| Author | Message | ||
     Brendan Davidson |
Over the past 18 months, I have "killed" two Olympus Smart Media cards - 1 x 16MB and 1 x 64MB. When I put the cards in the camera now, they come up with "CARD ERROR" message and the camera will no format them at all. I can still access the cards using my USB reader or my PCMCIA reader, but the camera still won't look at them. I have purchased another 64 MB card but feel that it will only be a matter of time before it dies as well. I am very careful when placing the card in the readers, making sure that i don't remove them prematuraly, etc. Using WINHEX, I have tried making a backup of the new card and copying it to the old. It seems to copy okay, but it still doesn't work in the camera. I even tried using the "clone" tool, but with the same results. In WINHEX, is comes up as the "Partition Start Sector" as 55 and the "First Data Sector" as 41. It it possible that there is more data (specific to Olympus) that is on the sectors prior to 55 por 41 that WINHEX hasn't copied? I haven't necessarily lost any files that I want to recover, but more that I want to find out how I can recover the use of the old cards in the camera, and any others that might get corrupted in the future. Any assistance would be VERY, VERY, VERY much appreciated. | ||
| Stefan Fleischmann (Admin) |
Maybe it helps to open and copy the physical media instead of the logical drive in WinHex if you have that choice in the disk selection dialog. | ||
| John Wheater |
Have I stumbled (googled) on a way to recover pictures from a wrecked Olympus SM card? Can I try 'WinHex'? Whatever that is? | ||
| Stefan Fleischmann (Admin) |
Please see the links in the left frame of this forum to get to the WinHex or Davory homepage. Davory is a particularly easy-to-use data recovery software and will guide you through the recovery process. Please see my posting at the top of this page for more instructions and do not hesitate to post again if you need further assistance. | ||
| Anonymous |
I have an Olympis C-4000 and accidentally formatted my smartMedia Card losing all the pictures. I purchased Davory but when trying to Recover by Name or Type, I keep getting the Error "Cyclic Redundancy check". What is this? How do I get around it? Also, I have recovered several files using Davory but when try to open them in the drive they were copied to, I get an error that the file has been corrupted" Is there anyway I can still get these pictures? They are very important! | ||
| Stefan Fleischmann (Admin) |
"Cyclic redundancy check error" usually indicates that there are physical problems with a media, like damaged sectors, so that they cannot be correctly read any more. > Also, I have recovered several files using Davory [...] Using which recovery method? This error could be due to the above-mentioned problem. In case of "File recovery by type" in could also be the result of the "desired files size" to be chosen too small. For physically damaged media I generally have to recommend contacting a company offering hardware laboratory data recovery services. | ||
| Peter Banks |
Hello I have recently corrupted 2 smartmedia card (16 mb & 128 mb). I removed the cards from my camera (Olympus C-120 European Vers.) and read them on my LinXCel CR-216A 6in1 USB card reader. Photos copy to PC using XP picture wizard and copies on card deleted using the XP picture wizard. When the card was replaced into the camera, it first said "Card Setup - Format" but when trying to format it then states "card error". I even tried formating it on the PC but still the same error. Can you advise. Thanks Peter Banks | ||
| Stefan Fleischmann (Admin) |
If you can open the card with the disk editor in WinHex, you could clone a healthy card of the same size over the corrupted one, or you could try initializing all sectors on the card with hexadecimal FF values or so, like a brand-new card might be. | ||
| Anonymous |
I tried both By Type and By Name and get the Cyclic Redundancy error both times. When using "by name" most files are saved to the output drive but are corrupted and cannot be opened. Part of the picture is visible but than cannot be opened. is there anything more I can do with Davory? I looked at some of the Data Recovery Services in the Knowledge Base but none seemed to address recovery for digital camera cards. Is there anyone you can recommend for this if this is my last resort? | ||
| Stefan Fleischmann (Admin) |
I don't know what else to do. You could try contacting e.g. Ontrack, Ibas, ActionFront, or Vogon. | ||
| Bob Davilla (Waywacked) |
I thought I ruined a 128mb smart card when I got the "Card Error" signal after battery exhaustion. In essence I pulled it in the middle of a read. The C-4000 wouldn't format it or read it for that matter. I tucked the "ruined" card away and went got me another one and about 500 shots later, "Card Error". I was using a uno! card reader and went to Omniflashproducts.com and got a digital media formatter(no cost). It took awhile (hours) for the program to erase everything from the 1st card I thought I had ruined (there were picts on it that weren't important to me so I didn't bother saving them)and reformat it, but it works fine now. Just got back from a test run and picts are fine. I reformatted the second card that had only 1 pict on it in about 30 min. Don't throw those "ruined cards" away, there is hope. | ||
| Anonymous |
I am also having problems and believe it is because I deleted images from my smart media card in the card reader instead of deleting in the camera. I believe cards can be rectified and am just investigating. So far I have read the following: 1. Find a Fuji camera to reformat the card (think I would be afraid of corrupting a friends camera) 2. Reformat the card using My Computer (this did not work for me Win 98 but may do on Wind.XP etc. Something to do with Fat 12 and Fat 32? 3. Buy a Dazzle Zio Smart Media/Writer which will solve the problem. A reader with a smpt utility is required. 4. Make sure you have recharged batteries in the camera. Its all a bit mind boggling but search engines come up with a lot. I've also posted the problem on the website ephotomagazine. Anyone dont throw cards away they can be formatted somehow. | ||
| JE Ausley |
I am receiveing a "card access error" when I try to download pictures from a smartmedia 32mb card. I somehow managed to stumble upon this site and in a search and I hope you all can help me, because I admit I'm clueless. I have a HP PhotoSmart 1000 printer that allows me to download pictures directly from my card to my computer (that is where I get the error message). When I insert the card in my camera (Olympus D-490) and turn it on the format option comes on. Is there any way to retrieve the 80+ pictures from my card, and if so, how do I access the card on my computer? (I told you I was clueless!) | ||
| Stefan Fleischmann (Admin) |
I recommend using a so-called card reader device to access the card on your computer, so that the card is accessible as a logical drive (like E: ) or physical medium. Please follow these instructions to recover your pictures. | ||
| Anonymous |
I have the same problem as JE Ausley with the following configuration: Olympus C100, Fujifilm 64MB SmartMedia, HP 1115 printer (as card reader). On the SmartMedia package I read: "The card can be used reliably for a long period of time, but will eventually lose it's ability to record/playback. At this point the card will need to be replaced." !!!! Since digital cameras are sometimes used in important mission, this is totally unacceptable! Partial solution: Printing a safe expiration period on each memory card (like on films and batteries). | ||
| Paul Mullen (Pcguru) |
A Flash media card has very low level information which is not part of the "sectors" seen by software such as Winhex. When some Olympus and Sony cameras format a card they may change this information effectively relocating the "Sectors" (which is why it is sometimes impossible to recover pictures after accidentally formatting a card in certain cameras). "Card Error" is much more likely to be due to corruption of this low level information rather than a physical failure of the card. Cards are not mechanical devices (except for the contacts where they connect to the camera) so they are not usually prone to wear and tear. As stated above, third party card reprogrammers can rehabilitate such cards. While flash memory chips do "wear-out" after repeated erase cycles, the chip makers specifications usually state they are good for at least 100,000 erase cycles (probably over a million times). Even if we translate that into 100,000 pictures (on the grounds that each picture means rewriting the directory sectors) that could take quite a few years! | ||
| Paul Mullen (Pcguru) |
To add to the above I found this interesting article: http://www.digit-life.com/articles/smcrestore/ According to this author it is possible to rehabilitate cards with "Card Error" using just the Olympus MAUSB-2 adapter provided that you use drivers from the chip maker SCM Micro at http://www.scmmicro.com/corporate/support.html instead of the Olympus drivers. I imagine any other USB adapter with the same chipset would also work. The only proviso is that Olympus cameras only support Panoramic mode with Olympus cards (by which they mean cards formatted by them). So the article shows you the differences in the format and how to patch the SMC SMPREP utility to produce "Olympus" formatted cards. | ||
| Steve |
Hi, When I try and write a backup file "directly and immediately to the disk" in WinHex I get two different errors depending on if I use the Logical drive to my USB2 MMC drive or the physical drive: Logical drive error: "Supplied user buffer is not valid for the requested operation" Physical drive error: "Invalid access to memory location" Is this something to do with the size of the MM card (32Mbytes) being different from that of the backup WinHex file ? If not, then what am I doing wrong ? I have hunted through google but found no mention of such an error and/or it's solution. ? Help ! | ||
| Stefan Fleischmann (Admin) |
This is not related to the size of the card and the size of the backup. I think this is a special behavior (or inability) of the device driver. Does it work if you select (O) "Write to the disk on save request only" and then File | Save Sectors? If so, please use this option instead. | ||
| raquel morais |
camera olympus camedia digital camera c-3040zoom (the camera works ok) there was a problem for the fist time with smart media cards that we usually use to take pictures: we use those cards (64 mb, 128 mb) and then we went to a internet shop in katmandu, they have a Card Reader 6 IN 1, they discard the pictures on the computer, and when we tried to use the card again, the camera says that there was a card error,and we just can't format, because in all the cards says the same...card error! But we know that it was not a camera problem, because we tried with a new card (smart media) and the camera is ok, we can take pictures. We would like to know if the problem is from the card reader or the computer...And if its possible to do anything with those cards. We tried to use those cards in other camera, but the problems was the same, card error! Can you help us? We wait for your attencion. Thank you. Raquel Morais | ||
| Stefan Fleischmann (Admin) |
You could try opening the card as a physical medium in WinHex through the card reader (Tools | Disk Editor). If this is successful, try Tools | Disk Tools | Disk Cloning to copy all the sectors from the new card to an image file, and then to copy all the sectors from the image file to the corrupt card. | ||
| Lawrence Tan (Lawtan) |
I am using Olympus 128kB Smartmedia card (With Paranoma feature) with Olympus Camedia C-700. Recently, I bought a Flashtron 6-in-1 card reader (http://www.reka.com.sg/product.asp?pid=MR172) and used my PC (WinXP) to format the Smartmedia card. Thereafter, my C-700 camera no longer recognises the card and displays CARD ERROR'. I went to Olympus service centre in Beijing for servicing, but the staff can only solve half the problem - camera can now recognise the card but the paranomic feature is gone, and the olympus staff is helpless. I cannot believe Olympus cannot restore their own smartmedia card!! How can I restore the paranomic mode of my Smartmedia card now? I searched for the smprep.exe file of my reader, but cannot find it. I am using Win XP. Thanks in advance for your advice. | ||
| wingtak |
I had upgraded my computer to a nvidia(Leadtek) mother board with AMD CPU. When I plug in the SM card reader(eagletec), WinXP can recognize the reader. However, when I try to read the files inside, the screen turn blue and system halt. The SM card was also damaged, it cannot be read by my Olympus 3030 and USB reader anymore. Then, I concluded that the card reader is not work with the new mother board. I have to buy a new card reader. It work with the new mother board perfectly. I can use the SM card with my MP3, Olympus DC and the USB card reader. However, the damaged SM card can no longer be read by my C3030 camera even after format in XP. I had tried many different ways. After reading this forum, I insert the card in the old card reader and plug it in a computer with WinSE and perform a physical format. Then, I plug the card into the camera and have format again. It is working fine now. It is nice to have this forum helping resolve the problem. The new mother board is very good except it is not working with my old USB reader. Does anybody know how to solve the compatibility problem? Thanks! | ||
| Anonymous |
See side http://www.marshost.com/~rashmun/ (Smformat Utility). Format SM card, problem is liquidated | ||
| Anonymous |
Can someone please help i am getting crazy over here i have a smartmedia card 32 mb for my fujifilm but i take some foto's and after that i put the card in de card reader it works fine i copyed the foto to my hard drive and delete some foto from my smartmedia because it was full and after that i put i back on my camera and i get a CARD ERROR i read everything what you all people write but i have the same problem i have try everything can someone help me please is the are better software i hope someone helps me thanks | ||
| Anonymous |
To Anonymous... I just got my fix. Here's what to do. Go to ebay. Buy yourself a Sandisk SDDR-09 card reader. Then go to http://www.marshost.com/~rashmun/smprep.htm download the file for your reader. Install the reader. Run the appropriate executable and ,bob's your uncle, Good as new. Alternatively The guy who runs the marshost web site will do it for you for a small fee. I guess I would to but it seems like a hassle for something you can do for yourself. Hope this helps. Please forgive spelling errors above. | ||
| Mr Fix It |
I have the way to fix the Card Error problem for the Fuji 4700 (and others?). This took me a long time to figure out (and on a Saturday!) but I finally got it. Here are the instructions for Win XP HOW TO FIX “CARD ERROR” FOR SMARTMEDIA 1. Make sure the card is formatted FAT (Not FAT 32!) Right click on the removable disk F (or smartMedia drive) Choose “Format” Choose “Quick Format” box Format as FAT 2.IMPORTANT!!! Put one picture from your camera (saved somewhere else on the PC) into the removable drive on the PC(the card reader). (Make sure the disk is still FAT by hovering over the drive and look at the details window on the left. Click the “Stop device” icon in the bottom right to safely remove the card. Remove Card YAY!!!!!! | ||
| Colin Lavery |
I have an old Olympus Camedia C830-L camera. I've just purchased a Dazzle ZiO Smart Media reader and a 64M card. I've formatted the card in the camera, and it takes the pictures OK. The problem is when I try to download to my PC (Windows XP), I can see the JPEG file but when I go to download it tells me the file is corrupt. Anybody know what the problem is here, and can it be fixed? | ||
| Daniel Gibson |
I have a 128mb smart media card. I use the card with my guitar processor,i can record 24 min of music files on it and i can do this about 3x. But after that when i record that much time on the card and put it into my card reader and try to open the drive, I get a drive not ready window. (OS Win98se)I cant see my music files anymore.This has happened to 2 memory cards but the wierd thing is,On both cards i can record about a min worth of music and the reader sees the files every time.I've tried formats with my processor and my pc but the files will not erase.Is there any software that can find and erase these cards so i can use them again or what. | ||
| Graham Harris |
I'm trying to repair 8 smartmedia cards with damaged sectors. When I use WinHex to view the cards (using an Olympus C4040z as the card reader) I get the error message "Error #6: an error occurred while reading from sector 1.920 of removable medium 2." I'm looking at the cards as physical media. WinHex reports "sector could not be read" in the data display area. I read earlier on this page that filling the entire card with FF using WinHex will revert the card to how it was when I bought it. I'm currently using the trial version of WinHex. If I buy the full version will it be able to access and write to the bad sectors on my cards, thus restoring them to pristine condition? Messages on these pages suggest it is unlikely my cards are physically damaged. Can the full version of WinHex fix these problems? Thanks very much for any advice. Graham (Italy) | ||
| Stefan Kortmann (Admin2) |
There is no difference between the evaluation version and the full version of WinHex when it comes to reporting bad sectors. If WinHex cannot read a sector, the sector is physically damaged, I'm afraid. | ||
| Anonymous |
I have the solution for this.. Ive read another forum and this is what i came up with.. - After using cardreader on my 8,32,128 mb smartmedia card.. the camera rejects it by the message "card error" -I have a Olympus Camedia c-990 zoom 2.1 Megapixel with com-port output. :P -I tried to format them numerous times in different formats (fat,fat32,etc...) and the card error was still there.. -I got a tip from the net and followed it.. Tip: Go to your camerashop and ask them if they have another camera to try format the cards with.. or maybe a friend has one that isnt a Olympus cam.. Like the shop i went to had a olllld cam in storage and it worked .. all my cards are up and running again.. ;D Just format the cards in the camera and NOT in a card reader in the future.. This worked fine with me... so good luck all ya with olympus cam card errors.... | ||
| Anonymous |
I was told by some olympus people to rub your card's gold area with a rubbing alchol swab(if that is not available he said to use an eraser). After cleaning the dust, or dampness of, push your card in and out of the locking slot about 15 times. Reformat and see if it works. It worked for me, I don't know for how long | ||
| kipouros |
Unbelievable!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i read ALL the threads and i had tried all of them includins smprep, and i think guys that a lot of problems are because of the reader. I tried like the post above said, push it in and out a few times and it worked!!!!!!!!!!!!! i'm so happy running alcohol is good point. i would try a piece of carton with a bit of rubbing alcohol to clean the slot | ||
| Joe Shelton |
Please Help! I have 3 smart media cards, all full of photos from my Olympus Camedia C-2040. I am still unable to retrieve 19 photos (JPG) from these cards. Does anyone have any idea how I can get them onto my computer? I tried my PC's card reader first, which copied all of the photos except 24. My PC would not copy the remaining 24, saying "Error: cyclic redundancy check." I then placed the SM cards into the camera, and connected the camera to a different PC's USB port. This allowed me to copy a few more, while 19 others still said "Error: cyclic redundancy check." When I placed the cards into a color printer, however, ALL the photos showed up and printed. I have not done any accidental erasing, and the cards are all new and undamaged. They are 3 different brands, and one is Olympus brand. I tried WinHex and OnBelay, neither of which could retrieve these files. Thanks in advance for any help! | ||
| Anonymous |
Well the solution is somewhat tedious. Alas I'm using HexEditor so the solution will be based from this :-) Open a picture that you got transferred to the PC. Check the start and end values in the file. Start is usually FF D8 FF End is usually 7F FF D9 Now open the card with the disk editor and 1) locate FF D8 FF 2) mark block start 3) find 7F FF D9 4) mark block end 5) Save the marked block as....recover1.jpg 6) Check the picture. 7) Repeat step while theres a JPG start (FF D8 FF) I said it would be tedious...but it works. | ||
| Stefan Fleischmann (Admin) |
Not sure what you describe helps in above situation, however, this procedure can be done fully automatically by WinHex (Tools | Disk Tools | File Recovery by Type). | ||
| Anonymous |
I just tried the eraser method described above, and it worked for me. Thank you!!! | ||
| Hugh McKay (Spacedcadet) |
I have a Olympus 2.1 MP Camera with a 64 MB Smartmedia Card. I recently went out the country and there used a card reader to download all my pictures so far to a PC and then have them put on CD so I could reuse the room on my card. I then used the cameras format command to format the card. Afterwards I found about 1 in 10 pictures on the camera could not be viewed on the camera, although further pictures could be taken. Attempting to view the pics caused the viewer to shut down. When I got home I used the USB cable and attempted to view the files on the removable drive via windows (XP) explorer. It said the drive was not formatted and offered to reformat it. Norton Utilities did the same. Which utilities should I use to recover my Pics and restore the formatting to to Olympus standards? | ||
| Stefan Fleischmann (Admin) |
> Which utilities should I use to recover my Pics I recommend you try either WinHex or Davory. See the left frame for links. | ||
| Hugh McKay (Spacedcadet) |
I have tried both products and both seem able to recover my files (subject to the 200k limit). However will Davory be able to reformat my card afterwards? I only want to buy one product. | ||
| Stefan Fleischmann (Admin) |
Davory cannot format your card. I recommend after recovery you either try to format it with the camera itself again (that usually should work). Alternatively, you could use WinHex for recovery and also to copy another 64 MB card you may have over the damaged one sector-wise, which creates an exact clone. | ||
| Dave McKinney |
Anyone have a link to an image file for a new/clean smartmedia card? With such an image file, perhaps it's possible to use software such as OnBelay to "recover" the image to a card that's generating the "card error" annoyance. In my case, I'd need the image for a 64mb card. Thanks. | ||
| gordon |
I think I have ruined the 64M Smartmedia card while using the card reader to erase photos. I have got the "card error" message from my Olympus camera. Referring to the posts in this forum, I have installed WInHex and try to save my card but unsuccessful. A message showed me that the Smartmedia card is "write protected" and I cannot edit the card. Actually I did not write-protected the card! Anyone can help? What can I do? | ||
| Lynne Jeffries (Scrappingmom) |
I am getting a !write error message everytime I try to take a picture. This is a 128mb smart media card that is fairly new but I just deleted all of it's files and all of a sudden I get this error. My computer reformatted the card but it hasn't helped. As you all know - these are not inexpensive cards! | ||
| Jens Kirschner (Admin3) |
You can either try to format the card again in the camera (we have seen reports that cards formatted by computers were not usable in cameras) or failing that you might try using WinHex to clone a working card (of the same size!)onto the current one. This will of course delete all the data that is currently on your card but since you only want to be able to use it again, this might be acceptable. | ||
| Anonymous |
I've tried the above method using 'alcohol' and eraser without success. I came across an application called "Onbelay" which you can low level format your 'error' smartmedia card. The application low level format the card to 1MB, then you insert your card into your Olympus camera which will then asked you to format the card. Select it and Presto - the card works again. If your card cannot be read in your PC card reader, reformat the card one or more times in your camera will solve the problem. However, if your card has any bad sectors/blocks, this application cannot help you. You just have to bin it. I highly recommend this application - it saved two of my 128MB card. You can download an evauation copy at http//www.compuapps.com for free! Have fun. | ||
| Anonymous |
One of the frustrating aspects of the 'Card Error' problem is its inconsistent. 90% of the time I don't get the error, but when it happens it often takes me several attempts at inserting the card into the smartmedia slot in my Oly E10 before it recognizes the card. I use a Zio USB reader to d/l the pics into the PC, and always format the card in the camera itself (never with the computer). Yet the 'Card Error' comes up occasionally. I'm considering changing over to compactflash storage soon (the E10 has dual SM/CF drives) - hoping that'll avoid the ongoing smartmedia problems. BTW - I find the 'Card Error' seems to occur mostly when I completely fill a 128mb card, rarely when I only use half the available storage . Not sure if that plays a factor or not. | ||
| gabi mayer (Stefflhof) |
Hi, i do have a 32MB smartmedia card that has been damaged somehow. i am now unable to get anything off the card at all. the smartmedia card in the camera displays "card error". the smartmedia card in a card reader or the floppy-disk adapter in drive a: displays "please insert media in drive a". using winhex or davory i get the message that an error occured accessing drive a:. is their anything i can do to get back to my pictures which are VERY important for a law suite. i appreciate any assistance anytime soon thanks gabi | ||
| Stefan Fleischmann (Admin) |
I recommend you also try to open the card as a physical medium ("Floppy disk 0"). | ||
| gabi mayer (Stefflhof) |
Stefan, this is what i tried as well, but i get the same problem. any idea? best regards gabi | ||
| Stefan Fleischmann (Admin) |
I recommend you contact a company that operates hardware laboratories for such cases, e.g. Ibas, Vogon, Ontrack, or Convar. | ||
| Anonymous |
I have an Olympus C-4000 and had the "card error" message. Tried a bunch of the stuff above to no avail. For kicks, I put the card in my mp3 player and formatted it. Bingo, now it works in my camera again. Weird. and super annoying all at once! good luck all | ||
| Brian Huber (Bchuber) |
Have had card error problems in my camera. A Dazzle PC reader could see pictures on it though. WinHex could see old deleted pictures additionally. I tried cloning a good card to the bad card in both logical and physical WinHex modes. This did not solve the card error camera problem although I would believe that for general format problems this would do the job. Apparently there is other information not viewable in physical or logical mode. I tried using a copy of smprep.exe from the internet with my Dazzle reader but it said “smartmedia drivers not loaded”. However, I had an older reader that did not work on XP originally. Found win2000 drivers for it which worked in XP. A good card could be read by this but a bad card just acted like nothing was inserted in the reader. Ran smprep.exe with this and it fixed it so XP saw the card and the camera card error problems went away (it apparently sees the card even when XP doesn’t). The reader is a SanDisk ImageMate model # SDDR-09. The drivers were at the SanDisk’s website with smprep.exe included (win2000 which worked in XP). | ||
| Anonymous |
I just read a whole bunch of these messages. I think I am more confused than before. I have an Olympus D-550 camera, and a Fujifilm 900763 USB card reader. I have fixed one card several times using the smprep1 and smprep2.exe files along with the hex editing. My card reader uses smapi.dll, which it appears is the bad one to use, or is it that card readers using that file are wrong? Anyhow, my card works fine in the reader, but may, or may not work in the camera after using the card reader. This is very frustrating. I have three Sandisk 64 meg cards. Presently 2 of them are giving card errors in the camera again. OK, I know how to fix the cards, know the cards work in the card reader, but somehow the card reader screws up the card for use in the camera. I guess I need to invest in a new card reader, but am not sure which one. Can anyone help, please. Thanks George PS. I cant get the name and password thingie to work on here. I posted anonymously. You can post a reply on here, or email me here. (Change the AT and DOT). handyman AT centralpets DOT com. | ||
| Pam |
I hope this can help someone. I was going crazy with my 16Mb smartmedia card. I formatted it on my computer and my fujifilm camera kept giving me a card error message. I even went out and bought a new card. And unfortunately I formatted it again on my computer and that is how I learned DON'T do that. Just do it in your camera. Anyway after trying all this stuff I figured out after you get the card error message go to the format screen on your camera and format it. It worked!!! Both cards are working again!!!!!!!!!! | ||
| John Tongren |
Thanks for all the help on this discussion point. I have an Olympus D-460 that I used in the morning to take pictures, transferred the pics to my PC using a Dazzle Smartmedia reader -- then the Olympus did not recognize the card when I put it back in the camera. The camera did not recognize the two other smartmedia cards I had -- and both of those were made by Olympus. I figured the problem might be with the camera rather than the cards so used the alcohol/swab approach and while still damp used the insert/reinsert into camera thought -- thinking that might clean the contacts in the camera. I now have all 3 smartmedia cards working in the camera. So for me probable cause was dirty camera contacts. But in the future I will use the camera itself for downloading and deleting... | ||
| Bob Doug |
I have read many of these and although I was unable to find a solution here, I thought I'd post what worked for me. Formatted it with Win 98 - worked when Win XP's format wouldn't. Good luck | ||
| Bob Doug |
Oops! Sorry, ignore the message directly above. It turned out that a different card reader I used was responsible for allowing me to reformat the card. Worked in both 98 and XP | ||
| David |
I just wanted to share my experience in solving my own "CARD ERROR" problem on my Olympus D-510. This was only helpful in correcting the card error problem. If you have pictures you want to recover, do NOT attempt this, it'll destroy the pictures. I used this piece of Chinese software to repair my SMC. http://www.szbroad.com/drivers/FLASHDOCTOR.EXE When I first tried it, I got an error. I used the following tool to test and wipe clean the card. http://www.datarescue.com/photorescue/freefiles/cw103.zip After that, I used flashdoctor again, and it correctly fixed my card to a working state. Again, if you have pictures that you want to recover, do not try this method. | ||
| David |
One more thing I should note, this was done using a generic memory card reader. I can only speculate that it would work with other readers. I tried several other methods I've seen posted on various forums, but this was the only one that worked for me. Hope this helps someone out there. | ||
| Igor |
I've got the same problem - 'Card Error' message in my Fujifilm camera. Formatting in WinXP doesn't helps. Such software as FlashDoctor, Smprep, smformat display's error, maybe because I use default driver for Card reader. But I can't find original Gembird card reader driver. Is there any other software to format my SmartMedia card that don't need card reader drivers. | ||
| Terry Greenwood (Greenwood) |
You could try the formatter from HP. Go to www.hp.com and select Software and Driver Downloads. In the search box type 'Drive Key' then select the first item, then Windows 2000 and download the Windows based Format Utility. It works on XP as well and I have formatted USB drives, SD cards and Compact Flash with it - and it's free ! Why not treat yourself to a new USB2 multi-card reader - in the UK they can be bought for about £12. | ||
| Igor |
Your 'Drive Key' didn't helped Terry. I think I have to format it with low-level formatter that would destroy the CIS. I'm not sure new card reader will help me. Maybe you've got other ideas? | ||
| Terry Greenwood (Greenwood) |
I am not sure if you can do a low level format on a memory card. On a floppy or hard disk, a low level format will rewrite where the sectors are. I don't think you can apply this to a chunk of solid state memory. Anyone got any info that would help ? | ||
| Igor |
Look, after a month solving this problem I fixed my 8Mb SmartMedia card using Low_Level_Format.exe. When formatting it showed some errors but when I plugged the card to my Fujifilm camera it worked! I put this utility to http://anysite.h16.ru Write me on usualbox@mail.ru if that helped you. | ||
| Rafael Zanatta |
I have a 512mb SD card Super High Speed.I used it in my printer/card reader HP photosmart 7762 to put some pictures in my pc. After that I tried to use the card again in my camera and a message saying it couldn't recognise the card was showing. I tried to use the card in the printer again and a message Card Access Error started. I tried another card reader but nothng can indentify my SD card.It is impossible to format the card because i don't have access to it. Can anyone help me? | ||
| Jon Martin Username: jonmartin Registered: N/A |
More on Low_Level_Format.exe Available from http://anysite.h16.ru or http://home.earthlink.net/~donziroc/software/Low_Level_Format.exe The program is compatible with readers with these ID's. Vid_058f&Pid_6360 Vid_058f&Pid_6361 Vid_058f&Pid_6362 Vid_058f&Pid_6366 Vid_058f&Pid_6369 Vid_058f&Pid_9360 Vid_058f&Pid_9361 Vid_058f&Pid_9362 Vid_058f&Pid_9368 Vid_058f&Pid_9369 For more on how to find your readers ID check here: http://www.hjreggel.net/cardspeed/info-readerid.html For a list of some readers with these IDs check here: http://www.hjreggel.net/cardspeed/speed-readers.html | ||
| Phil Lamb Username: pinkyl1 Registered: N/A |
I have a Fujifilm 4700 with smartmedia cards, I bought a new card reader made by GGI and uploaded my pictures, after that when I put the cards back in the camera I get the CARD ERROR message, I tried formatting them on the camera and it will not format them, I formatted them on the computer on both Fat and Fat32 with no positive results, I called GGI to see if they have a utility to repair the SM cards but they never heard of this problem, I then called Fuji to see if there is a download for the firmware and they said that they don't make or support SM cards for 3 years already, I found a site claiming a $6 Norazza card slot cleaner will repair the camera and be able to read all the cards but I don't want to waste more time on it since I don't see anybody here writing about it. I read this board and tried all the solutions and hope that someone can help me. Thanks. | ||
| Rob Duthie Username: robdut Registered: N/A |
I have found flash doctor worked ok for this smartmedia error problems. Posted on Thursday, Nov 3, 2005 - 03:06: I just wanted to share my experience in solving my own "CARD ERROR" problem on my Olympus D-510. This was only helpful in correcting the card error problem. If you have pictures you want to recover, do NOT attempt this, it'll destroy the pictures. I used this piece of Chinese software to repair my SMC. http://www.szbroad.com/drivers/FLASHDOCTOR.EXE When I first tried it, I got an error. I used the following tool to test and wipe clean the card. After that, I used flashdoctor again, and it correctly fixed my card to a working state. Again, if you have pictures that you want to recover, do not try this method | ||
| virgil Username: presidio Registered: N/A |
Hi, I am trying to instal Flash doctor from the link you provided but I get the following error: "Please plugin the specific reader" What reader do I need? How can I get it? Many thanks. | ||
| Trudi Neiverth Username: trudijane Registered: N/A |
Hi, I wonder if someone could help me out. I have a camedia digital camera C3020 Zoom. My computer is a Mac which was just upgraded by my computer consultant, temporarily unavailable, to OS 10.4 while he was replacing my DVD drive which stopped working. I have used Zio Smart Card with metal side down (right?). Today I had to take a bunch of pictures. The camera took them fine. When I put the card in the Zio (64 MB), which is attached to the back of my keyboard, the icon that contained the pictures did not come up. In the past, sometimes that happened and if I jiggled the card, or pulled the card out and in, it would suddenly show up, so I did that. I did alot of things that might bring it into view. Then I got a message (which I only remember part of). It said, USB is full or something like that, if ....don't remember, applications will be inactivated. It may had read otherwise. I pressed OK - and nothing happened really that I could see. One thing I did was go to the finder to find all sources of Zio. The only one that came up was Zio with an AOL Icon as its source. I used to have AOL, and probably downloaded it then. But I use firefox as a browser now, and nothing came up. I restarted, the only thing I thought of doing was putting the USB port directly into the computer, but I don't know. So, I don't know what's wrong? Very recently, my computer guy suggested I might get more RAM (not for this), and he also said that my computer may last another 2 years because I get these symbols that are not supposed to be there and he says it is an indication that my computer may be failing. I don't have it that long! It's an iMac and I love it. Please help? Thanks, Trudi | ||
| Richard Rodriguez Username: rorick Registered: N/A |
Hey if this help any one. I was able to fix my card with a program called:Low_Level_Format.exe, a SD card low level format utility. I had an Olympus D-510 Zoom with a "Card Error" message, it got fix. I don't have a place to upload the file, but if someone need it, I can pu it on attach e-mail. | ||
| rachel moore Username: rachie89 Registered: N/A |
Hey if anyone could help me i would be soooo grateful! Basically I have a fujifilm finepix6900zoom digital camera which takes a smart media card, im currently having problems accessing the memory card through an external card reader however can see the pictures when viewing them on the camera, however, whilst on the camera the message 'card error' is repeated on some of the photos meaning i am unable to delete some pictures on the camera!! I really really really need these photos and have not backed them up so formatting my card is not an option i really need some help in getting the pictures off the card and on to my pc!! help me please!! | ||
| John Nguyen Username: skid Registered: N/A |
Hi i've got a 64mb smartmedia card and it keeps giving me "write protection error" everytime i try to format it using my Fujifilm DPC-R1 card reader/writer. I don't have a camera that takes smartmedia cards so i can't format using any. The problem is that the card is not write proctected at all, theres no sticker on the circle part so i'm not sure what is wrong. If anyone can help me out that would be great. | ||
| John Ahearne Username: jahearne Registered: N/A |
Do a search for "digital media recovery" and try software designed for photo recovery from flash media. Some cameras use a propietary format other than jpegs. | ||
| Mauricio G. Username: maitoga Registered: N/A |
Have you tryed making a backup of the card using x-ways? if you have x-ways forensics, do this, have worked for me before plug in your card using a card reader, open x-ways, then open your disk, and then use the option in "FILE" then click "make a backup copy", use this option "make raw image (.dd, .001, interpretable and splittable ", choose a path where save the file and hit ok. when finished just open the file, "file" - "open" and try to recover directly from backup. hope can help you | ||
| David Partridge Username: davidpartridge Registered: N/A |
Was getting "card protected" message with smart media card although I had never write protected the card - same message on a new card. So I applied the write protect sticker,still getting error message,removed sticker, and everything is back to normal with both cards,worth a try. | ||
| Mary Olson Username: jazzmine54868 Registered: N/A |
I have a Olympus D-360L. I have had my smart cards in a protected sleeve. I have two cards. I used both in my pc and one was fine, the other nothing showed on it. Then i put it back in the Olympus camera and it said card error. How can i get the data from the card. I havent abused the cards, and have taken great care with them. Please help me. thanks jazzmine54868 | ||
| Don Camillo Username: willybilly Registered: N/A |
If you have winhex, take the card which shows nothing, insert it at the computer and start winhex. Then add physical medium (if the card is shown) -> if not, bad luck. Then go to specialist - RVS and try to find the pictures. Then mark them and copy them on your HD by the context menu. |