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LX3/D-LUX4: Folder/Pic reset ... DON'T

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stefaan

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Do that wrong as I did.
Tried that with my D-LUX4.
I forgot to one important thing and lost card content because of it.

Imagine if you shoot on a long journey with only ONE 32GB SDHC card and it can no be read in any card reader.

I had some serious problems because I forgot to -as a final step- to RE-FORMAT before shooting pictures.

I ended up with an SDHC card that could not be read in any card reader. I always got the message: ‘format card’ and could not extract content that way !

How I think re-numbering FOLDER and/or PICS should be done:

All to be performed in-camera:
1. (re)format SDHC card
2. reset folder and/or picture number
3. reformat SDHC card AGAIN

That was the only way to get it working again (but I lost the content).
 
I'm a bit confused here...

But were you using SDHC compatible readers? Cause it too me a bit to realize my reader was only SD compliant, not SDHC lol.
 
If the camera read the card why didn't you just use the supplied USB cable in the camera so u can use that as the card reader to download those shots then reformat the card?
stefaan said:
Do that wrong as I did.
Tried that with my D-LUX4.
I forgot to one important thing and lost card content because of it.
Imagine if you shoot on a long journey with only ONE 32GB SDHC card
and it can no be read in any card reader.

I had some serious problems because I forgot to -as a final step- to
RE-FORMAT before shooting pictures.

I ended up with an SDHC card that could not be read in any card
reader. I always got the message: ‘format card’ and could not extract
content that way !

How I think re-numbering FOLDER and/or PICS should be done:

All to be performed in-camera:
1. (re)format SDHC card
2. reset folder and/or picture number
3. reformat SDHC card AGAIN

That was the only way to get it working again (but I lost the content).

--
Click to expand...
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/k-blad/
 
I did not use the special cable because these were (luckily) some test shots.

I have always used that reader with the SDHC 16GB Sandisk card, without any problem.

I am 100% sure this has to do with the fact that I have reset the folder+file numbering without re-formatting afterwards.
Strange thing is :
  • the card could no longer be recognized by the SDHC reader and this until I re-formatted the card again in the camera !
  • however the card could be read/recognized, including the JPGs and MOVs on it, by the camera.
This means something has gone wrong by resetting the numbers without reformatting afterwards !?
What I also read in the D-LUX4 UK manual (page 73) is following:
"When there are 1000 or more pictures on a card, they may not be imported".

With 16 and 32GB cards that is a serious problem, is it not (or what does it mean exactly) ?
-
 
Brad Morris said:
I doubt that it was folder naming, more of a corruption issue of the
formatting of the card. The reformat should resolve it going forward.
Click to expand...
Agreed
Brad Morris said:
It is always best practice to format the card in the camera, not in
your PC reader
Click to expand...
Generally sound advice, but sometimes the free Pansonic SD Formatter (PC only) can solve problems with cards that are beyond the ability of the in-camera formatter. I've had cards that the camera wouldn't read or format due to some corruption that worked perfectly after reformatting with the Panasonic program. I probably wouldn't worry these days of cheap memory but when SDHC was new it was far too expensive to just throw away.

It is however true to say you should never use Windows built-in formatter to format a SD(HC) card without re-formatting again in the camera before use.

--
John Bean [GMT]

 
posed it but you need to read more carefully. Both manuals, Leica and Panny (P. 158) clearly say the same thing...the limit being discussed is when the camera is connected to the computer using the PTP mode. It's that simple. I doubt if anyone on these forum uses that kind of connection.
 
All this begs me to ask a simple question. How often should you reformat your cards? After each download and before new shooting?
--
MountainZen
 
MountainZen said:
All this begs me to ask a simple question. How often should you
reformat your cards? After each download and before new shooting?
Click to expand...
Whenever. Never. Up to you ;-)

If you don't mess with the card in a PC (including deleting files) then it's unlikely you'll ever need to reformat a card, but on the other hand it takes but seconds, is harmless even when it's unnecessary, can save hassle later, ... (list goes on) so I format routinely after downloading ready for the next session rather than just deleting all the images.

--
John Bean [GMT]

 
It's just my opinion, but i believe that when the card is attached to anything other than my camera, it is then that it is most vulnerable to corruption. So after I load pictures into my PC from the card I routinely format the card in the camera - not in the PC. Ready to go again. :-)
DP Review - Where else?



Old Jim ;-)
 
old jim said:
It's just my opinion, but i believe that when the card is attached to
anything other than my camera, it is then that it is most vulnerable
to corruption. So after I load pictures into my PC from the card I
routinely format the card in the camera - not in the PC. Ready to go
again. :-)
Click to expand...
That's exactly what I meant Jim - never format on a PC (unless you need to use the Panasonic SD Formatter program to fix some problem) and always format in the camera.

--
John Bean [GMT]

 
Try http://www.goto.onlinehome.de/dsc/jpegdump.htm

I have used it a couple of times (dont ask...). It can and does recover pictures that were taken over 2 years ago - and I've formatted the card many times since.

(This was with a Kodak P880 - have just bought an LX3, hence stumbling across this thread. I've no doubt jpegdump will recover your pictures though unless the physical location on the card has been already overwritten. It reads the entire card as a raw sequence of bytes and then looks for every valid JPEG sequence. In other words the file system in use, nor the directory tree, are irrelevant.)

Good luck.

Tim.
 
Thx for that link to recover photos.
Greatly appreciated.
Now the photos I lost were trials.

I feared something could happen when I used the folder/img renumbering feature and take pictures after that.
I'll dl and give it a try.
 
Ooops. That last line should have read "Neither the file system in use nor directory tree are relevant".

-- Tim.
 
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