View Single Post
  #3  
Old December 27th 08, 09:04 PM posted to rec.photo.digital,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Marco Tedaldi
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1
Default Why don't camera reviews cover the data connection to the PC?

Pat Cheney schrieb:
On Sat, 27 Dec 2008 10:01:52 -0800, John Navas wrote:

You can NOT read the pictures in step 4 because Windows won't recognize the
card no matter what card reader you put the card in.

Not correct. See page 237 of the manual.
http://ftp.casio.co.jp/pub/world_manual/qv/en/EXZ1080_e.pdf


I read with interest that section but it doesn't contain any
troubleshooting information.

Most of the time, copying pictures from the 4GB flash card to the Windows
PC works just fine, whether we use a card reader or a proprietary cable in
the dual USB/AV camera port.

It's only sometimes that Windows dingdongs at us in step 4, saying only:
Disk is not formatted
The disk in drive E is not formatted.
Do you want to format it now? (yes) (no)

In fact, I have one right now that does this.
The card just won't format, even if I do the quick format option.

This can have several different reasons...
- bad card
- bad filesystem on card
- bad cardreader
- bad cable (from card reader to usb port)


It won't even check disk:
C:\Documents and Settings\adminchkdsk E:
The type of the file system is RAW.
CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives.

windows does not recognize the filesystem on the card...

The wierd thing is this same 4GB flash card works perfectly fine IN THE
CAMERA, and the pictures come off the card perfectly well using the
supplied cable, but there is no way to get the pictures off the card using
the card reader.

sounds like a broken filesystem to me... the camera uses different
software to read/write the filesystem than windows so it might just
ignore some errors..

The ONLY way to get the pictures off the card (without resorting to linux
and dd and JPEG-heuristic programs) is to use the cable supplied with the
camera.

are you using linux on the same computer and with the same card reader
as you are using with windows?

BTW, even Windows won't actually format the card if you hit the "yes"
button, so, again, you're stuck with a card that can only work with the
supplied cable and will not work with the card reader even though it worked
previously with that very same card reader. Other cards work fine with the
card reader, so, I suspect something went bad with the card, but, that's
the whole point.

I would resort to linux and blank the whole card first
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdx (where sdx is the device you get for your
card, be REALLY careful there to get the right device, or you will
overwrite the wrong stuff! No 1 after the x.)
make a new partition table with only one partition on your card (I
prefer cfdisk for this)
make a new filesystem on your card
mkfs.vfat /dev/sdx1 (again, be careful to get the device right! this
time with "1" in the devicename.)
Now you should have a working card again...

If the card has a problem, you MUST use the cable, and if you don't have
the proprietary cable, then you lose your data. Why go through that hassle
when you can buy a camera that doesn't use a proprietary cable (and not
worry about AV ports because I've never used one in my life).

Same here. But I seems that almost all cameras have an A/V-Port. Even
higher end cameras. I also can't imagine a use for the direct-print
button on my EOS 40D.

I hope you can solve at least these issues now... A card should really
be readable in a card reader all the time. If it is not readable
something is definitely broken.

kruemi


--
Dimage A2, Agfa isolette
http://flickr.com/photos/kruemi
And a cool timekiller: http://www.starpirates.net/register.php?referer=9708