GH3 Card corrupted or something? All my video files are gone but explorer shows data used

S

Stab

Well-known member
I just made some test shots with the GH3 and wanted to watch the videos I made.

When I pressed the 'play' button, it said 'no valid picture to play' ... Strange. Then I put the SD card in my card reader and windows explorer indeed shows that 10 GB is used on the card. When I open the folder that should contain the videos it is empty ...

I made some shots on another card and it worked fine, both playback and transfer. However, yesterday I formatted the other card as well and made some shots that I put on the computer. Nothing has changed...

What happened? And is there any way to 'retrieve' the video files on the card?
 
Ok I found a software called 'PhotoRec', a sub program of 'Testdisk' and it is designed to retrieve files from corrupted cards. It found the files back and it is now transfering them to my HDD.

The problem is solved, however it is strange that this happened and I would like to know why. This cannot happen on a corporate shoot. But luckily, genius people made software like TestDisk that can get it back if it might ever happen again.
 
What SD card are you using? The corrupt card has more to do with card quality than the camera. Do you format the card in camera before each shoot?
 
I use Transcend 16GB Class 10 cards. I have used them for 2 years on the Canon 60D and never had anything like this happen.

I formatted this card with the GH3 yesterday, and I already made some shots after that which were perfectly transfered to the HD / playable within the camera. I dont want to blame the camera (yet) because these things can happen with SD cards, but it never happened to me before with 2 years of shooting with a 60D.
Maybe I should format all my SD cards from the PC? To get rid of all 60D 'underlying' data or something? :)
 
Stab said:
Maybe I should format all my SD cards from the PC? To get rid of all 60D 'underlying' data or something? :)
Click to expand...

I would try that. The GH2 does not offer a choice of doing a "low level" format and the same may be true of the GH3...I don't have mine yet so I don't know. Use a PC, not a MAC, for the low level format, then reformat in the camera. I do this on my GH2's as a matter of course.

Card brands: Transcend, while probably the best of the "bargain" brand cards is still a "bargain" brand and does NOT offer the same degree of reliability as SanDisk (purchased from a reputable source!) or Hoodman RAW media. There is a reason these cost a bit more and you may have just experienced it.

I use nothing but SanDisk and have NEVER experienced a corrupted card or loss of data. So my advice is "bite the bullet", pay the price, and march on.

I've followed SDHC and CF media problem reports in several forums since 2008 and while Transcend does not have the same problem and failure rate as Patriot, A-Data, Dane-Elec, and other "house brand" cards, it still seems to "drop the ball" occasionally.

Your problem may have been nothing more than failure on your part to "low level" format before moving to the GH3 but SanDisk will let you do that and "away with it". I just last week used a card in a GH2 last used in a 60D. I just had to do a low level format in the PC when done with the job to get rid of the Canon folders on it. The GH2 images and video were there in their folders, I just had a "double" folder structure.

SanDisk.
 
Good advice, but in 2 years of heavy usage, I never had the Transcend cards let me down. If it happens more, I will consider a change.

This problem was probably caused indeed by the lack of a low level format, because the GH3 does not offer that option as well. The 60D however did, and that's probably why it never occured. Got most of my files back though thanks to 'TestDisk'. Good to know there is a backup like that.
 
There's something with Lumix G cameras in video use and Transcend cards - all the way back to when GH1 was new a majority of card problems seems to involve Transcend. I've only used Panasonic and SanDisk cards and have had zero problems with them and my GH1.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top