List of Bad CompactFlash Cards

[Duck]

Kingston 128mb Compact Flash Card

I have one that works in my Nikon Coolpix 880, but will NOT work in the Fuji S2...

[Tom V]

I went out for a shoot today - and forgot my CF card back home in the laptop, which makes the whole system useless.:eek:

I went to the camera store and tried a Delkin 512mb card. It would not initialize. The salesman said he uses them in his D1 without trouble.

[shutterbugtae]

Beware!,The Samsung 512 card will work in the S1 but not the S2!!!:confused:

[scsi_guru]

I have a 512MB Ridata and a 256MB Simpletech both of which work flawlessly in my S2. I had a 192MB Lexar 12X (which I have since sold) that gave me write errors and the only way to get the card working again was to format it in camera. So with that said, I'm steering clear of any Lexar cards in the future...

[shutterbugtae]

Thats interesting,I bought two Lexar 256 cards from Amazon and they are the best of my cards :)

[Tom V]

I bought a 512 Lexar 24X card that is working perfectly.

I bought a 1gig IBM MicroDrive that is working perfectly, even after dropping it 4 feet onto a rubberized walk surface.

The MicroDrive is noticeably slower in the camera than the Lexar 24x card, especially on startup (missed some action shots).

[Duck]

Tom, maybe it wasnt the microdrive that was slow... could it have been you, trying to find what eye to look through the view finder...lol:D

[NIKKOR]

I also have a 256 Lexar 24x card that works great !!!! It also seems faster than my 1 gig micro drive.
Don

[Marc Furth]

I have a Kingston 256 MB card that won't work in my S2, but worked great in my Nikon 990.

Marc:confused:

[Marvo]

Lexar 256Mb x12 CF card works a treat in my UK S2. But to my surprise, my old 64Mb Sandisk Smart Media card is a bit faster!

Marvo.:rolleyes:

[memobug]

I had a Simpletech 512 card I just bought at Microcenter because it was heavily discounted. The camera wouldn't recognize it at all. Kept saying CARD NOT INITIALIZED and NO IMAGES when I pressed any keys,

BUT...

I opened the card in my USB Card reader and it looked okay. I right clicked on it and renamed it SIMPLE512 and now the camera can recognize it

Something you might try. Just shot a couple pics and it seems okay.

SimpleTech P/N STI CF/512

Price at MicroCenter: $299- $90 instant rebate - $50 mail in rebate = $149 !

UPDATE: When I bought a second Simpletech 512Meg I couldn't get it to format properly in the camera - so I logged into a support Chat Session and the tech there said Simple's 512Meg card is not compatible with FujiFilm S2Pro, and gave me their compatibility link. It looks like their 512s are only compatible with a few Canon digicams and no others! So this one is going back! The tech was kind of abrupt too and cut off the chat session when I asked why there were compatibility issues

Regards,

Matt

[Duck]

great idea... I will have to try that one on my Kingston 128K card.

[adjuster]

I have tried my Simpletech 256 meg card in 2 different S2 cameras and it does not work. "card not initialized". Reformatting on computer didnt help. Card works on in laptop and in my Kodak DX3900.
Back to the store it goes.

[shutterbugtae]

My Viking 512 works great , and I have seen the card advertised with rebates as low as $ 140.00. Though I am still waiting for my 50 bucks.TAE

[TomMcCann]

I too bought a new Delkin card that would not initialize. But the Delkins I already had from my E-20 worked fine. Bought a Sandisk and had no trouble. The Delkins I own have never failed, but new ones in the S2 seem to have a glitch or the S2 has a glitch.

[Wichita Wayne]

When I got my S2 the only 512 CF card that they had that would work in the S2 camera was a PROMASTER model THNCF512MAA card. So far it has never failed me unless I save or erase files with the computer and not with the camera. For some reason the camera will not read the cards FAT after the computer modifies it. The same is true with the IBM 1G Microdrive. However If you put the things back in the computers via my Imation model IMN-USB-FG1 card reader the computer reads them fine. If I hook the camera to the computer this does not happen. Therefore I usually never, never, never erase or write to the CF or Microdrive while attached to the computer.

[shutterbugtae]

Wayne,
I hear so many different opinons on this, I almost ALWAYS erase my cards in the computer.I have a "Mr Flash" 128 a "Sans Disk" 128, 2-"Lexar Media" 256 cards and my "Viking" 512.I did have a "Samsung" 512 that would work in my S1 but not in the S2 it even worked in a Nikon 990 that I have sold but it simply was not compatable with the S2 so something must have changed in the internal OS of the S2,that card went back!.I did have a "Mr Flash" 256 that went bad on me but it had nothing to do with the cameras. The Lexar cards are my fastest , the Viking and the Sans Disk are almost the same and the Mr Flash is Slow. The only thing that happens different when I clear the cards in the camera before I put them in the card slot on my Powerbook is when you get the small Hard Drive Icon it is all lower case letters(untitled) instead of (UNTITLED), like it is if you clear it in the computer.TAE,Good Shooting(so when is the full frame Fuji "S3" going to come out???);)

[Swampy]

I purchased a 512MB Kingston for my S2 and it works great. I need to do some speed tests between that and my old Lexar 80MB and see what the difference may be, but I've never had a problem with the either in my S2. I'm using a Dazzle reader at work and a Sansdisk (I think it's that) at home.

I never erase the directories on the cards, only the pictures and I do that on the PC. I've only cleared the card twice using the camera, and haven't formatted the card yet on the camera.

Bryan

[Wichita Wayne]

The salesman that managed the shop where I got my S2 said that the Microdrives were all compatable with the S2. It was designed to work with the IBM OS that drives them. His advise was to take the camera with you when you purchase a CF card and try the thing before purchasing. Then you can purchase more of the same brand with good assurance that the cardw will all work. It is also good to know that the Lexar cards are fastest. This is something that I have not tested because I tend to use a microdrive all the time. Speed is really not an issue with me at the time. I, also have about a dozen 64MB smartmedia cards and sometimes use then on top of the microdrive. I have never found that one of them failed to operate just fine. I set the camera to use the smartmedia by default. If the slot is empty then the camera uses the CF or microdrive. That way if you put a smartmedia card in the slot the camera will use it without any changes in settings.

[scotgasch]

I have a 256 Lexar 8x and a 128 Lexar 12x. The 128 gives me errors while the 256 works fine.

BTW i can use the 128 in my dimage 7 with no problems.....don't know????

[dave]

i have a PQI 512 card which seems to have a personality clash with the S2 but is on good terms with the S1. reckon i can live with that but what is more more difficult to reason with is the so far lack of urgency of the company to offer a solution to solve the problem !!!!!
reasured by reading this thread that its not me mucking around with settings and functions etc it seems to be a fact of digital life that some cards dont like some cameras and there is nuthin we can do about it

[KPRussell]

Dave I had the same experiance with a PQI 512 card too. Was truly a bummer as I purchased it a few weeks before my S2 arrived. My first few hours with my S2 were filled with horror that I had purchased a schizophrenic camera. A trip to Wolf Camera and a Microdrive later cured that. I also have a few Ridata 256 CF and PNY 128 SM cards that work great too.

[dave]

THANKS KEVIN hilst pondering what to do with the 512 PQI card i ordered some ridata cards which are winging their way to me now reasuring to hear they will do the biz for me

byw still no response from PQI !!!!

[Swampy]

Anyone have any opinions on the Dane-Elec 1gb cards? How about the SanDisk 1gb?

I'm looking for some larger memory and I can't see spending $650 bucks on the Lexar 1gb, while the two listed above are $250-$270. I know they'll probably be slower than the Lexar, but how much slower? Hardly anyone publishes thier memory speeds on thier CF cards... :(

[bjnicholls]

http://www.robgalbraith.com/media/compactflash/fuji_s2pro.html

The list isn't comprehensive, but it gives the speeds of several cards and the 1 gig Microdrive. The Microdrive is the fastest media tested, although I'm sure the test doesn't include the spin-up time for the drive.

I found the Sandisc 1 Gig card for $225 via pricegrabber.com, but from the speeds reported at the dpreview site, the Sandisc cards looked like the slowest beasts in the herd:

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/mediacompare/