilkinson]

Well, to state the obvious, it is either the card or the camera that has a fault. Your next task is to find out which - by exhaustive testing before you use the camera or that card again for any mission critical stuff!

If in doubt, I'd just retire that card - e.g. to the kids point and shoot compact! But even then, you need to know that the camera is working OK. Tricky one if it's an intermittent fault. Good luck.

Also, you don't state what card (make and type). Also, was it recently bought, from a reputable supplier? (As we all know, there are some many fake SDHC, and even entirely "geniune" but factory rejects around on places like eBay etc.)