SDHC "check Card" Error Message Urgent help !

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GeoYaz

Member
I am using an SDHC 16 GB card that have worked totally fine with the Panasonic AG-HMC 150 I have. I recorded a couple of hours of footage over the weekend and now when I came to dump the footage, my computer is not reading it, my laptop is reading Hardware ID Missing and the camera reader gave me an error message “Check your card”. Everything with the card seems to be intact and the other SDHC cards I used on the same shoot are totally fine. Any idea on a possibility to fix this?
 
Doh, I must say I swore by delkin cards... I have had no issues with mine, only issues with transcends.

And you tried moving the lock switch around, different readers and computers?
 
Yes i DO have a card reader! and I've used it to dump the other SDHC card that I have. The only thing that i can think of that caused this problem is not farmatting the card before using it!
 
That can cause a failure, sorry to say. It seems like that was a common denominator in an earlier discussion. I would try different card readers and different computers (mac and pc). There are some data recovery companies that recover sd cards.
 
Okay, two things:

1) IT IS VITAL to format the card in-camera. If you don't do that, you don't have a leg to stand on. The manual recommends it, we've had other discussions with people saying they didn't format in-camera and they had problems. Please, please, please FORMAT ALL CARDS IN-CAMERA BEFORE USE.

2) If you remove an SD card while it is being accessed, you most definitely can blow up the card. Do not do not do not touch an SD card while it is in the computer or in the camera, do not remove it while it's being written to or being read from. You can and will damage the card. There is a reason that every AVCCAM product has clunky/difficult-to-open doors that cause a delay before you can open them! And why every AVCCAM product requires the door to be shut before you can read from or write to the card. Those doors are there to slow you down, so you don't pull out a card while it's being accessed.
 
Well said Barry...

I have never had an issue with the hmc150 when I do format the card... Did have a problem between my t1i and pc though. I was lucky not to loose any important footage and get a refund.
 
Did you ever check playback in your camera during shooting? I try to do that several times during a shoot.
 
I had that issue with a panasonic card but I am trying to remember if I formatted the card before I shot.

:bath:
 
I have had this happen to a few cards. I am noticing that some card readers seem to be "tighter" than others, and the tight ones are the ones that seem to scratch the connecters off my cards. If you look at the metal parts of the cards you can see a little bit of green behind them. When they get scratched up you begin to see more and more of this green backing. That's how I can now Identify the 3 bad cards in my bunch.
 
so I'm assuming I didn't reformat the card before using it! is there any way Ican recover that card. CAn you name a software that does that ... or a company ... I'm located in NJ.
Thank you guys for your responds. and MR Green Thank you for your quick reply ... Can't wait to order your book!
 
VideoMaker said:
Barry, I always reformat the card in-camera before each new use, rather than just erase the previous files. Is this what you are suggesting?
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No, I'm saying that SD cards come brand-new formatted as FAT32 and can be stuck in the camera right away and used without first reformatting them. And that that is a bad workflow, that every camera's manual advises against. They all (that I've read) say "reformat the card in the camera before using it."

Once you've formatted it in the camera, I think it's an acceptable workflow to just "delete all clips" instead of reformatting, but I admit that I frequently do reformat.

But what I'm really getting at is: format it in the camera before its first use, and if you ever format it in a computer, RE-format it in the camera before using it.
 
And don't forget the most basic requirement:

The camera must be fully turned off before inserting or removing a card.
 
You'd be safest doing that, but you can swap cards with the power on as long as you make absolutely sure that the "access" LED is turned off before you pull the old card out.
 
Page 30 of the manual says to turn the power off before inserting a card. But it does not provide any strong cautionary language other than about not disturbing the write process.

It dosen't actually say one way or the other about if power should be off or on when removing a card. That's an oversight IMO, considering if you do have a data failure, it can be a disaster. But off seems to be a safe bet. Plus, the power cycle re-initializes the card.
 
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Off is definitely safer, no question. But it's perfectly safe to swap them with the power on as long as you are diligent about not going near the card when the access LED is on.
 
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