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FZ50 files unreadable problem...

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tomoc

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Hi folks-

Hope someone has had this problem and solved it...

I recently shot about 50 images, copied them to my pc and continued shooting on the same card...shot another 50ish and when I moved them all to the pc, I was not able to open the files with any application. Photoshop, any jpg view or slikypix. Most give an "unrecognized format" error.

I've since formatted the card and now have no problems with the new files, but a few of the ones from the prior shoot I would like to recover.

All the files seem to be the right size. There are no .spi file with them as there seemed to be with many earlier files (but there seem to be no .spi files with any I have shot since either).

any suggestions greatly appreciated.

cheers,

Tom O'Connell

(other than that I love this camera... I only shoot low ISO and for me all the noise complaints are off the mark...it is a great second camera to my D2x.

--
Tom O'Connell
 
tomoc said:
Hi folks-

Hope someone has had this problem and solved it...

I recently shot about 50 images, copied them to my pc and continued
shooting on the same card...shot another 50ish and when I moved
them all to the pc, I was not able to open the files with any
application. Photoshop, any jpg view or slikypix. Most give an
"unrecognized format" error.

I've since formatted the card and now have no problems with the new
files, but a few of the ones from the prior shoot I would like to
recover.

All the files seem to be the right size. There are no .spi file
with them as there seemed to be with many earlier files (but there
seem to be no .spi files with any I have shot since either).

any suggestions greatly appreciated.

cheers,

Tom O'Connell

(other than that I love this camera... I only shoot low ISO and for
me all the noise complaints are off the mark...it is a great second
camera to my D2x.

--
Tom O'Connell
Click to expand...
Were they shot in raw or jpg?
 
If you reformatted the card, they're probably history.

There are Undelete programs that might help you recover the shots, but probably not at this point. I've used Active Undelete on my PC's hard drive with excellent results, but never tried it on an SD card.

I'm taking a wild guess here, but I'm wondering if the second set of photos ended up in a different folder, and the Panasonic software couldn't figure it out. I always remove my SD card and use a Sandisk media reader ($20, the size of a USB flash drive) and never had a problem.

Normally, PhotoShop Elements "sees" this card reader as a drive as soon as I plug it in, and it imports the files. But if that didn't work (or I'm at a friend's PC) I can see all the files in their respective folders via Windows Explorer.

Good luck!
 
Before I reformatted the card, I moved all the files to my pc.

After they were unreadable, I used photorescue to try to recover everything I could on this card, but the files I wanted were not recovered, so I reformatted and began using the card again.

I have the files that are unreadable...they are identical (both the raw and jpg) to any other files in size and when I try opening them with photoshop, the raw ones give a black background with some white snow... the siliypix software only gives an error message.

The impression I get is something very similar to what happened when I tried to convert them with Photoshop ACR before they supported the FZ50...

--
Tom O'Connell
 
tomoc said:
Before I reformatted the card, I moved all the files to my pc.

After they were unreadable, I used photorescue to try to recover
everything I could on this card, but the files I wanted were not
recovered, so I reformatted and began using the card again.

I have the files that are unreadable...they are identical (both the
raw and jpg) to any other files in size and when I try opening them
with photoshop, the raw ones give a black background with some
white snow... the siliypix software only gives an error message.

The impression I get is something very similar to what happened
when I tried to convert them with Photoshop ACR before they
supported the FZ50...

--
Tom O'Connell
Click to expand...
If you have shot them in raw, there will be a jpg image associated with that. Do you find them.

If not you can try this. Just copy those unreadable files which are around 4mb files(raw is generally 20 mb approx) into another location so that you dont lose out on originals and try changing their file extension to .jpg and see. Just a thought.
May be you can try bibble . Might just open.
Regards,
Bishan
 
Try reading them with some other reader, like IrfanView. It's possible that it's just the header that's corrupted. Weird. Anything else to indicated something out of the norm. Did you fill the card to the brim or was there empty space yet?
 
tomoc said:
application. Photoshop, any jpg view or slikypix. Most give an
"unrecognized format" error.
Click to expand...
Which versions of software are you using?

To use Photoshop you need CS2 and the most recent raw plug in. As to Silkipix, you need the version that came with the camera.

Olga
 
mkochsch said:
Try reading them with some other reader, like IrfanView. It's
possible that it's just the header that's corrupted. Weird.
Anything else to indicated something out of the norm. Did you fill
the card to the brim or was there empty space yet?
Click to expand...
tomoc, Sorry our suggestions haven't helped. I think mkochsch's suggestion of trying to open with another editor is the best you can do at this point, though I haven't found Irfanview was able to open files that others couldn't read, more often the reverse.

On mkochsch's question about filling the card to the brim, I just read the other day about this possibility. You get the card almost full and the camera estimates that there's room for one more shot. But it doesn't take into account the actual details of the shot, so when it tries to write that last shot to the memory card, POOF! They're all trash. Kelby suggested leaving a shot or two space on the card just in case.

Still won't help you now, but maybe in the future?

Slightly off-topic but I can't recommend this $12 book enough. Short but very useful. I plan to get 3 copies for Christmas presents for my photography friends!

The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby

At Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Photography-Book-Scott-Kelby/dp/032147404X/sr=8-1/qid=1161362282/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-5545973-7839938?ie=UTF8

Good luck.
 
I had the same problem detailed here and my solution.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1033&message=20547456

I suspect that if a user takes the card out of the camera, and uses a card reader with Windows Cut and Paste, then reuses the card without formating it again in the camera, it may become unstable. I tried everything to recover the files that I could think of (I was in a hotel room) without any luck. I used other cards until I got home and then put the locked "bad" card in the camera, connected the USB cable and I was able to get my pictures. Unlocked the card, reformatted the card in the camera, and everyhting appears to be ok now.

I doubt you may be able to recover those pictures, but good luck. I'm now carrying my USB cable as a backup in my gadget bag.
 
mkochsch said:
Try reading them with some other reader, like IrfanView. It's
possible that it's just the header that's corrupted. Weird.
Anything else to indicated something out of the norm. Did you fill
the card to the brim or was there empty space yet?
Click to expand...
It won't resolve with any readers I have. I did fill the card to the brim.

--
Tom O'Connell
 
Olga-

Thanks... I'm using CS2 with latest ACR and sily that came with camera.. they both worked before and since on all files except these 20 or so.

tom
Olga Johnson said:
tomoc said:
application. Photoshop, any jpg view or slikypix. Most give an
"unrecognized format" error.
Click to expand...
Which versions of software are you using?

To use Photoshop you need CS2 and the most recent raw plug in. As
to Silkipix, you need the version that came with the camera.

Olga
Click to expand...
--
Tom O'Connell
 
stews said:
mkochsch said:
Try reading them with some other reader, like IrfanView. It's
possible that it's just the header that's corrupted. Weird.
Anything else to indicated something out of the norm. Did you fill
the card to the brim or was there empty space yet?
Click to expand...
tomoc, Sorry our suggestions haven't helped. I think mkochsch's
suggestion of trying to open with another editor is the best you
can do at this point, though I haven't found Irfanview was able to
open files that others couldn't read, more often the reverse.

On mkochsch's question about filling the card to the brim, I just
read the other day about this possibility. You get the card almost
full and the camera estimates that there's room for one more shot.
But it doesn't take into account the actual details of the shot, so
when it tries to write that last shot to the memory card, POOF!
They're all trash. Kelby suggested leaving a shot or two space on
the card just in case.

Still won't help you now, but maybe in the future?

Slightly off-topic but I can't recommend this $12 book enough.
Short but very useful. I plan to get 3 copies for Christmas
presents for my photography friends!

The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby

At Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Photography-Book-Scott-Kelby/dp/032147404X/sr=8-1/qid=1161362282/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-5545973-7839938?ie=UTF8

Good luck.
Click to expand...
Wow... that is really scary and a topic we should take up with Lumix tech support (I have written them about this problem and have not heard back yet... I did not mention that I filled the card because I never thought of that as an issue).

This HAS to be something they can fix with a firmware upgrade if that is happening... I would often shoot to the end of a card with any camera I'm using... I don't necessarily look at the number remaining that carefullly...though until I test this fully, I surely will .

thanks for the tip and the tip on the book. I'm a NAPP member (really a worthwhile membership... I get the cost back every year by using the member deal to get free shipping from B&H).

cheers,

tom

--
Tom O'Connell
 
drewmcdan1 said:
I had the same problem detailed here and my solution.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1033&message=20547456
I suspect that if a user takes the card out of the camera, and uses
a card reader with Windows Cut and Paste, then reuses the card
without formating it again in the camera, it may become unstable.
I tried everything to recover the files that I could think of (I
was in a hotel room) without any luck. I used other cards until I
got home and then put the locked "bad" card in the camera,
connected the USB cable and I was able to get my pictures.
Unlocked the card, reformatted the card in the camera, and
everyhting appears to be ok now.

I doubt you may be able to recover those pictures, but good luck.
I'm now carrying my USB cable as a backup in my gadget bag.
Click to expand...
thanks... I've already transferred the files, but I can't read them.

My card, by the way, is Lexar 2 gig platinum.

cheers,

tom

--
Tom O'Connell
 
Go to the Panasonic site and report this as a bug. They have a support area for filing complaints. See if they act on the request. This is a huge issue.
 
I have written to panasonic... but in the meantime, I have another case of the same problem... files not readable by CS2 or viewers...

this one was caused by an inadvertant reboot during transfer... the pc shut down and that apparently corrupted one file...ok.. but none of the files after it are readable either... (the corrupted one actually opened with about half an image).

this is really weird.

It looks like the problem has nothing to do with a full card. this card was only half full.
--
Tom O'Connell
 
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