Olympus XD 256mb picture card disaster

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

Hi all--

I hope someone can help. About a month ago I purchased a new Olympus XD
picture card, went on vacation and took about 1000 photos, and then the
card became corrupted. Basically, all was fine and I went to take
another photo and all the screen will do is is offer a choice of "turn
off" or "format card" (I haven't formatted it). No software is able to
recognize or read the card.

Heartbroken, I've been combing through piles and piles of recovery
sites and software, but there are so many that it is hard to make heads
or tales of them all. If this specific problem sounds familiar and is
fixable, I would really appreciate any advice on the subject.

Thank you so very much!!!

Marie

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

Thanks, Neil. It's at least encouraging to know maybe a future wipeout
could be avoided. Although honestly this has kind of rocked my trust in
them. At first I had higher hopes for the recovery programs, but if it
won't recognize the card that seems to be a major stumbling block. I
hae found other people w/ the same problem, but no solutions.

At this point I would even mail it out to a company, but it's hard to
tell if that would even work and it looks very expensive as well.

Thank you-- Marie

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

Thanks, Paul. I had hoped that was all it was, but trying that didn't
seem to help. From reading other sites, I've found a couple of likely
reasons it may have done this and I will post them here in case others
have the same problem. One seems to be trying to take too many photos
in a row or when the batteries are low (both related to the battery
juice, I guess). Allegedly, it attempts to write to the card and then
freezes up permanently. Another thing that might happen is it thinks
the card is full even though it said I had room for anoth 400-500 at
that quality level and goes into lockdown. I am more inclined to think
the former, as I suspect maybe a card full message of some sort would
result from the latter. But again, I was only walking along taking a
number of photos (not snapping like the paparazzi) when this happened
so these are just speculation.

What I wouldn't give for a cure!

> I Don't know what XD is but I had trouble with my old oly's smart media
> cards with the exposed gold surface which I discovered needed to be
> cleaned off with a soft cloth and dried/cleaned in humid weather/oily
> finger conditions to read properly.
>
>
> --
> Paul Furman
> http://www.edgehill.net/1
> san francisco native plants

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

BadCopy Pro might do it, it says it can recover unreadable files from
CompactFlash (CF), SmartMedia, Secure Digital Cards (SD), MMC cards, Sony
memory sticks and MORE (xD?). There's an evaluation version so you'll know
if it's going to work. Most similar software has trial versions.


"wolfmarie" <wolfmarie@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1117864083.209003.107880@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Hi all--
>
> I hope someone can help. About a month ago I purchased a new Olympus XD
> picture card, went on vacation and took about 1000 photos, and then the
> card became corrupted. Basically, all was fine and I went to take
> another photo and all the screen will do is is offer a choice of "turn
> off" or "format card" (I haven't formatted it). No software is able to
> recognize or read the card.
>
> Heartbroken, I've been combing through piles and piles of recovery
> sites and software, but there are so many that it is hard to make heads
> or tales of them all. If this specific problem sounds familiar and is
> fixable, I would really appreciate any advice on the subject.
>
> Thank you so very much!!!
>
> Marie
>

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

Hi all,

Thanks and here's a sad update so far:
One company I contacted was called MediaRecover who said I could
download their software and if it found the files I could pay for the
software and get the key number to unlock them. I did this and it
looked as though it worked-- I could see all of my beloved photos on
the preview. Thrilled, I clicked on "order now" and was confused b/c
on top of the software price itself they wanted a monthly fee (but I
didn't see any details on contract length or anything). So what I
found was that I was in a licensed area for camera stores, but could
still purchase their Pro Version for personal use w/o the monthly fee.
I did this, except when I ran it it did not find my photos. I
contacted them again and they said to go to Step 2-- quick scared me to
death b/c it was called format-- but they assured that it was only a
quick format (FAT) and should not wipe out the card. Now it said the
card was ready to be read-- except I did a scan but instead of finding
any pictures it said that it found a bunch of junk like MS word and
excel files that should in no way have ever been able to find their way
onto an XD card. The dates said they were put there in 1899. Did
something happen between the 1st time I did this and the second? Is
there any hope (oh, please!) that I can get these back yet???

This has been an extremely stressful roller coaster ride. I would
greatly appreciate hearing any more thoughts on this matter.

Any one can try with the below link also.
I recovered it.
http://www.z-a-recovery.com/zar84setup.exe
Jaya Kumar M. EFI India.