Is the XD card dead?

wet-paint · 28-02-2010 11:35pm #1

Hey folks, Looking for a bit of advice. My Olympus camera picked up a virus from my laptop while travelling this summer. I managed to get all the images off of the XD card, but after formatting the card, it's no longer recognised by the card reader, and I get an error message when I put it back in the camera.
Is there any recovery software that'll restore it to working order?
I don't really want to go and buy a new chip, as it was an eight gig one, and money's tight.

Any advice would be appreciated.
Cheers, WP

Solitaire · 01-03-2010 12:07am

Did you format it as NTFS by mistake? Most cards need to be either FAT or FAT32 to be recognised by devices.

wet-paint · 01-03-2010 12:08am

Agh, I could have, alright. It was about a month ago. Any way of getting it back to normal though? I'd do it now, only it's not being recognised.

Solitaire · 01-03-2010 12:37am

Pop it back into the PC and see what it says in the Properties menu under File System. Also check your camera's manual to see what file formats it can read.

wet-paint · 01-03-2010 12:46am

It's in the computer right now, which is saying the card reader is empty, that's the problem.

And the manual has neither NTFS nor FAT/FAT32 mentioned in it, after searching.

Solitaire · 01-03-2010 1:02am

Ah feck. It might not be a very good card reader and can't read the "zapped" card. Apparently Olympus cameras have issues with messing up their XD cards

And most card readers can't read them afterward either! :eek:

All I know is that at least the OEM that makes the readers for Fuji's cameras can read zapped cards. I'd rather you didn't have to buy a Fuji camera just to test the card though!

wet-paint · 01-03-2010 11:32pm

Ack! The reason I use the card reader is that I can't find the lead for the camera. It's an Olympus, and thus not a standard USB head.
I'll take a look though. Cheers for the help so far.

wet-paint · 05-03-2010 9:10pm

Getting an I/O error when I connect the camera to the computer.
I think the chip is damaged.

robinph · 06-03-2010 2:19pm

You don't need to connect the camera to the PC inorder to format the card. There should be an option within the cameras menus to format it.

wet-paint · 06-03-2010 4:23pm

THere is, aye, but when I select it, I get "Card Error" and it turns off.

robinph · 06-03-2010 5:46pm

Did the camera come with a free really small capacity xd card that you can try, just to narrow down if it's the camera/ card reader/ card/ etc that is actually causing the problems?

Is the XD card dead?

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