Canon HF200 - Flash Card Failure - Help

[mikeyman13]

I was hoping to never start a thread with this question.

"I believe my flash card has failed and I am not sure what to do. Any guidance before re-initializing?"

I took about 45 min of footage of my six-month-old and when I turned on my camera to import the video into iMovie '09 I got a message on the camera that said "Check the memory card!" I have tried everything I know how to do, but I am not getting any results. Even when I use the USB reader, nothing is appearing on my desktop.

When I was looking at which SDHC card to buy, the thing I often noticed bringing down the ratings were the few individuals who rated the card with 1 start due to its failure. I never thought it would happen to me.

Any thoughts on how to recover this information would be much appreciated. I am very much new at all of this, so feel free to state the obvious if I am not doing something correctly.

- Mike

 

[jampat]

I was hoping to never start a thread with this question.

"I believe my flash card has failed and I am not sure what to do. Any guidance before re-initializing?"

I took about 45 min of footage of my six-month-old and when I turned on my camera to import the video into iMovie '09 I got a message on the camera that said "Check the memory card!" I have tried everything I know how to do, but I am not getting any results. Even when I use the USB reader, nothing is appearing on my desktop.

When I was looking at which SDHC card to buy, the thing I often noticed bringing down the ratings were the few individuals who rated the card with 1 start due to its failure. I never thought it would happen to me.

Any thoughts on how to recover this information would be much appreciated. I am very much new at all of this, so feel free to state the obvious if I am not doing something correctly.

- Mike

You could try the card in a different card reader and see if that can read it (but chances are slim). If you really care about the footage, a data recovery company such as CBL data recovery can likely recover the footage, but it will cost you (the last hard drive recovery cost me ~$2000).

In any case, never use the card again, buy another one. If the card is newish, warranty may give you a new one. If it has failed once, it will fail again (and maybe lose something even more important next time).

 

[mikeyman13]

Thanks. I won't be using it again. It is going into a digital picture frame - what a shame. I just found it puzzling how there was no icon appearing on the desktop after I tried putting in the USB card reader. Do I have to actually "navigate" my way to the chip (let's say I wanted to initialize it on my iMac) or is my iMac supposed to automatically recognize it?

 

[spice weasel]

Thanks. I won't be using it again. It is going into a digital picture frame - what a shame. I just found it puzzling how there was no icon appearing on the desktop after I tried putting in the USB card reader. Do I have to actually "navigate" my way to the chip (let's say I wanted to initialize it on my iMac) or is my iMac supposed to automatically recognize it?

Your Mac should automatically recognize it and mount it to the desktop. The fact that it doesn't is a bad sign. Some card readers can be iffy and give you problems, but the fact that you tried importing your video directly from your camera as well as from a card reader means - as you suspect - that your card is toast.