Microdrive Crisis and Compact Flash

[oddgirl]

It's crisis time. Spent all day Saturday photojournalizing an event using my IBM microdrive. I noticed when I'd pause to delete some pix to make room on the drive, I'd get a read error message when I'd get to certain pictures. Figured everything would be OK once I downloaded them into my computer. Well... almost half of the photos aren't there. The Finepix viewer just shows them as big question marks.

1. Is there any way at all to recover these files???

2. I'm dumping the microdrive after this. I can't afford for that to happen again. After reading some of your posts, it looks like Ridata makes a decent CF card. And I understand that the Type I card will work fine in my camera's Type II slot. Does anyone have experience with the 1GB Ridata card? Its speed is impressive: 40X write and 52X Read.

3. And just to be sure I understand, all I need to do is shove this thinner Type I card in the Type II slot? There's no adapter or anything else I need to make Type I work?

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for your advice and assistance.

[Tom V]

Compact Flash cards fit fine. Just slide them in.

For some reason, the S2 manaul avoids mentioning Compact Flash cards. I think they have some obligation to push the SmartMedia products.

I use a 1gb Microdrive and a 512 Lexar Compact Flash, both work fine.

I get that error on occasion when deleting files in the camera and attempting to view earlier images. I stop deleting files, and get all my images off the card as soon as possible. I have never noticed losing any frames. I seem to recall that it happens with either card, but usually when deleting the larger .tif files.

As a rule, I generally don't delete .tifs in the camera anymore. I shoot .tif and .raf most of the time, and only use .jpg for quick reviews on the LCD, or as a way to get a quick image on the screen so I can get to the FORMAT menu.

I reformat the card nearly every time I return it to the camera.

[Swampy]

I think there was also some jiving going on between the battery levels and the microdrive, where if you had a set of batteries that were fairly low, you could get errors on it. Anyway. Not positive on that one. All I know is that the microdrives are a pain in the rear and slower to use.

I'd stick with CF memory myself. I use 512mb Kingston memory, only cause I know it works and I get good prices on them.

Hmm. Speaking of which. I don't know where you guys saw this. :)

http://kingston.com/partnerpurchase

That should get you some good prices on memory. I think it was 91 bucks for a 512mb and 39 bucks for 256mb CF's. Not bad!

I haven't noticed a difference in speed at all between my Lexars and my Kingstons either.

[Swampy]

Hmm. Some clarification needed here. Anyone know the difference between SLC and non-SLC CompactFlash memory? I mean, besides the higher price for the SLC?

Was about to order memory for my wife's new camera (see my post in general discussion later) and when I went to Kingston's site, it picked out "SLC" type memory which is 6 bucks higher than "non-SLC" ($46 vs. $40 for 256mb). My "non-SLC" memory seems to work fine in it (Nikon Coolpix 4500).

Ideas?

[oddgirl]

So battery levels can screw up a microdrive too? One more thing to have to be paranoid about when I'm just out trying to be creative. I don't need the stress -- It chases my muse away. The microdrive will soon be in a pocket in the camera bag designated "for backup use only."

You're probably right - I went through several sets of batteries that day.

One question to Swampy (or anyone who knows): Do you think low battery levels would have an adverse affect on a CF card, too?

Thanks guys!

[Swampy]

Originally posted by oddgirl

You're probably right - I went through several sets of batteries that day.

One question to Swampy (or anyone who knows): Do you think low battery levels would have an adverse affect on a CF card, too?

Thanks guys!

I shot my friends wedding on a 512mb CF and 80mb CF at various file sizes (6mp down to 2 I think). Shot 350 pictures on one set of AA's (Energizer e2's (not the photo lithiums) and GE Sanyo CR123's. I got about 50 shots out of those same batteries the next day before one set died (and I replaced both). This was shooting about 60-70% of the pictures with the onboard flash! I probably looked at some of the pictures on the LCD about 3-4% of the time. I don't know how many shots you're getting from your camera with the Microdrive, but I'm sure you're not getting as many as this. I also am very concsious about putting the onboard flash down when sitting idle so it's not charging all the time, as well as making sure I turn the camera completely off when I'm sitting for more than a minute. Well, maybe I'm not THAT anal about it, but I do make sure I turn the camera off since with the CF memory, the camera comes up in about 1.2 seconds to first shot after autofocusing.

Now, as for whether low batteries affect CF cards? Yes they do in rare occasions. So rare that it's only happened to me once. Although that one time was enough for me not to let it happen again.

One set of my batteries, I believe it was the AA's, went "dead" while I was shooting and actually writing to the CF card. The camera shut down during the write and pretty much wiped my whole card. Now, I normally would have been upset, but since I had just started shooting on a fresh card, and it was only dinking around in my backyard, I just let it go and got a fresh set of batteries. Now, don't get me wrong, this isn't going to be the case all the time. This would be rare for you to lose all your pics from this as the camera shut down while it was writing the file allocation table (adding the next picture name to the file list) and didn't have a chance to finish it. I could have probably found a utility posted here or on the web to recover the previous shots, but, like I said, I was just messing around.

After shooting over 6000 images in 6 months on my S2, this is the only file loss I've encountered. I still believe in the CF memory over the Microdrive for ANYTHING, not just cameras. Microdrives have problems with extreme temperatures, alititudes (as little as 10,000 feet!), vibration, shock. If you're shooting in a studio with AC Adapter, the Microdrive is fine. Anywhere else, treat it like an Egg. I've seen about 50 users with Microdrives, and in under a year, 35-40 of them destroyed thier drives.

[oddgirl]

OK, Swampy -- Just one more question for you then I'll leave you alone for a while.

You said:
"I could have probably found a utility posted here or on the web to recover the previous shots, but, like I said, I was just messing around."

I could sure use that utility to recover some shots. Some of the best ones are gone, and my grieving process continues: Disbelief to sad to mad to... still mad.

Where can I find the utility and once I find it, what do I do with it? (I'll need detailed instructions because I'm no computer whiz.)

Many (many, many) thanks!!!

[Swampy]

Originally posted by oddgirl
Where can I find the utility and once I find it, what do I do with it? (I'll need detailed instructions because I'm no computer whiz.)


Hopefully you haven't done anything with that microdrive since you "lost" your files. If you have, then you have probably written over anything that could have been saved. If you haven't touched it other than for reading purposes (copying files to your hard drive), then you still may be able to recover something.

Seabass posted this recently, and I think there's some other ones out there in posts here too:

I use a recovery program call "Digital Image Recovery" It is freeware, and you should be able to find it easily on the web searching through google.


Just do a search here for "recover" and it will pop up a few threads here with discussions on how/what people used to recover pictures.

You can bug us as much as you want. That's what this forum is here for. We're all here to share problems and repairs and good (sometimes bad) pictures!

[oddgirl]

I got the digital image recovery software, but the files were gone. Oh well... lesson learned. My MD is now considered my "spare" and I won't preview and delete TIF images with wild abandon anymore, even on my new CF card. (Sad - that's one reason to have a digital camera). But now that I have 2GB of memory (1 in the CF and 1 in the MD), I won't have to be as stingy with memory. I'll just shoot and wait till I get home to see what's there.

Thanks for the advice. I'm sure the software will come in handy at another time, so I'm glad I have it.

[Swampy]

Keep in mind that another reason you went digital is for on the fly versatility. Take a shot in a lower (or even same) resolution JPG for viewing, then do a quick change back to TIF, that is of course you're not shooting anything action. Loading a JPG takes a lot less time than a TIF.

I personally don't like TIF and either shoot JPG/Fine or RAF and process it later. I find that every time I've shot TIF, I have artifacting going on that I don't like, but this is a personal view. I know JPG compresses and TIF doesn't - yaddy yaddy...... There's just something about how I see a TIF that I don't like versus the JPG/Fine or RAF.

Good shooting and post some of your work!

[Michael Hiltner]

You might want to check out this link - Gary Fong

http://secure.mycart.net/catalogs/catalog.asp?prodid=1786576&showprevnext=1

looks like a nice card - also a nice site

[oddgirl]

Since I'd read some good reviews about Ridata in this forum, I checked them out. Found they make a 1GB 40x-52x CF card. Then found one for $225 at My Digital Discount. And I must say, the store was fast in getting it to me. I haven't put it through the real paces yet, but did shoot a few and it wrote and read pretty fast (no stopwatch, but it was pretty fast). And the guy I spoke with at the store was very helpful and seemed very honest. (If you've ever dealt with those internet stores before, you know honesty is a rarity.)

Here's the address to the Ridata card's page on their site:
http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/product_info.php?cPath=24_85&products_id=82

Thanks again, everyone, for your information and moral support. I feel better now, but -- I sure did lose some good shots.

Oh -- to Swampy: I don't really do posed portraits all that much. I mostly go to special events to try to record the mood and atmosphere. I don't really have people pose for my shots. It's more like a sneak attack, so I can't do the "on the fly" JPG first. And I gotta say, with my Fuji S2, it's never really an issue of camera settings. It's more like, which expression or action is best out of the 2 or 3 I took. Now that I have 2GB of storage, I'll just leave them all on the card and decide later.

[oddgirl]

Thanks, Theo. Lesson learned. Reformat card after dumping all my images into my computer; use same file size/type; and DON"T DELETE! Got it. Thanks!

[Swampy]

Haven't had any problems changing sizes in mid-shooting, and I do this quite often. Especially when setting up a shot. Shots that I'll have time to work with, I'll shoot a low res fine JPG to check myself, then shoot a final at hi res after deleting the low res. I've been reluctant and have not deleted pics in the middle of the card (say I have 5 shots and I wanted to delete any of the shots besides the last), but I have not had a problem with deleting the last shot taken.

I use a card reader and do not use any software provided by Fuji, except the RAF converter. I use a card reader and copy the files over. I then use the "sync.exe" program that someone posted here somewhere (if you can't find the post, let me know and I'll put the small program on my website) to clear out the cache in Windows so I don't have any issues with yanking the card out. Once the files are copied over and I pull the card, I put the card back in the camera, pull up an image, then hit the menu button to format it to clear it. I haven't had any problems doing things this way.