"error card" with a 256MB Compact Flash CArd

[bbferrand]

Hi !

I've been using a 256MB compact flash memory card integral for several months without problems. During a trip in Brazil, I took a lot of pictures with it, until the moment my camera (Canon PowerShot A80) announced "ERROR CARD".

I've got over 400 great pictures in the card.
All the photography places I've been to are
unable to read my card.
They've used several softs to try to read it,
like PhotoRescue. I've also bought a Card Reader
for Compact Flash .. same results.

Do you have any ideas of what I can do next? Is
there a way to open the card and fix the problem?

Thanks a lot to answer me and all my excuses for
my poor english.

[famjad21]

My advice is to stop fooling with it and write to the manufacturer and see if they will do it. While you're waiting, get another card to use.

I always download to my computer every night even on a trip. It cuts down on this type of problem. I also travel with about 4 cards. There is a school of thought that says you should use smaller cards to make sure you don't lose too much if one goes bad.

Also, every so often I format the card in the camera.

[wmeddley]

Evidently, these memory cards are prone to do this. I was using an Olympus D490Zoom and two of the 64MB memory cards did the same thing. One I got to work again for a short time but eventually it failed never to resume again. Both cards I finally trashed. I still have the camera but only a 16mb and an 8 mb memory card that I use for emergency only. I am using an Olympus C765 that uses an xd card that I like real well and am using a 256mb card in it with no problems.

[Patsy999]

Just to add my 2 cents i had the same problem with a much larger card from my holiday to spain and i sent it back to digiprintuk.co.uk and they recovered al the images to a cd for me and formatted my card and mailed it back to me. great service that wasnt expected really