Short Circuit
Newcastle Herald
Tuesday July 1, 2008
Q
I'm having trouble getting certain photos off my digital camera. Is it possible that the camera's memory card has gone bad? AYou know you might have a memory-card problem when you can't view or copy photos, or even snap and save new photos. The camera may also behave erratically when you turn it on with the memory card inside. Reformatting it - which wipes the memory clean so you start over with an empty card - can often clear up this bad behaviour. This procedure erases any photos still stored on the card, so transfer everything you can to the computer before you reformat. Once you have copied what you can, make sure the memory card is firmly inserted in the camera and then use the option in the camera's onscreen menus to reformat the card. Once the reformatting process is finished, you should have an empty card inside the camera. If you have photos you really need on the corrupted card (or if you accidentally deleted them yourself at some point on a working card), there might be a way to recover the images with a file-recovery program. Some card makers even sell the software on their sites, like SanDisk's RescuePro and Lexar's ImageRescue. Each program costs less than $40, works with Windows and Mac OS X, and claims to be able to rescue damaged or deleted images from memory cards. You can find plenty of other file-recovery programs around the Web, including freeware or inexpensive shareware. The PC Inspector Smart Recovery program for Windows is free at www.snapfiles.com/get/smartrecovery.html.
© 2008 Newcastle Herald
Share This