Cameras that refuse to format an SD card...and SD cards in general

[cambrensis]

Recently, a member (love_to_stitch) sent out a plea for help here which concerned her camera and her PC. The thread began, and I started to throw in my "two-pennyworth", as we used to say. Finally, I told the lady I was going to PM her. The thread was closed.

Now, unfortunately, this has been misinterpreted. All I actually said was that I would PM her with one or two suggestions. This was not "secret methods of fixing a camera"! What might have been involved was the exchange of private addresses, which did take place. These forums are public after all.

As many of you know, after early retirement from teaching and a year's rest I went to work for a camera retailer. One of my special fields was thorough checking of a camera brought in for repair. It's surprising how often I'd find user error, even when the camera had been owned for 6 months or more. So I am more than used to analysing camera faults.

Forgetting the PC side of things, having established that the camera in question was one of the later Kodaks, boasting a Schneider Kreuznach lens, I wished to see the camera. I had been unable to find a workshop manual for it online so could not analyse from the circuitry/schematics.

I asked simply for the camera as I have plenty of SD cards and half a dozen batteries to fit; it's quite a common one.

OK...so the first question is how does a camera tell that a card is present? If you have an SD card to hand, check it over; if not take a look at an online pic.

The thing to notice is the slider switch. In the up position the card may be formatted and written to. The down position protects the card from both functions. I've had customers complain that a camera is not working when...yes, you've guessed it. They moved the switch without even knowing it was there. I've also found cards with a sloppy switch that fell to the protect position by default.

Let's assume all is well with the card and it has been placed in the camera. The camera now has to determine where the switch is. There are two basic methods, one involving a small LED which reads the gap, and the other involving a small spring loaded microswitch which drops into the gap if free...and does not if protected. This is is mechanical detection. Fluff/dust can cause problems here.

With the camera in my eager hands, I put in a card and a battery. It behaved as I'd been told...wanted me to format the card and then failed to format it.

I removed card and battery, and fired some compressed air into the side of the card slot where any microswitch might have been. I then slapped that same side of the camera with my finger tips and replaced card and battery. Success!

I hope you see how complex the electronics are here! It's a simple mechanical fault....

Further testing has shown that the spring has failed. If the fault returns, a couple of finger taps put the switch back in position.

It might have been a motherboard problem, in which case it would have been a write-off unless it had been possible to find a "non-worker" with a different fault (I shall not go into them all!) There were several models using the same motherboard

I am currently going through all the features of the camera, but do not expect to find any other faults.

While thinking of SD cards, and memory in general, do be suspicious of "bargain" cards; do not waste your time putting it in a camera or into a card reader to check its size. Your OS will tell you what the internal control chip says which may be far from the truth.

People often buy very large capacity cards and use only a small part of the card before they download. They can go for months or years without realising the card is bogus. You find out when the card merrily carries on taking pics on your once-in-a lifetime trip...and you find all the early pics have been overwritten. Very simply it is possible to buy a 256 Mb card that tells you it is 10 Gb. (figures are variable).

How do you find out? There is plenty of software (free) to tell you. URL follows for some:

https://www.geckoandfly.com/22803/de...ards-ssd-disk/

Such cards cannot be sent through the post legally as they are counterfeit. If you complain to the seller and he asks you to return the card for a refund....this too is illegal! (Think about it!)

The same is true of flash/thumb drives, etc. So do please be careful! I'd rather a seller unpacked the card to test it than sold me a fake card, even in good faith.

I hope this has been of use to somebody.....If your camera suddenly demands a format and then fails to do so...do not throw the card away. And always have at least one spare!!

[meebo1]

I just want to say thank you. Not that I have a camera problem (at the moment), but who knows?

[Oldandintheway]

Thanks cambrensis! all very good info/advice I'm sure. Hope I never need to use it.

[madelaine]

Thank you

[crafters_corner]

So now you know folks, the lovely Cambrensis did not pm me with suggestions of a secret tryst, it necessitated a private message because it was simply that: private!

As for closing my thread, no more information was required in the circumstances.

Thank you again, Cambrensis. My tapping finger is at the ready

[cambrensis]

Thank you again, Cambrensis. My tapping finger is at the ready

My pleasure, love_to_stitch! Shall finish off all tests today and the camera should be winging its way back to you from tomorrow. (yesterday was very busy for me as it was Sunday and I am not very good in high humidity. Wish I were in Egypt again right now!)

A couple of other points have sprung to mind since I wrote the above; just two very simple ones that can save time:

1) A digital camera may occasionally lock-up, just like any other computer, especially in this heat. Don't panic! Get it into the shade, switch off and remove the battery/batteries. The cunning bit is that you should now switch the camera back on and pretend to take a photograph or two. What you are doing is draining all power left in the camera. The chances are there is a 1 or a 0 in the wrong place. You have now done the equivalent of CTRL+ALT+DEL, which you understand perfectly. Replace the battery and you have a fair chance it will be OK again. (Remember the old adage...there are 10 kinds of people who have problems and neither of them understands binary...)

2) A camera may react badly to beamed Infra Red in its vicinity, even if it does not have a receptor for a remote control. I had one lady ring me at work as her camera had gone haywire. "Where are you?" I asked. She was in her kitchen. I told her to take the camera into the living room with her cordless phone and try again. Nothing wrong with the camera at all.

Another customer, whom I knew well, used to take movies of car damage for insurance companies. He was setting up the camera (all settings etc) indoors, then going outside, placing the camera on a tripod to take the shots...and the camera would not work. I knew exactly where he lived and suggested it could well be the IR detectors on a security firm opposite his house. "No!" he said. "This was yesterday during the day so the detectors would not have been on!" I gently pointed out that the previous day had been a bank holiday and the shop would have been shut. He tested again, and all was ok.

Be aware of temperature...and surroundings! The IR problem happened to me in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor on one occasion. Biggest problem was explaining to two of the armed guards, who wondered why I was "hiding", what I was really up to!

[johnwash1]

Thanks Cambrensis (and Love_to_stitch).

Well, I confess, I'm the guilty one who PM'd the two evil love-trysting camera sharers!

Actually this is quite a general point. If a thread is being trolled, sure, time to close it. But I can't, offhand, think of another reason. And I can think of plenty of reasons why it's good not to close threads.

That thread in particular, had it still been open, I would have asked whether only one SD card had been used with the camera, or several. This would have helped home in on the problem that cambrensis has so ably diagnosed, though only by having the camera in his hands. It would also have been useful to know whether a PC with a card reader could write or format the card.

Yes, I can see now why PM'ing was going on. But the reason for it wasn't explained. Often, when using search engines to find solutions and arriving at forums, one sees people switching to PM and then... nothing. The visitor is left with no idea whether a useful solution for their own problem was found. Infuriating.

In this particular case, unless the closed thread has been reopened to add a link here, that's still a likely result. I wouldn't have known about this new thread had it not been for Cambrensis telling me about it when I PM'd him.

I'm glad it has a happy ending. Certainly for photos for auctions a 4Mp camera from 2004 is perfectly adequate, I hope it will be useful for many years yet.


While on the topic of camera cards, different problem... If your camera says there's a problem, or you can't get all your photos off the card onto your PC, don't despair. It's very likely there are ways of recovering almost all of the photos in these situations. I've done it dozens of times for people and would be happy to discuss further if ebid regulars find they need help.

[crafters_corner]

My camera has now been returned to me in full working order.
Many thanks to Cambrensis for his time and patience in restoring this little camera which has recorded many happy family memories.

[cambrensis]

My camera has now been returned to me in full working order.
Many thanks to Cambrensis for his time and patience in restoring this little camera which has recorded many happy family memories.

I am so glad you are now able to use the camera! It's so easy to give up on things, these days. I'm interested to know, did it work "out of the box" as sent, or did you have to use Morse to kickstart it?

[crafters_corner]

Absolutely perfect with no need for brute force

Picture taken on 'auto' in my lounge which has very little light at this time of day: