[crossposted to comp.os.linux.misc as well as *.photo.* groups because I
know there'll be people there clued up about comp systems, and uk.d-i-y for
folks clued up about life the universe and everything :-)]

I have a 128M CF card which has recently started playing up in my digicam
(Nikon Coolpix 3100 fwiw). After taking a lot of pictures the camera
suddenly reports that the card is not formatted. I can recover the pictures
from the card (using various commercial utilities, or dd-ing to an image and
pulling out chunks starting with the jpeg header from the image file). When
I do this usually some of the later images are corrupt: typically they will
display OK in a thumbnail view but attempting to view at full size the whole
image is momentarily displayed at reduced resolution but then a portion of
the image (starting at the left side) is replaced by blank or garbage as the
veiwer attempts to display it at full resolution. (I guess this is related
to the format of jpeg images?)

Anyway I can reformat the card and it works OK, but the problem recurs.
Sometimes when recovering images I find I still have images from earlier
shoots 'further down' the card, suggesting that the card isn't failing at
some particular memory location but more-or-less randomly. I have a
'reference' duff CF card :-) which the camera (and PC via card reader)
report as unformatted even after a format and this card isn't showing that
symptom, but the repeated occurrences of the problem and the fact I don't
get any problems on another CF card (though that is only 32Mb) suggests that
it's the card at fault rather than the camera.

Is there any way of testing to be sure, using what I have he the camera
itself, a usb card reader, linux and win2k systems, some loo rolls and
sticky-back plastic ... :-) ?

John,

The fact it works find with the 32MB CF card is fairly conclusive proof I'd
say that the 128 is unwell, and not the camera.
Buy another one? 128's are pretty cheap.

Alan.


"John Stumbles" wrote in message
...
[crossposted to comp.os.linux.misc as well as *.photo.* groups because I
know there'll be people there clued up about comp systems, and uk.d-i-y
for
folks clued up about life the universe and everything :-)]

I have a 128M CF card which has recently started playing up in my digicam
(Nikon Coolpix 3100 fwiw). After taking a lot of pictures the camera
suddenly reports that the card is not formatted. I can recover the
pictures
from the card (using various commercial utilities, or dd-ing to an image
and
pulling out chunks starting with the jpeg header from the image file).
When
I do this usually some of the later images are corrupt: typically they
will
display OK in a thumbnail view but attempting to view at full size the
whole
image is momentarily displayed at reduced resolution but then a portion of
the image (starting at the left side) is replaced by blank or garbage as
the
veiwer attempts to display it at full resolution. (I guess this is related
to the format of jpeg images?)

Anyway I can reformat the card and it works OK, but the problem recurs.
Sometimes when recovering images I find I still have images from earlier
shoots 'further down' the card, suggesting that the card isn't failing at
some particular memory location but more-or-less randomly. I have a
'reference' duff CF card :-) which the camera (and PC via card reader)
report as unformatted even after a format and this card isn't showing that
symptom, but the repeated occurrences of the problem and the fact I don't
get any problems on another CF card (though that is only 32Mb) suggests
that
it's the card at fault rather than the camera.

Is there any way of testing to be sure, using what I have he the camera
itself, a usb card reader, linux and win2k systems, some loo rolls and
sticky-back plastic ... :-) ?






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"Alan" wrote in message
...

[un-top-posted]

"John Stumbles" wrote in message
...
[crossposted to comp.os.linux.misc as well as *.photo.* groups because
I
know there'll be people there clued up about comp systems, and uk.d-i-y
for
folks clued up about life the universe and everything :-)]

I have a 128M CF card which has recently started playing up in my
digicam
(Nikon Coolpix 3100 fwiw). After taking a lot of pictures the camera
suddenly reports that the card is not formatted. I can recover the
pictures
from the card (using various commercial utilities, or dd-ing to an image
and
pulling out chunks starting with the jpeg header from the image file).
When
I do this usually some of the later images are corrupt: typically they
will
display OK in a thumbnail view but attempting to view at full size the
whole
image is momentarily displayed at reduced resolution but then a portion
of
the image (starting at the left side) is replaced by blank or garbage as
the
veiwer attempts to display it at full resolution. (I guess this is
related
to the format of jpeg images?)

Anyway I can reformat the card and it works OK, but the problem recurs.
Sometimes when recovering images I find I still have images from earlier
shoots 'further down' the card, suggesting that the card isn't failing
at
some particular memory location but more-or-less randomly. I have a
'reference' duff CF card :-) which the camera (and PC via card reader)
report as unformatted even after a format and this card isn't showing
that
symptom, but the repeated occurrences of the problem and the fact I
don't
get any problems on another CF card (though that is only 32Mb) suggests
that
it's the card at fault rather than the camera.

Is there any way of testing to be sure, using what I have he the
camera
itself, a usb card reader, linux and win2k systems, some loo rolls and
sticky-back plastic ... :-) ?

John,

The fact it works find with the 32MB CF card is fairly conclusive proof
I'd
say that the 128 is unwell, and not the camera.
Buy another one? 128's are pretty cheap.


Alan.



I bought it from ebuyer in February, and they'd be my first choice* if I
were to buy a new one so I'm checking that they sort this out to see if I
want to go on using them anyway. (I've a scanner and other stuff on my
wishlist.)

* I know others have had bad experiences with them but my own experience is
that when the 16M CF card that came with my camera packed up they just sent
out a 32M card with no quibble. Hoping this one goes as smoothly.

On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 11:26:37 +0100, "John Stumbles"
strung together this:

[un-top-posted]

Also unsnipped, but you seem to have missed that one on the ticklist
of 'the perfect post'!

If you're bottom posting don't make it so everyone has to scroll all
the way down etc etc..... moan moan......

Start flaming here
--

SJW
A.C.S. Ltd

"John Stumbles" writes:
get any problems on another CF card (though that is only 32Mb) suggests that
it's the card at fault rather than the camera.

It may be that it's the filesystem on the card and not the card itself. The
original FAT system was restricted to about 32MB.

Try to use both the faulty 128MB card and the good 32MB card in a reader
and use linux's fdisk to look at the partitions. eg:

fdisk /dev/sda
...
... (use 'p' to print partition table)

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 38144 39059440 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 38145 38154 10240 4 FAT16 32M

The 'System' column at the far right should how the flash-card
is formatted.


Can you format the card under linux and use it normally for some
reasonable length of time?

There are various MSDOS and linux utilities to do a 'surface-check'
of hard drives which should also be usable on a flash-card.

Jack
--
Once, they feared you. Then they matched you. Now they are laughing
at you. Soon they will ignore you. You have lost.

"Jack Strangio" wrote in message
...
The original FAT system was restricted to about 32MB.

Not so!
DOS 1.0 supported single-sided 8 sector/track diskettes (160KB)
DOS 1.1 supported double-sided 9 sectors/track diskettes (360KB)
DOS 2.0 supported 10MB hard disks and subdirectories (PC-XT)
DOS 3.0 supported FAT-16 and 32MB partitions (PC-AT)

There was also the choice of CP/M for the original IBM PC - can't remember
what filesystem that supported.

Sadly, I was there ...

--
LSR

....
I have a 128M CF card which has recently started playing up in my
digicam
(Nikon Coolpix 3100 fwiw). After taking a lot of pictures the camera
suddenly reports that the card is not formatted. I can recover the
pictures
from the card (using various commercial utilities, or dd-ing to an image
and
pulling out chunks starting with the jpeg header from the image file).
When
I do this usually some of the later images are corrupt: typically they
will
display OK in a thumbnail view but attempting to view at full size the
whole
image is momentarily displayed at reduced resolution but then a portion
of
the image (starting at the left side) is replaced by blank or garbage as
the
veiwer attempts to display it at full resolution. (I guess this is
related
to the format of jpeg images?)

Sound like the internal memory addressing are faulty. Most likely a
loose pin between the controller and flash chips. You would have to
open it up and check for loose solder joins.


Anyway I can reformat the card and it works OK, but the problem recurs.
Sometimes when recovering images I find I still have images from earlier
shoots 'further down' the card, suggesting that the card isn't failing
at
some particular memory location but more-or-less randomly.

Very much like memory addressing problem. If formating works, then
connection to the controller is fine. I would beg there is a loose
pin inside.

I bought it from ebuyer in February, and they'd be my first choice* if I
were to buy a new one so I'm checking that they sort this out to see if I
want to go on using them anyway. (I've a scanner and other stuff on my
wishlist.)

Definitely check with the seller first. If they won't fix it, we can
fix it for a small fee. Contact us at http://ide-cf.info-for.us . Do
not email us, all email are DOA (dropped on arrival).


* I know others have had bad experiences with them but my own experience is
that when the 16M CF card that came with my camera packed up they just sent
out a 32M card with no quibble. Hoping this one goes as smoothly.

Hokay! It's showtime! Let's boogy to play evaluate a dodged up CF card

This may be a destructive test on the CF card and (I hope) on no other bits
of kit.

das B or bagal will not accept any responsibility of maintaining or
repairing a CF card held by another... (so there :-)

The next bit is at your own risk:

1 - prepare a folder of copied files on your computer. Make sure they are
copies because you may lose them.

2 - adjust the size of files in this folder so it represents about 90% of
the capacity of your CF card

3 - if you don't know how to do 1 or 2 - put the kettle on and have a nice
cup of tea or coffee or a lovely soft drink and do not read the rest of this
message##

4 - are you sure? Cookies and milk are ok too?

5 - plug dodgy card into card holder

6 - transfer the data over from the folder you prepared at (1) or (2)
observing any visual indications of encountering a data transfer hiccup

7 - repeat 6 using different folder sizes, time the transfer, bulk it up or
slim it down until the card indicates it is good or dodgy

8 - let us (eg me and the whole wide world of NG readers know how you get
on. I am sure all 25 of us are really quite interested)

das b


"John Stumbles" wrote in message
...
[crossposted to comp.os.linux.misc as well as *.photo.* groups because I
know there'll be people there clued up about comp systems, and uk.d-i-y
for
folks clued up about life the universe and everything :-)]

I have a 128M CF card which has recently started playing up in my digicam
(Nikon Coolpix 3100 fwiw). After taking a lot of pictures the camera
suddenly reports that the card is not formatted. I can recover the
pictures
from the card (using various commercial utilities, or dd-ing to an image
and
pulling out chunks starting with the jpeg header from the image file).
When
I do this usually some of the later images are corrupt: typically they
will
display OK in a thumbnail view but attempting to view at full size the
whole
image is momentarily displayed at reduced resolution but then a portion of
the image (starting at the left side) is replaced by blank or garbage as
the
veiwer attempts to display it at full resolution. (I guess this is related
to the format of jpeg images?)

Anyway I can reformat the card and it works OK, but the problem recurs.
Sometimes when recovering images I find I still have images from earlier
shoots 'further down' the card, suggesting that the card isn't failing at
some particular memory location but more-or-less randomly. I have a
'reference' duff CF card :-) which the camera (and PC via card reader)
report as unformatted even after a format and this card isn't showing that
symptom, but the repeated occurrences of the problem and the fact I don't
get any problems on another CF card (though that is only 32Mb) suggests
that
it's the card at fault rather than the camera.

Is there any way of testing to be sure, using what I have he the camera
itself, a usb card reader, linux and win2k systems, some loo rolls and
sticky-back plastic ... :-) ?

John Stumbles said:

[crossposted to comp.os.linux.misc as well as *.photo.* groups because I
know there'll be people there clued up about comp systems, and uk.d-i-y for
folks clued up about life the universe and everything :-)]

I have a 128M CF card which has recently started playing up in my digicam
(Nikon Coolpix 3100 fwiw). After taking a lot of pictures the camera
suddenly reports that the card is not formatted. I can recover the pictures
from the card (using various commercial utilities, or dd-ing to an image and
pulling out chunks starting with the jpeg header from the image file). When
I do this usually some of the later images are corrupt: typically they will
display OK in a thumbnail view but attempting to view at full size the whole
image is momentarily displayed at reduced resolution but then a portion of
the image (starting at the left side) is replaced by blank or garbage as the
veiwer attempts to display it at full resolution. (I guess this is related
to the format of jpeg images?)

Anyway I can reformat the card and it works OK, but the problem recurs.
Sometimes when recovering images I find I still have images from earlier
shoots 'further down' the card, suggesting that the card isn't failing at
some particular memory location but more-or-less randomly. I have a
'reference' duff CF card :-) which the camera (and PC via card reader)
report as unformatted even after a format and this card isn't showing that
symptom, but the repeated occurrences of the problem and the fact I don't
get any problems on another CF card (though that is only 32Mb) suggests that
it's the card at fault rather than the camera.

Is there any way of testing to be sure, using what I have he the camera
itself, a usb card reader, linux and win2k systems, some loo rolls and
sticky-back plastic ... :-) ?

how about this?

$ dd if=/dev/random of=/tmp/cf.img bs=1024 count=$((1024*128))

to make an image of random bytes.

$ md5sum /tmp/cf.img

to get a checksum for it

$ dd if=/tmp/cf.img bs=1024 of=/dev/cf-device

to copy it to the card

$ md5sum /dev/cf-device

to checksum the card

if the sums match, the card is probably ok.

maybe make a script to do this n times to be sure.

--
http://www.niftybits.ukfsn.org/

remove 'n-u-l-l' to email me. html mail or attachments will go in the spam
bin unless notified with [html] or [attachment] in the subject line.

Lurch wrote:

If you're bottom posting don't make it so everyone has to scroll all
the way down etc etc..... moan moan......


Thankyou Lurch.

No Flaming from here, I despise non snippers, and ones that criticise
"top-posters" are the lowest form of life, even lower than good old
fasioned troll's who at least know how to post correctly!

--
http://gymratz.co.uk - UK's best bodybuilding supplements,gym equipment.
http://gymratz.co.uk/hot-seat.htm - Live web-cam!
TRADE PRICED SUPPLEMENTS for Personal Trainers or individual purchase.
http://trade-price-supplements.co.uk

"Pet" wrote in message
...
Lurch wrote:

If you're bottom posting don't make it so everyone has to scroll all
the way down etc etc..... moan moan......


Thankyou Lurch.

No Flaming from here, I despise non snippers, and ones that criticise
"top-posters" are the lowest form of life, even lower than good old
fasioned troll's who at least know how to post correctly!

OK, wrist considered slapped :-)

But be fair, the purpose of my post was to follow up the thread, only
remarking en passant that I'd undone the top posting.

Not that I despise people the sole purpose of whose posts is to criticise
non-snippers, Oh no! Far from it! :-)

"Linnix" wrote in message
...
...
I have a 128M CF card which has recently started playing up in my
....
Very much like memory addressing problem. If formating works, then
connection to the controller is fine. I would beg there is a loose
pin inside.
....
Definitely check with the seller first. If they won't fix it, we can
fix it for a small fee. Contact us at http://ide-cf.info-for.us . Do
not email us, all email are DOA (dropped on arrival).

Hmmm, a 0 Meg CF card for $8. Definitely a bargain.
Do you do Dark Emitting Monodes too?

Elessar wrote:

"Jack Strangio" wrote in message
...

The original FAT system was restricted to about 32MB.


Not so!
DOS 1.0 supported single-sided 8 sector/track diskettes (160KB)
DOS 1.1 supported double-sided 9 sectors/track diskettes (360KB)
DOS 2.0 supported 10MB hard disks and subdirectories (PC-XT)

Actually, DOS 2 supportted much more thn that - it was restricted to 64k
SECTORS IIRC. 8Mbytes per partition? on 512 bytes per sector - summat
like that

I spent 3 dull months writing a BIOS patch to an RM machine to utilise a
80Mbyte drive, by chunking up pyhsical 512byte sectors into 2K logical
ones....

DOS 3.0 supported FAT-16 and 32MB partitions (PC-AT)

There was also the choice of CP/M for the original IBM PC - can't remember
what filesystem that supported.

Sadly, I was there ...

me2
--
LSR

Andy - have you ever used Gimp image processing software?

das B

"Andy Baxter" wrote in message
news
John Stumbles said:

[crossposted to comp.os.linux.misc as well as *.photo.* groups because
I
know there'll be people there clued up about comp systems, and uk.d-i-y
for
folks clued up about life the universe and everything :-)]

I have a 128M CF card which has recently started playing up in my
digicam
(Nikon Coolpix 3100 fwiw). After taking a lot of pictures the camera
suddenly reports that the card is not formatted. I can recover the
pictures
from the card (using various commercial utilities, or dd-ing to an image
and
pulling out chunks starting with the jpeg header from the image file).
When
I do this usually some of the later images are corrupt: typically they
will
display OK in a thumbnail view but attempting to view at full size the
whole
image is momentarily displayed at reduced resolution but then a portion
of
the image (starting at the left side) is replaced by blank or garbage as
the
veiwer attempts to display it at full resolution. (I guess this is
related
to the format of jpeg images?)

Anyway I can reformat the card and it works OK, but the problem recurs.
Sometimes when recovering images I find I still have images from earlier
shoots 'further down' the card, suggesting that the card isn't failing
at
some particular memory location but more-or-less randomly. I have a
'reference' duff CF card :-) which the camera (and PC via card reader)
report as unformatted even after a format and this card isn't showing
that
symptom, but the repeated occurrences of the problem and the fact I
don't
get any problems on another CF card (though that is only 32Mb) suggests
that
it's the card at fault rather than the camera.

Is there any way of testing to be sure, using what I have he the
camera
itself, a usb card reader, linux and win2k systems, some loo rolls and
sticky-back plastic ... :-) ?

how about this?

$ dd if=/dev/random of=/tmp/cf.img bs=1024 count=$((1024*128))

to make an image of random bytes.

$ md5sum /tmp/cf.img

to get a checksum for it

$ dd if=/tmp/cf.img bs=1024 of=/dev/cf-device

to copy it to the card

$ md5sum /dev/cf-device

to checksum the card

if the sums match, the card is probably ok.

maybe make a script to do this n times to be sure.

--
http://www.niftybits.ukfsn.org/

remove 'n-u-l-l' to email me. html mail or attachments will go in the spam
bin unless notified with [html] or [attachment] in the subject line.

"John Stumbles" wrote in message ...
"Linnix" wrote in message
...
...
I have a 128M CF card which has recently started playing up in my
...
Very much like memory addressing problem. If formating works, then
connection to the controller is fine. I would beg there is a loose
pin inside.
...
Definitely check with the seller first. If they won't fix it, we can
fix it for a small fee. Contact us at http://ide-cf.info-for.us . Do
not email us, all email are DOA (dropped on arrival).

Hmmm, a 0 Meg CF card for $8. Definitely a bargain.

Actually, it's the IDE adaptor only, without the CF.

Do you do Dark Emitting Monodes too?

Give us the spec and we'll do it. :-)

bagal said:

Andy - have you ever used Gimp image processing software?


yes. bit of a tangent though.

get the new version 2.0 if you can - the user interface has been improved
a lot.

--
http://www.niftybits.ukfsn.org/

remove 'n-u-l-l' to email me. html mail or attachments will go in the spam
bin unless notified with [html] or [attachment] in the subject line.

"bagal" wrote in message
...
Andy - have you ever used Gimp image processing software?

das B

Not sure why the above is addressed to Andy (unless my newsserver has missed
a/some message[s] in this thread) but maybe that's a response to the part of
my post where I asked:


"Andy Baxter" wrote in message
news
John Stumbles said:
....
... some of the later images are corrupt: typically they will
display OK in a thumbnail view but attempting to view at full size the
whole
image is momentarily displayed at reduced resolution but then a
portion
of
the image (starting at the left side) is replaced by blank or garbage
as
the
veiwer attempts to display it at full resolution. (I guess this is
related
to the format of jpeg images?)

I have tried view/editing them in the Gimp and still lose the
part-resolution part of the image. I don't know if there's some way I could
get the gimp to do the right thing with it if I knew how, or if I need some
way of messing with the jpeg format directly.

"Andy Baxter" wrote in message
news
John Stumbles said:

....

Is there any way of testing to be sure, using what I have he the
camera
itself, a usb card reader, linux and win2k systems, some loo rolls and
sticky-back plastic ... :-) ?

how about this?

$ dd if=/dev/random of=/tmp/cf.img bs=1024 count=$((1024*128))

to make an image of random bytes.

$ md5sum /tmp/cf.img

to get a checksum for it

$ dd if=/tmp/cf.img bs=1024 of=/dev/cf-device

to copy it to the card

$ md5sum /dev/cf-device

to checksum the card
if the sums match, the card is probably ok.
maybe make a script to do this n times to be sure.

Thanks that did the trick.

I actually used /dev/urandom as /dev/random looked like taking until next
century to produce 128M. I also found that $((1024*128)) was bigger than the
CF card size, so used effectively:

# fill card with random stuff
$dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/cf-device

# read from card
$ dd if=/dev/cf-device of=/tmp/cf.img

# checksum card
$ md5sum /dev/cf-device

# checksum image file
$ md5sum /tmp/cf.img

Sure enough the md5s were different. Possibly diff might have done the trick
for that.

I guess apart from random data various patterns including all 0s, all 1s,
010101... (x55, xAA) and so on might gie a more rigorous test.

In article , bagal
wrote:

Andy - have you ever used Gimp image processing software?

Have you ever read this? :

http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?How_to_post

--
AJL Electronics (G6FGO) Ltd : Satellite and TV aerial systems
http://www.classicmicrocars.co.uk : http://www.ajlelectronics.co.uk

does that mean u have not used The Gimp?

Oh - wrong Andy :-)

soz m8

Artie

"Andy Luckman (AJL Electronics)" wrote in message
. ..
In article , bagal
wrote:

Andy - have you ever used Gimp image processing software?

Have you ever read this? :

http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?How_to_post

--
AJL Electronics (G6FGO) Ltd : Satellite and TV aerial systems
http://www.classicmicrocars.co.uk : http://www.ajlelectronics.co.uk

My answer may not be of use, buy a cheap 32Mb card, there are still some
about and they cost next to nothing. If that shows the same problem then
suspect your camera, if not you have a low capacity card to use until you
replace your faulty card.

Rob.B

"John Stumbles" wrote in message
...
[crossposted to comp.os.linux.misc as well as *.photo.* groups because I
know there'll be people there clued up about comp systems, and uk.d-i-y
for
folks clued up about life the universe and everything :-)]

I have a 128M CF card which has recently started playing up in my digicam
(Nikon Coolpix 3100 fwiw). After taking a lot of pictures the camera
suddenly reports that the card is not formatted. I can recover the
pictures
from the card (using various commercial utilities, or dd-ing to an image
and
pulling out chunks starting with the jpeg header from the image file).
When
I do this usually some of the later images are corrupt: typically they
will
display OK in a thumbnail view but attempting to view at full size the
whole
image is momentarily displayed at reduced resolution but then a portion of
the image (starting at the left side) is replaced by blank or garbage as
the
veiwer attempts to display it at full resolution. (I guess this is related
to the format of jpeg images?)

Anyway I can reformat the card and it works OK, but the problem recurs.
Sometimes when recovering images I find I still have images from earlier
shoots 'further down' the card, suggesting that the card isn't failing at
some particular memory location but more-or-less randomly. I have a
'reference' duff CF card :-) which the camera (and PC via card reader)
report as unformatted even after a format and this card isn't showing that
symptom, but the repeated occurrences of the problem and the fact I don't
get any problems on another CF card (though that is only 32Mb) suggests
that
it's the card at fault rather than the camera.

Is there any way of testing to be sure, using what I have he the camera
itself, a usb card reader, linux and win2k systems, some loo rolls and
sticky-back plastic ... :-) ?

'Scuse quoting - didn't get the original post...

"John Stumbles" wrote in message
...
[crossposted to comp.os.linux.misc as well as *.photo.* groups because I
know there'll be people there clued up about comp systems, and uk.d-i-y
for
folks clued up about life the universe and everything :-)]

I have a 128M CF card which has recently started playing up in my digicam
(Nikon Coolpix 3100 fwiw). After taking a lot of pictures the camera
suddenly reports that the card is not formatted. I can recover the
pictures
from the card (using various commercial utilities, or dd-ing to an image
and
pulling out chunks starting with the jpeg header from the image file).
snip
Is there any way of testing to be sure, using what I have he the camera
itself, a usb card reader, linux and win2k systems, some loo rolls and
sticky-back plastic ... :-) ?



Linux - excellent. Try running "badblocks" over the card, eg:

badblocks -p 10 -w /dev/sd?

Where /dev/sd? is the device node for the CF card (whole disk, not
partitions). If you have any SATA drives present, please watch out as
later versions of linux present them as pseudo SCSI devices too, so
/dev/sda *might* be your main disk and not the CF card.

The above will give it ten passes (change the -p option for more or
less) of writing 4 data patterns over the CF and verifying them.

If no errors, try -p bigger number and run it overnight.

Note that this is a destructive test(!) so save your data off it first.

I know this works, had a dodgey Crucial CF card once, and badblocks showed
up errors in roughly the places I expected them based on how many pictures
were taken before the camera choked.

You'll need to reformat the card afterwards too.

HTH

Tim

Rob Bradford wrote:
My answer may not be of use, buy a cheap 32Mb card, there are still
some
about and they cost next to nothing. If that shows the same problem
then
suspect your camera, if not you have a low capacity card to use until
you
replace your faulty card.

Rob.B

"John Stumbles" wrote in message
snip

Rob, I suspect your answer may not be of use more for the fact that
John's message/request dates back to 8th July 2004...

Catch up! ;-)

Mathew

In message , Rob Bradford
writes
My answer may not be of use, buy a cheap 32Mb card, there are still some
about and they cost next to nothing. If that shows the same problem then
suspect your camera, if not you have a low capacity card to use until you
replace your faulty card.

There are several utilities easily found via google which will test your
card
--
geoff

Rob Bradford wrote:

My answer may not be of use, buy a cheap 32Mb card, there are still some
about and they cost next to nothing. If that shows the same problem then
suspect your camera, if not you have a low capacity card to use until you
replace your faulty card.

Rob.B

"John Stumbles" wrote in message
...


[crossposted to comp.os.linux.misc as well as *.photo.* groups because I
know there'll be people there clued up about comp systems, and uk.d-i-y
for
folks clued up about life the universe and everything :-)]

I have a 128M CF card which has recently started playing up in my digicam
(Nikon Coolpix 3100 fwiw). After taking a lot of pictures the camera
suddenly reports that the card is not formatted. I can recover the
pictures
from the card (using various commercial utilities, or dd-ing to an image
and
pulling out chunks starting with the jpeg header from the image file).
When
I do this usually some of the later images are corrupt: typically they
will
display OK in a thumbnail view but attempting to view at full size the
whole
image is momentarily displayed at reduced resolution but then a portion of
the image (starting at the left side) is replaced by blank or garbage as
the
veiwer attempts to display it at full resolution. (I guess this is related
to the format of jpeg images?)

Anyway I can reformat the card and it works OK, but the problem recurs.
Sometimes when recovering images I find I still have images from earlier
shoots 'further down' the card, suggesting that the card isn't failing at
some particular memory location but more-or-less randomly. I have a
'reference' duff CF card :-) which the camera (and PC via card reader)
report as unformatted even after a format and this card isn't showing that
symptom, but the repeated occurrences of the problem and the fact I don't
get any problems on another CF card (though that is only 32Mb) suggests
that
it's the card at fault rather than the camera.

Is there any way of testing to be sure, using what I have he the camera
itself, a usb card reader, linux and win2k systems, some loo rolls and
sticky-back plastic ... :-) ?








Hi,
Or format/write/read from a PC throught a reader.
Tony

Mathew J. Newton wrote:
Rob Bradford wrote:
"John Stumbles" wrote in message
snip

Rob, I suspect your answer may not be of use more for the fact that
John's message/request dates back to 8th July 2004...

Well funnily enough I have another CF card that's playing up which I
need to test so I tried badblocks. I tried it without the -p 10 since
apart from taking a lifetime to run, flash memory can only do a limited
number of write cycles. badblocks didn't show any problems so I tried
to re-test by hand (as it were).
I did:

# dd if=/dev/urandom of=test.file bs=1M count=256
256+0 records in
256+0 records out

Avebury:/home/john/pix/cftest # ll
total 262412
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2005-04-06 11:59 .
drwxr-xr-x 87 john users 4096 2005-04-06 11:58 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 268435456 2005-04-06 12:01 test.file
(file is 256M i.e. 256 * 1024 * 1024 - same as 256M CF card isn't it?)


# dd if=test.file of=/dev/sda1 bs=1M
dd: writing `/dev/sda1': No space left on device
249+0 records in
248+0 records out

(Hmmn, 260,046,848 bytes: card seems a bit short, but I don't think I
can be mistaken about a "256M" card being 256*1024*1024 - it's still
more than 256,000,000. I'm assuming it successfully wrote 248 records
and failed on the 249th)

# dd if=/dev/sda1 of=test.out bs=1M
248+1 records in
248+1 records out

(Why am I getting 248+0 when writing, 248+1 when reading back?
What does the + figure mean? man dd and info coreutils dd invocation
doesn't tell me.)

# dd if=test.file of=test.248 bs=1M count=248
248+0 records in
248+0 records out

# ll test.out test.248
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 260046848 2005-04-06 12:27 test.248
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 260292608 2005-04-06 12:26 test.out

(Something wrong he why am I getting different file sizes?
Maybe it's related to dd reporting 248+1 records for some operations
and 248+0 for others.)


I then tried truncating both files to 247M and comparing, and found no
difference, so looks as if the fault isn't showing up with this test
either - seems to be intermittent.

Can anyone help me with the + number issue with dd though?

John Stumbles wrote:
Mathew J. Newton wrote:
Rob Bradford wrote:
"John Stumbles" wrote in message
snip

Rob, I suspect your answer may not be of use more for the fact that
John's message/request dates back to 8th July 2004...
# dd if=test.file of=/dev/sda1 bs=1M
dd: writing `/dev/sda1': No space left on device
249+0 records in
248+0 records out

(Hmmn, 260,046,848 bytes: card seems a bit short, but I don't think I
can be mistaken about a "256M" card being 256*1024*1024 - it's still
more than 256,000,000. I'm assuming it successfully wrote 248 records
and failed on the 249th)

Assuming you're running a sufficiently recent kernel (2.6.x, for
stable), look at /sys/block/sda/sda1/size to get the size of the
device, as the kernel sees it. Hard disk drive manufacturers measure
disk sizes in si units instead of traditional computing units. (1KB to
them is 1000 bytes, not 1024 bytes.) This means my "10.2GB" seagate
drive actually only holds 9.6GB of data. (Flamewars of GiB vs GB aside,
of course) It's possible that the manufacturer took advantage of the
same marketing-freindly measuring system.


# dd if=/dev/sda1 of=test.out bs=1M
248+1 records in
248+1 records out

(Why am I getting 248+0 when writing, 248+1 when reading back?
What does the + figure mean? man dd and info coreutils dd invocation
doesn't tell me.)

I'm not sure, but dd might not be counting partial records after an
aborted write. (i.e. when the end of the disk is reached.) If that's
the case, you're seeing a bug in your version of dd.

The y in "x+y records in/out" refers to a partial record. Since you're
using a huge blocksize (1M), and the device's size apparently isn't a
round number of MB, dd can't write a complete 249th record, typically
either because there isn't enough space, or there isn't enough data
with which to write.

This behavior is normal. If dd reads or writes a partial record, it
*should* report "+1" instead of "+0".


# dd if=test.file of=test.248 bs=1M count=248
248+0 records in
248+0 records out

# ll test.out test.248
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 260046848 2005-04-06 12:27 test.248
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 260292608 2005-04-06 12:26 test.out

(Something wrong he why am I getting different file sizes?
Maybe it's related to dd reporting 248+1 records for some operations
and 248+0 for others.)

You're on the right track. Judging from the differences in file sizes,
the +1 referred to an additional 240K beyond the 248MB you specified by
combining the bs argument with the count argument.

test.out is an image of all the data on your flash disk. test.248 is
only the first 248MB, and lacks the final 240K.


I then tried truncating both files to 247M and comparing, and found
no
difference, so looks as if the fault isn't showing up with this test
either - seems to be intermittent.

You'll find that test.248 is identical to the first 248MB of test.out,
because test.248 represents a subset of all the space on your disk,
while test.out represents the entire disk.


Can anyone help me with the + number issue with dd though?

HTH

Mike

On 6 Apr 2005 06:54:42 -0700, John Stumbles wrote:
....
# dd if=/dev/sda1 of=test.out bs=1M
248+1 records in
248+1 records out

(Why am I getting 248+0 when writing, 248+1 when reading back?
What does the + figure mean? man dd and info coreutils dd invocation
doesn't tell me.)
....
Can anyone help me with the + number issue with dd though?

The +1 means 1 partial record (less than bs) was read/written.
So something between 248M and 249M was read/written.