"Writing to memory card was not completed correctly. Recover data?" A99 data corruption w/ SD cards

[Guilbault]

Anyone else get this error? "Writing to the memory card was not completed correctly. Recover data? Slot 1"

I get it with both of my SD cards. Ironically they're Sony UHS-1 cards. I'd figure the Sony cards would be more compatible. The camera asks me to "recover data". Whether I recover or not I get significant data loss amongst the most recent shots.

This begins to happen after a couple minutes of using the camera. Shooting bursts seems to trigger it faster, but it happens no matter what.

 

[Cyberman]

Are you absolutely sure they are genuine Sony cards?

Have you reformatted the cards on your camera?

 

[Guilbault]

Cyberman wrote:

Are you absolutely sure they are genuine Sony cards?

Have you reformatted the cards on your camera?

1) Sony cards from Adorama.

2) Yep, and on my computer. Either way I get the error.

Has anyone had success with __ANY__ 64GB UHS-1 SDXC cards in the A99?

Or is there an incompatibility with the Sony cards maybe? (Ironic I know. But let's be honest --different parts of Sony don't exactly work together...)

 

[tqlla]

Guilbault wrote:

Cyberman wrote:

Are you absolutely sure they are genuine Sony cards?

Have you reformatted the cards on your camera?

1) Sony cards from Adorama.

2) Yep, and on my computer. Either way I get the error.

Has anyone had success with __ANY__ 64GB UHS-1 SDXC cards in the A99?

Or is there an incompatibility with the Sony cards maybe? (Ironic I know. But let's be honest --different parts of Sony don't exactly work together...)

Yikes, thats a bummer. So after you get the error on your A99, your computer cant see the files?

IMO, Sandisk is the ONLY way to go. I had problems with Kingston CF cards, and even my new Monster 800X CF 64gb card on my A850 is much slower than my Sandisk Extreme 16GB CF card.

 

[Guilbault]

tqlla wrote:

Guilbault wrote:

Cyberman wrote:

Are you absolutely sure they are genuine Sony cards?

Have you reformatted the cards on your camera?

1) Sony cards from Adorama.

2) Yep, and on my computer. Either way I get the error.

Has anyone had success with __ANY__ 64GB UHS-1 SDXC cards in the A99?

Or is there an incompatibility with the Sony cards maybe? (Ironic I know. But let's be honest --different parts of Sony don't exactly work together...)

Yikes, thats a bummer. So after you get the error on your A99, your computer cant see the files?

IMO, Sandisk is the ONLY way to go. I had problems with Kingston CF cards, and even my new Monster 800X CF 64gb card on my A850 is much slower than my Sandisk Extreme 16GB CF card.

Neither the camera OR the computer can see all the files. They didn't get written properly . Some make it, some don't. The faster I'm shooting, the more I lose when it goes down. Definite bummer. The A99 seemed to work fine with an old 16GB Transcend I had, but I'm going to retest it later.

Also, I can trigger it quickly 100% of the time by filling the buffer. If I shoot more slowly it happens randomly, but the longer I shoot the more inevitable the crash gets. I can shoot occasionally for 30 minutes before it crashes sometimes, but it always crashes. If I power cycle the camera, images written before the power cycle are okay, but anything after is fair game for data loss when it next goes down.

And it really CRASHES. The camera seems to power cycle. The lens focus position resets to infinity and the viewfinder and back LCD cut out --just like I'd quickly powered it off and then on again. I've informed Sony technical support. I hope it's not all UHS-1 cards. With this camera's mid-range buffer, I really want to be able to use the fastest cards available...




Considering BOTH cards I have exhibit this behaviour, I'd suggest Sony A99 owners avoid Sony's 64GB UHS-1 .

It's worth mentioning that these cards are the only ones available with identical specs to Sandisk's top of the line UHS-1 SDXC cards. I think they may be rebranded Sandisk parts... So test the Sandisk's before you depend on them... If I replace these though, I'm going to try the Sandisk 64GB UHS-1 SDXC cards, the 95 MB/s version that's like my Sony's. We'll see if they work.

 

[Guilbault]

To make sure it's not something to do with the lense, I've now tried:

1) Zeiss 16-35mm f/2.8

2) Sigma 50-500mm f/4.5-6.3

3) Sigma 85mm f/1.4

Same thing happens with the Zeiss as with the Sigma's so for once it's not Sigma's fault...

 

[Guilbault]

One nice thing, though: Sony emailed me back in 5 minutes about the issue. After answering a couple questions I've been upgraded to product specialists/engineers. I didn't have to argue or pester, the tech just got the information he needed, and then basically upgraded my case right away.

I've never had technical support this quick and helpful from any company, period. I've owned Canon gear for five years, and Nikon for three years before that.

That said, I have a feeling they aren't going to be able to fix this and I'm going to have to return stuff due to some sort of incompatibility.

 

[OntarioJohn]

Guilbault wrote:

One nice thing, though: Sony emailed me back in 5 minutes about the issue. After answering a couple questions I've been upgraded to product specialists/engineers. I didn't have to argue or pester, the tech just got the information he needed, and then basically upgraded my case right away.

I've never had technical support this quick and helpful from any company, period. I've owned Canon gear for five years, and Nikon for three years before that.

That said, I have a feeling they aren't going to be able to fix this and I'm going to have to return stuff due to some sort of incompatibility.

I have 22 cards, 8 to 32 gb. And an A99. That said, though I shoot birds I have no need to fire so fast as to fill the buffer. New cards at best buy today had varying speeds ye high speed ones were expensive bit claimed to fly like F1 cars.

 

[tqlla]

I am glad they were quick to repsond. I doubt the sony cards are rebranded Sandisk, since I am sure Sony has assembly lines for memory cards(Memory stick)

If you can return the Sony cards, I would do that, and then buy the Sandisk cards. I wish they just used CF cards in the A99

 

[Greg Beetham]

Guilbault wrote:

One nice thing, though: Sony emailed me back in 5 minutes about the issue. After answering a couple questions I've been upgraded to product specialists/engineers. I didn't have to argue or pester, the tech just got the information he needed, and then basically upgraded my case right away.

I've never had technical support this quick and helpful from any company, period. I've owned Canon gear for five years, and Nikon for three years before that.

That said, I have a feeling they aren't going to be able to fix this and I'm going to have to return stuff due to some sort of incompatibility.

I thought FAT32 had a drive size/partition limit of 32GB, that’s if Sony is still using FAT32 in the A99 of course, there is the possibility that they are using a tool or add-on that permits formatting a volume to a greater size than 32GB, but then there is the possibility that the allocation units will increase in size so much that the end result is a huge waste of volume space.

Greg

 

[Kilrah]

64GB cards come formatted by default in ExFAT, And Sony cameras have supproted it for quite some time already. The 2 32GB cards I use with my A77 are formatted in ExFAT (because I sometimes happen to use them to transfer files between computers too, and this gets rid of the 4GB file size limit).

 

[Greg Beetham]

Kilrah wrote:

64GB cards come formatted by default in ExFAT, And Sony cameras have supproted it for quite some time already. The 2 32GB cards I use with my A77 are formatted in ExFAT (because I sometimes happen to use them to transfer files between computers too, and this gets rid of the 4GB file size limit).

 

[newvusa]

Hi Guilbault,

I was just browsing around and found this topic. Try using an MS Pro Duo and if it works,you have the same or similar problem that I had with my A77. It works on MS not SD cards. The camera would just froze after shooting in burst mode and gets the same error message. No resetting would fix it. I tried different SD (UHS-1) cards namely : Sandisk UHS-1 95mb/s, Delkin UHS-1 95mb/s, Sony UHS-1 94 mb/s but to no avail, all failed. In the end, i sent my camera for repair to Sony and have it back in 10 days, fixed and working as it should be. As for my A99 it's so far doing good but I may have to test it out in burst mode, though. Bye now, back to work!




Newvusa

 

[floz]

Exactly same issue here. My new A99 corrupted a good few of my holiday snaps. Burst mode seems to be the issue. I've been using a Sandisk Extreme Pro 16 GB 95 MB/S card.

Have used the command line tool "photorec" to recover some stuff, but loads of images seem to be "overlapping", i.e. one "image" (file) actually contains parts of multiple images, and some images have large parts with a very strong magenta tint (looks like some color channel is missing).

Any progress with this with Sony?

Cheers!

 

[Ed at Ridersite]

Guilbault wrote:

Anyone else get this error? "Writing to the memory card was not completed correctly. Recover data? Slot 1"

I get it with both of my SD cards. Ironically they're Sony UHS-1 cards. I'd figure the Sony cards would be more compatible. The camera asks me to "recover data". Whether I recover or not I get significant data loss amongst the most recent shots.

This begins to happen after a couple minutes of using the camera. Shooting bursts seems to trigger it faster, but it happens no matter what.

I have been having some problems with the Sony 32MB 94MB/s USH-1 cards. I have used a Sandisk 16MB 95MB/s USH-1 card for several months in my A-77 w/o issues. However, my Win-7 desktop's card reader does not recognize the Sony cards, nor does it recognize the cards when I use the Sony supplied USB cable connected to the A-77.




Both 32MB cards work fine in the camera, it's just when trying to read them with my Win-7 desktop. The Sony 32MB cards are readable using my Win XP netbook card reader. And, I can transfer my images to the netbook and then to my desktop, but that's a pain. I may send the Sony cards back. Otherwise, I'll just use them as emergency backup cards.

 

[busch]

Ed at Ridersite wrote:

Both 32MB cards work fine in the camera, it's just when trying to read them with my Win-7 desktop. The Sony 32MB cards are readable using my Win XP netbook card reader. And, I can transfer my images to the netbook and then to my desktop, but that's a pain. I may send the Sony cards back. Otherwise, I'll just use them as emergency backup cards.

That's strange, Ed! They work fine in both of my desktops (XP & Win7).

 

[Ed at Ridersite]

busch wrote:

Ed at Ridersite wrote:

Both 32MB cards work fine in the camera, it's just when trying to read them with my Win-7 desktop. The Sony 32MB cards are readable using my Win XP netbook card reader. And, I can transfer my images to the netbook and then to my desktop, but that's a pain. I may send the Sony cards back. Otherwise, I'll just use them as emergency backup cards.

That's strange, Ed! They work fine in both of my desktops (XP & Win7).

It may be something to do with my Win-7 USB drivers. I thought they were the most current, but I had Dell replace the bad card reader recently, so maybe there is an issue there.

 

[rob asnong]

I bought a Sony U-1 94 MB/s 16 GB too for my A99. Corrupted after 20 shots (formatted in the camera).

Tried the Sony recovery software (downloaded from their website). After that the card was total unusable, did nothing anymore. Took it back to the Sony retailer store. They immediately tested the card, no life sign anymore. They gave me another card. Till now no problems with that card after 1500 shots. So, it seems there is some hidden problem with those cards.

Rob

www.picasaweb.google.be/alphamember

 

[Greg Beetham]

rob asnong wrote:

I bought a Sony U-1 94 MB/s 16 GB too for my A99. Corrupted after 20 shots (formatted in the camera).

Tried the Sony recovery software (downloaded from their website). After that the card was total unusable, did nothing anymore. Took it back to the Sony retailer store. They immediately tested the card, no life sign anymore. They gave me another card. Till now no problems with that card after 1500 shots. So, it seems there is some hidden problem with those cards.

Rob

www.picasaweb.google.be/alphamember

Like I was saying, apparently Linux has/had compatibility issues with exfat, I don’t know if whoever did the programming in Linux for the A99 firmware did their sums properly, or got the necessary exfat specifications from Microsoft by paying the licence fees because apparently it’s almost impossible to reverse engineer without transgressing patents or making something that doesn’t work properly if you try. Read the section here under ‘disadvantages’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT of course they might have actually got a licence and did the necessary work to enable exfat compatibility in Linux and it might just need a few tweaks or bug sorting.

Although if the camera can't format the card properly it sounds like a fairly serious issue.

http://www.sony.net/products/linux is apparently where you go to get the source code for the camera os.

Greg

 

[Guilbault]

tqlla wrote:

If you can return the Sony cards, I would do that, and then buy the Sandisk cards. I wish they just used CF cards in the A99

It seems like all ~95 MB/s cards, whether Sandisk, Lexar, or Sony all exhibit the problem...