Hi, I think this may help.

Last week i was experiencing the same problems, I looked around for many ways to get my photos back but almost all the solutions were just software data recovery if you accidentally wiped or reformatted your card etc... which was all no use to us.

After hours of searching the net for solutions I found a company called Recoverfab based in Germany. There website is here: http://recoverfab.com

Recoverfab has very good prices for their services. So eventually I posted it to Recoverfab and now it was fixed and even had a photo preview of all the recovered photos!

I actually couldn't believe it that I thought something like this would be lost forever but it was recovered. I'm so happy that I discovered them.

So give Recoverfab a try!

I hope this helps, I totally know how you feel!

tcole1983 said:
I have taken ~650 shots on the D5000. I was out tonight taking some long exposure shots of the stars and a couple shots of the moon. All the sudden I get a cannot format memory card. Card may be defective please enter another card. The card was working perfectly fine seconds earlier and let me view the shot I had just taken. It won't read on our laptop in an SD card reader slot.

Card is a Kingston SDHC 8 GB class 4 card.

Not that it is a ton of money to get another one, but I had just taken some pictures this afternoon on a walk with my wife and kind of want those pictures and I expected the card to last longer then a month.

I think it could be small technical glitch or something like that, take out the memory card and re-insert it again, may be that works. If that doesn't work, may be that your SDHC card has gone corrupted, I had a similar problem and lost my photos, to make memory card recovery mac I formatted the card and used a backup of those photos to again get back to it.

nicksmith2273 said:
i had the same problem with a lexar card then i when and bought a lexar platinum2 and it still doesn't work i tried 3 cards

You tried 3 cards on what?

i had the same problem with a lexar card then i when and bought a lexar platinum2 and it still doesn't work i tried 3 cards

Yes sandisk is great never had any problems with them over the years and I even bought a lot of their stock when it was cheap 10 years ago thanks to my brother's advice. Great company :)

@DaveO Good luck in recovering data.

Depends on the way the data is stored on the card and how the card was dealt after that the problem occurred. sometimes it is almost trivial to recover the data, while other cases can be very difficult, here is the place that commercial tools do better, that use the geometry of the memory card in order to recover the data. Usually if the card is from Sandisk, use the tools Sandisk provide. (the same applies to other firms as well)

I always use Sandisk cards in My Nikon D80 and have never had a problem. I have had a problem with a Lexar 2GB platinum II card, however. I was using a bridge DSLR and recorded a short video. I can no longer access the pictures before the video. I now back up my pictures on my digital cameras to my computer and to a Western Digital external HD. I've heard that the recovery programs that cost money work better than the free ones. Don't know if this is true or not. One of these days I'll try one from Sandisk or Lexar.

Daveo

I have used BadCopy (free trial download) to get stuff off a cd that the pc said it could not even read. After that I bought a copy just to have around. Saved me several times like when I formatted my wife's memory card and wrote over it with more pictures and still got 85% of her pictures off it. File allocation tables can be gone and it can still get stuff.

Usually I say: I am too poor to buy cheap

This is a great thread I agree rbid. On a sidenote never buy cheaper cards like Samsung, I had one act strangely then die altogether on a trip. You always get what you pay for so be safe and get Sandisk, or Transcend to name a few classics.

BTW, the problems here could happen to any flash memory. Now that I'm looking for a job (Embedded Software Engineer), I was in contact with two companies that make memory chips
(Sandisk and DensBits), both claim that they may have failures below 50ppm (parts per millon)... therefore:
- Errors could happen even with the best cards in market.
- Static electricity is the number 1 enemy of memory chips.

I recovered a large majority of the photos on that old Kingston card. I didn't have any photo recovery software at the time and I deleted the folder that contained the photos I could see.

Then I quickly hit cancel delete and most of the rest of the photos came back up. I wouldn't recommend that, but I was really not expecting that. I guess the card got the folder sequence messed up because the camera would see one set of photos but I would only see a separate set of photos (unfortunately smaller) when I popped it in a card reader.

No big deal, but Kingston lost a customer.

And when it happened, the weirdest error came up on my camera. I forgot what the error was, but it only came up once since I've had it since 2003, and I still shoot with the camera. I was only able to get that error with a Kingston card.

Since I posted the first topic I have about 4000 pics and no problem with my sandisk :) Like most things...you get what you pay for I guess.

Nice thread. It is nice to learn from others experience..

I agree with @clillja:

clillja said:
1. I have used Recuva to successfully retrieve files from a dying card.
2. Be smart and get the files off the stupid cards asap. They are NOT to be trusted with long-, or even medium-term storage. And the bigger the card, the more files can be lost at once. Toss a card as soon as it gives ANY sign of trouble!
3. Isn't a little silly to spend thousands on photo equipment and then try to save a few bucks on an off-brand card?
4. And perhaps Nikon makes a list of approved cards because they actually test them and KNOW which ones work best in their cameras? Well, maybe not, but at least if you use the approved cards you may get someone to take you seriously when you want to complain about it.
5. The cards die. Get used to it or prepare for that sad fact. See #2 above.
6. I have had slightly better luck leaving the card in the camera and transferring via usb. I have had better luck with CF cards, but not a perfect record by any means.

BTW, It seems that Nikon does not like Kingston memory cards.. there are to much reports about failures with Kingston in Nikon cameras (while other brands of cameras do not have this problem)

Elloit said:
Use A memory card Data Recovery to help you recover photos from dead SD card.
*Link Removed*

@Elloit, when you post a link, add some text aside providing a hint how to reach that site/link due that here in NR they are allergic to commercial links, which are most of the time removed.

Note: I use a card reader to read the memory cards I fill with the camera:
- A card reader may be faster than the camera
- Static electricity may kill the card reader but not an expensive camera.

I saw to many cases when USB devices die due to a spark of electricity jumps between the computer and the device when connecting it, specially in dry air conditions.

I wouldn't be put off by the dSLR experience or blame it on the camera. I love the D5000 and I haven't had any problems with my new Sandisk card I purchased (I would say around 500 pictures so far). I searched when I had the problem and I haven't seen other posts anywhere about people having the same problem so it doesn't appear to be widespread. I also had Sandisk cards on my Fuji camera before and never had a problem with over 5000 pictures from it. I guess you get what you pay for maybe? I would recommend an approved card.

Also personally I think you will be disappointed with the K-X. I tested one out when I looking at the D5000 and even though picture quality might be comparable the K-X didn't really compare quality wise IMO (I put it down almost immediately after hearing the horrible noisy sound the lenses made while zooming).

Hi - I appreciate the feedback and comments. I agree that there are many reasons that this could have happened. I only find it interesting that I am not the only person who has had the exact same issue with the exact same camera (using both approved and non-approved memory cards). I had this memory card before I bought the D5000 camera - but it was new as of March and I had only used it briefly in my Sony Cybershot. It's just interesting...and a bit off-putting for my first DSLR experience.

1. I have used Recuva to successfully retrieve files from a dying card.
2. Be smart and get the files off the stupid cards asap. They are NOT to be trusted with long-, or even medium-term storage. And the bigger the card, the more files can be lost at once. Toss a card as soon as it gives ANY sign of trouble!
3. Isn't a little silly to spend thousands on photo equipment and then try to save a few bucks on an off-brand card?
4. And perhaps Nikon makes a list of approved cards because they actually test them and KNOW which ones work best in their cameras? Well, maybe not, but at least if you use the approved cards you may get someone to take you seriously when you want to complain about it.
5. The cards die. Get used to it or prepare for that sad fact. See #2 above.
6. I have had slightly better luck leaving the card in the camera and transferring via usb. I have had better luck with CF cards, but not a perfect record by any means.

Welcome to the forum CMM. Memory cards are "finicky" sometimes regardless of the brand of camera you are using. If you buy a Pentax K-X there's no guarantee that that camera will never give your a problem with memory cards either.

Have you tried using recovery software to get your images back? Format errors can be caused by lots of different things. I've never even heard of a Duracel brand memory card before. When it comes to your images I would stick to the "trusted" names like SanDisk or Lexar. Especially with 8gb worth of memories!

How are you guys downloading your images to your computer? Are you doing it through your camera via USB cable or are you inserting the cards into a card reader? Often times these card readers will corrupt memory cards. That's why it's a good idea to always reformat your card every time you put it into your camera.

I have a NikonD5000 that I just purchased and after taking about 100 photos with a Duracell 8GB memory card - I got the same message "Cannot format memory card. Card may be defective. Insert another card." I checked the manual and I see that the approved memory cards for this camera are: SanDisk, Toshiba, Panasonic, Lexar Media.....is this why the Kingston and Duracell memory cards just suddenly stopped working? I don't understand why I could format it at the beginning, take a bunch of photos and then suddenly it does not format.

Are other cameras this finicky with which memory cards they will take? I am debating the Pentax K-x as an alternative. I still have time to return this camera - there is nothing more frustrating than losing your photos!

Yeah, same idea. I might take the 256mb Kingston with me if I'm testing cameras at a store or something. Not as a main card though. Honestly, it's no big deal if I leave it there at a store, especially since it decided to mess with me, on a vacation no less.

Got my replacement card today. Going in the camera bag as a backup. I won't use it unless I run out of room or something goes bad with my Sandisk, but so far so good.

tcole1983 said:
Thanks for all the advice everyone. The card is dead dead. I tried everything I can think of and several types of software and nothing has worked. The pictures aren't too important and there was maybe only a dozen so i can deal with not getting them back.

I purchased a sandisk Ultra 8GB card today from best buy since they were on sale for $30. I am relieved the new card is working like a charm and there isn't something wrong with the camera. I am still in contact with Kingston to get a replacement for the other card, but I will just keep the new replacement card as a backup when I get that.

I have to be out in the field tomorrow for work and didn't want to wait however long it will take for the replacement card to be able to take pictures.

Nice to hear that it's been resolved. But yeah, I use the 256mb Kingston as a junk card now. It's sitting in my drawer, next to my 64mb and 16mb SD cards. :D

Thanks for all the advice everyone. The card is dead dead. I tried everything I can think of and several types of software and nothing has worked. The pictures aren't too important and there was maybe only a dozen so i can deal with not getting them back.

I purchased a sandisk Ultra 8GB card today from best buy since they were on sale for $30. I am relieved the new card is working like a charm and there isn't something wrong with the camera. I am still in contact with Kingston to get a replacement for the other card, but I will just keep the new replacement card as a backup when I get that.

I have to be out in the field tomorrow for work and didn't want to wait however long it will take for the replacement card to be able to take pictures.

Your card is a SDHC...

Your reader is a SD slot...

Something I learned the hard way is that SD readers will not read a SDHC card although they are the same card dimension. Try a SDHC card reader before you commit to the mayhem. Just one note to consider.

safyre said:
This is why I only use Sandisk cards in my camera.

I switched to Sandisk too after that. I now only have a 2 gig card and an 8 gig one.