Sandisk card corrupting

[Sara dubois]

Good afternoon,

Im having trouble with my Sandisk extreme sds and I’m not sure if it’s my computer, my card reader, the cards or my camera. 

I’m shooting on a Nikon D810 and I’m the past I have used the card reader at the back of my IMac version 10.14.6 and every so often the cards just wouldn’t show up when I inserted them but all the images were on my camera when I put it back into my camera so in these cases I would upload using my camera and cord. Everyone told me my sd card reader maybe faulty in my computer and to buy a external reader to which I did buy a verbatim 65678 and I put the card in worked perfect then I put it back into my camera and it had corrupted and said I needed to format the card and when the computer tried to read it error message was “the disk you inserted was not readable by this computer” Luckily I have not yet lost any images. It has done it twice more since to different cards, I’ve used the card, uploaded images then gone to insert the card again and it corrupts. Its made me so nervous and I’m not sure if the problem is just buying a new external card reader? Please help I’m nervous I will lose images. 

[Damien Symonds]

Hi @Sara dubois, I've moved your question into Brian's area, because he's much more wise about these matters.

[Brian]

How are you transferring the images to your computer? Are you "Moving" or "Copying" the files? Does your SD Card Show up on the desktop? Also, are you ejecting the SD Card before removing it?

Your friend's are correct, the slot on your Mac could be faulty, or if you have an extra-fancy fast card, may not be 100% compatible with your reader. Do you have any CF Cards? The reason I ask is SD Cards fail all the time. Out of all of my cards that have failed for me personally, the SD Cards I've had the most problems with. I've had a CF or 2 card go "iffy" on me, and I retired it and only one CF Card that did actually fail...and I have lots of cards. 

At this point, it could be a faulty controller chip in the camera, bad slots on the camera or you have something else going on. Unfortunately, I don't have a "Magic Bullet" for you, What I would recommend is to purchase a CF Card and a CF Reader and try that card/techology. I will warn you, CF media is on it's way out and the pickings are getting a bit slim. That said, I still feel we need to remove the SD media from the equation before I have you send your camera to Nikon for repairs. 

You could get a Sandisk 32GB CF Card, that's just under $40 and a CF Reader that also reads SD Cards for about $21. So call it $65-ish to test things. This will be cheaper than a diagnostic fee from Nikon.

[Sara dubois]

Thank you so much Brian, I am copying the files to my computer and what would occasionally happen was the sd card would show in the finder and the image folder then just wouldn’t load the images and when I exited finder and went back it wouldn’t show anything in the sd card and then get to the point where it just wouldn’t show up at all but it still would always show the images on the camera, but since using the external card reader they have been corrupting and losing the images completely. I do always eject before taking the sd out though I found when this happened it wouldn’t let me eject. 
 

I do have CF card and recently just bought another which I use to back my images up to in the camera, I will try your suggestion and get a few more cf cards and a cf card reader. 
 

That’s certainly worry’s me there could be something wrong with the camera. 

[Brian]

21 hours ago, Sara dubois said:

but it still would always show the images on the camera,

That's a mistake right there that trips up A LOT of people. Always remember...

YOUR CAMERA'S LCD IS A LYING AND CHEATING WHORE WHO WILL SELL YOU DOWN THE RIVER IF GIVEN THE CHANCE!!!

The image you see on your camera's LCD is the JPEG PREVIEW embedded within the Raw File and NOT, I REPEAT...NOT the Raw File itself.

So don't EVER think that just because you see the image on the Camera's LCD you are safe. Quite the opposite, if the Raw Image is corrupted, you might only get the JPEG Preview out of the file recovered. That's why your image goes from #Amazeballz to #Blah in either ACR or LR. The "Blah" image IS the Raw file. (Well, Adobe's interpretation of said file.)

21 hours ago, Sara dubois said:

since using the external card reader they have been corrupting and losing the images completely

You could have a faulty Card Reader. The one I linked to above does both CF and SD Cards and for $20.50, it's not going to break the bank. Now, I want you to get your EHDs and Cards displaying on the Mac Desktop. Follow my instructions in Part 2 of this Article.

21 hours ago, Sara dubois said:

That’s certainly worry’s me there could be something wrong with the camera. 

It is a possibility. That said, SD Cards are not very robust. They go bad all the time. Hell, if you look at them weird they will corrupt. But I really want you to get a new Card Reader, preferrable one that is both CF / SD and try using the CF Card that you have.

[shalea]

Sorry to hijack this post. I am reading through so I can learn and the link you provided for the CF card looks the same as what I have which is an SD card i thought? What's the difference? I want to make sure i have the ones you are suggesting. Thank you

[Brian]

Yes, this is a SD card. The RescuePro Deluxe Software will work just fine. That said, you need to use a card reader in order to have the best shot at recovery. 
 

Do not use your camera to access the card. 

[Brian]

The difference is the interface type. CF cards are much bigger physically and the connector interface is way different. They are both Flash Based Media.