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Need CF card recovery advice for S2 images!

fotografz

Well-known member
Here is a post I placed on another Leica specific site, but there may be more folks here that can offer advice … Please!

My S2 is in Germany getting the hot-shoe replaced, and a few other niggling fixes.

Leica USA graciously loaned me a S2 for an important shoot that I did yesterday.

(As a note, this loaner worked for a few other recent smaller jobs.)

On Saturday, I shot in the AM and the S2 files were fine. I then finished the job in the afternoon after swapping out cards and changing the S2 battery for a 100% recharged one. Reformatted both cards in camera which was set for parallel capture (as always).

While shooting, the LCD showed images as I progressed through the afternoon shoot. No indication of any issues. I shot about 70 to 80 or so images if even that, so the 32 gig card was not anywhere near full. I then put away the S2 and used other cameras the rest of the night.

At 11PM, upon returning from the afternoon portion of the shoot I discovered that the Sandisk 32 gig Extreme Pro CF card was unreadable. It won't even show up on the desktop. I went to the back-up 32 gig SDHC, and while it would boot to the desktop, there was nothing there.

The card reader is fine and loaded images from other cameras before and after this issue, as well as the S2 shots from the AM. However, I tried another card reader … wouldn't boot, then another card reader, this time using my laptop … wouldn't boot.

I set the CF card aside at that point, and tried running a recovery program on the SD card only … nothing but some old files from a few months ago. No files from the S2's afternoon shoot.

I did place the CF card back into the camera, and now it won't display anything … the S2's red light just blinks and nothing shows on the LCD, plus the light wouldn't stop blinking even when turned off the camera … I had to remove the battery to extract the CF card in question.

Of all the shots I did with the S2 and my Sony A99/A7R, none could possibly be more ruinous than losing these key S2 shots. They were formal family group shots of people that came from all over the US to be here yesterday, and some left the next morning. This client obsessed over these specific shots, making it even more pointed and disappointing.

Does ANYONE have any thoughts or suggestions? It blows my mind that a dual capture camera has placed me in this situation. That both cards failed calls into question how the S2 captures dual images … how it generates the jpg back-ups to the SD card.

Thank you for any help you may suggest,

- Marc


P.S., (Here's a wierd coincidence sure to delight the superstitious … the morning shoot's file count from all cameras totaled … 666).
 

ReeRay

Member
Marc, this happened to me some 10 years back after a wedding shoot. Nightmare.

I went through the same procedure as yourself with no success.

I contacted Sandisk, arranged to send the card to them and after a short while received a DVD with all files intact.

The images are surely still there but unreadable without their recovery software.

Hope this helps
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Thanks,

After calling Sandisk, they referred me to LC Technologies who gave me some hope since CF cards are more recoverable than others … the tech said it is pretty rare that they cannot recover data from a CF. $275 for a 32 gig.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

- Marc
 
Sandisk can probably sort out the images, which is the key naturally.. but on top of that, you should have a word with Leica services as well. From the looks of it, the cards "empty" were the end result and the cause is in the camera. There is no way in hell, that two cards would fail simultaneously..

//Juha
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Sandisk can probably sort out the images, which is the key naturally.. but on top of that, you should have a word with Leica services as well. From the looks of it, the cards "empty" were the end result and the cause is in the camera. There is no way in hell, that two cards would fail simultaneously..

//Juha
I called Leica first. What I am curious about is how the S2 writes redundant files when shot in "Parallel Capture" mode.

Th S2 cannot capture mirrored RAW files … it can only capture DNGs to the CF card, and Jpegs to the second SD card. This experience begs the question as to where the Jpegs are sourced from?

If it is somehow sourced from the RAW capture, then is really isn't a true redundant capture. The Jpegs would protect you from a mishap AFTER you remove the cards from the camera, or provide jpegs for faster downloads/transfers, but seemingly wouldn't protect you from a CF card failure since a corruption would seem to affect both cards … but I wouldn't know if this is true until it is understood where the jpegs come from.

Sandisk has designated this as a CF card failure, and is replacing the card. Now all my hopes are with LC Technologies. 2 to 5 days turn around. Then I'll know.

- Marc
 

peterv

New member
Marc, very sorry to hear this, I hope you can somehow retrieve the images so that you and your family can enjoy these valuable memories for years to come.
Question: Have you tried to take a few photos with the loaner with two different cards to see if the same problem occurs?
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Marc, very sorry to hear this, I hope you can somehow retrieve the images so that you and your family can enjoy these valuable memories for years to come.
Question: Have you tried to take a few photos with the loaner with two different cards to see if the same problem occurs?
I WISH these were just my images of my family!

This was a paying job shooting "one time only … no second chances" family group shots and portraits on a very special day for the client and HER family.

I WILL check the camera with different cards before using it again … but right now all I care about is retrieving these images and finishing the job.

The real shame is that we captured a ton of very magic moments for this client, but it will all be for nothing if these images are lost … it won't matter if I have a thousand great shots, all that will matter is that I don't have these ones.

My last booked job is this October, after that I am seriously looking to become an amateur and glad of it. No more "No second chances" jobs … just stuff I can redo if something fails like this.

- Marc
 

Tim

Active member
Marc,

I think with the importance of the images the professional recovery that you've opted to do is the best choice.

I did post here about some software I use - http://www.getdpi.com/forum/sunset-bar/50732-sd-card-deleted-mistake-cry.html#post584987

IF you still have the SD card you could choose to try it, make sure you lock the SD card first. However, I would wait on the SD card till the recovery guys have a look at the CF card and report back. You may want the professionals to attempt jpg recovery off the SD card if the CF fails to yield images. Jpgs would be better than nothing IMO. The issue is we can sometimes make things worse for the recovery professionals if not careful.
 

Shashin

Well-known member
Good luck with that. It is a horrible experience. It is one of those days you wish you were hired as the writer...
 
Tim's advice is a very solid one.

Reg. the way Leica has designed the two slots to work, it's rubbish if it works by pulling jpegs out of the raws after the raws have been written. But on the same note, you said you were able to see the images during/slightly after the shoot in camera. Meaning that the images had been written to CF. Now, with that and the CF failing.. how in the h*ll did the jpeg copies not get done or how did they vanish?

Even if it is a CF failure, I still refuse to accept dual simultaneous failure. Meaning Leica still ows you an explanation.. failing one card can't mean wiping the other for good measure. And to go even further was it actually the camera that destroyed the cards?

The most worrying part would be this turning into a saga of random failures like this happening to others as well, leaving Leica with little/no data to sort it out.. I bet the cameras don't collect any "dump" data in case of errors, since that would consume valuable resources under normal conditions.

//Juha
 

D&A

Well-known member
Marc, Hoping LC Technologies is able to recover the lost files and wish you the best of luck with that pursuit. I went through this only once on a one time professional shoot that couldn't be duplicated. Luckily at the time, one of the recovery programs I tried was successful in recovering most but not all of the files.

I have a question for all. When shooting RAW only and a preview image shows up on the rear LCD screen, isn't that preview image a generated small jpeg from the RAW file? If so, I suspect (just a guess) that the full sized JPEGs are also generated from the RAW and thus the redundancy of failures on both the S2's CF and Sd cards. I believe it takes less processing power this way as opposed to the camera having to write separate RAW's and Jpegs of each shot. Whether that's absolutely true or not, I'd love to find out.

Dave (D&A)
 

Paul Jameson

New member
Im guessing it's a fairly simple directory corruption caused by a power issue which corrupted both cards (no storage is immune to this) and you should be OK.
I have never once been let down by DATA RESCUE 3. Forget the Sandisk one called Disk Warrior, I've found it's useless.

Data Rescue 3 has saved me on a number of occasions like this, getting back every single image even after they had been deleted. I even found images from
months before on a recovery even though I had used and formatted the card several times after. Goodluck!
 
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docmoore

Subscriber and Workshop Member
I have read also that the preview JPG is generated from the RAW...how the JPG on the card is processed is another matter...the preview is most likely compressed from the derived JPG that is written to the card.

My hope is that all of the pictures seen by Marc indeed still exist on the card...the offending write which corrupted both cards should most likely affect only the last written files and the pointer data base....hence none seen and not recognized by the computer OS.

To overwrite all of the files on the card and so corrupt them would be a lengthy process...corrupting the DB would be as quick as saving the last picture to the card(s).

Two cards being illegible is most likely a corruption of the DB and not simultaneous card failures....

ISOBUSTER should find those files in seconds....has worked on multiple occasions for me even after standards changed on writing CDs ... thanks Microsoft.

I do hope that the RAWs are recovered by LC Technologies and that Leica develops a simultaneous parallel RAW path for both cards...or alternate even/odd to the cards so that you at worst case lose only 50%....and by doubling your exposures you have essentially duplicates.

Bob
 

BANKER1

Member
After an unfortunate incident with my CFV16, I started taking 25-30 images and changing CF cards on my H4D60. Between changes, I'd make sure the images were actually there before proceeding to the next card. A lot of trouble for sure. Thankfully, I have had not had any trouble since the CFV16 incident.

Greg
 

Paul Jameson

New member
Unfortunately when two cards are in one camera, coming from one power source, it is always susceptible to these malfunctions. Just the same as any other mirrored drive.

There is one rock solid solution. Shoot to card AND tethered. Also do a simultaneous back up while tethering so you have 3 copies. You really need to assume the worst will happen on these jobs because it really does happen at times and always when you least expect it.

This is one of the reasons I will always, always shoot tethered.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Unfortunately when two cards are in one camera, coming from one power source, it is always susceptible to these malfunctions. Just the same as any other mirrored drive.

There is one rock solid solution. Shoot to card AND tethered. Also do a simultaneous back up while tethering so you have 3 copies. You really need to assume the worst will happen on these jobs because it really does happen at times and always when you least expect it.

This is one of the reasons I will always, always shoot tethered.
Paul, I suspect you are right. Some mishap happened that affected both cards equally. I have no idea what that may have been, but that has to be what happened.

My hope is that it was the last few shots where the corruption took place because those images can be redone or won't be missed.

I always shoot commercial work tethered, or to smaller cards and download while continuing with the next card.

However, these types of shoots make it virtually impossible to do either. They are just too fast paced and consumers pack in as many family group shots and portraits as possible in the time allocated. They simply do no understand any technical mumbo-jumbo, and will simply hire someone else if you won't do their laundry list of family shots. This represents about an hour out of a 10 hour shoot, so I just accept it. Besides, I am a supporter of family images in this day of cell phone snaps, and try hard to do them well with lighting and all that.

Often I have my second shooter do a back-up shot of groups, but in this case he was holding the mobile portable lighting as I shot with the S2 and leaf-shutter lenses. We were moving as the sun moved, so no chance for back-up shots. Frankly, I thought I was backed-up with two card capture … obviously a mistaken notion.

- Marc
 
Reg. tethered shooting, what about using eye-fi kind of wifi sd-card for the jpegs to push the images to something like iPod Touch in your pocket? Those have large enough capacity and the wifi transfer of the jpegs could work out good..

Just an idea..

//Juha
 

glenerrolrd

Workshop Member
Marc

Data Rescue 3 has always worked for me . With The DMR it wasn t unusual to get a corrupt card . In every case as the battery drained …the last few captures would not completely write to the card . You could easily find the corrupt images with DR3 …when the last few images were corrupted the write to the card would not be completed …result corrupt card . DR3 always found the other captures .

It can be the card ..but it also can be a battery issue ..even with a fresh battery . When the battery does t supply enough juice …no writes to the 2nd card .

Leica has been weak in this area since the DMR and I ve found similar issues with the M8 etc ..but never my S2.

Try DR3 .
 
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