I can feel your angst, Anna. I can't get all my photos from the external hard drive onto the computer. It's maddening and I do miss my photos!

Anna I wish I could talk you through it, I do all my photos right from the camera to the laptop via USB. Sometimes it's easier to just try it rather than reading through it. For me anyway

Hi @AnnaZ,

If your SD card is reading in the camera, then the easiest option is to connect the camera to the computer with a USB cable (an appropriate one probably came with the camera).

Most of the time the computer will automatically detect the camera as a USB storage device and it will show up in "My Computer" as either the camera name (i.e. CANON) or it might show up as another drive letter (i.e. E:\ or F:\ - assuming C:\ is your Windows installation and D:\ is your CD/DVD drive). You should be able to open this as a folder and in it there is typically a DCIM folder (sometimes with subfolders) that contains the photos on the card.

The fact that Windows is telling you the card needs to be formatted when you try to read it through your SD card reader suggests that the file system has been corrupted/damaged somehow on the card. Don't format it if you don't want to lose the photos. As for formatting twice, I strongly recommend not doing this. Once should be sufficient. An SD card is flash memory and it has a finite life (usually something like 1,000,000 writes). Each time you format it, it uses up a write cycle for the entire card. If you use your camera a lot, then reducing wear-and-tear on the SD card is a good idea.

If you can recover the photos from the card, you can try formatting it and reusing it. But I would be skeptical about using the card again after getting a warning like that without knowing exactly what caused it (diagnostics sometimes show up a read/write error in the SD card, which means the card has been permanently damaged). Given how cheap SD cards are these days, I would recommend getting a new one.

I hope that helps.


Hi @pirl,

Feel free to send me a treemail if you'd like to discuss your external HDD problem in detail.

Kind Regards,
Joshua.

I hope it isn't "shot".............it's a 64GB one. And only had it a year and not used it much at all.

It's not unheard of for one to fail. I had an almost-new card (was using it in my video camera) that had been used a few times just completely die on me - even though it was a brand that's usually reliable. The manufacturer got me to post mine to them and they sent me a replacement. Cheaper than a new card. So whilst it's unlikely and inconvienent, it can happen, unfortunately.

I don't have my sals receipt so I am out of luck there.

Depending on what brand it is, you might not need it. Some manufacturers only require the serial number on the SD card. It's worth checking if your card's manufacturer will replace it.

Thanks, @Australis!

I got the pix I wanted off the card using my son's laptop. His has a card slot and I was able to access the photos that way. I resized them and put them on a flash drive, then transferred them to my computer. I'll format the card and see if that helps.

Hi @AnnaZ,

Glad to hear that you were able to retrieve the photos. Might I suggest running a check on the SD card? I'm not sure if it will show up on the version of Windows you have, but you should be able to do the following:

- Right-click on the SD card in "My Computer"
- Select "Properties"
- In the window that opens, select the "Tools" tab
- There should be an error-checking option - click "Check"

On my Windows 10 machine, it appears like this:



Also, when you open properties, just have a look to see if the reported size of the card matches what it should be after you've formatted it - i.e. your 64GB card should show up as 59.6GB in Windows... courtesy of a decision a decade or so ago to market products using 1KB = 10^3 = 1000 instead of the way computers treat storage space (which is 1KB = 2^10 = 1024). Ironically, I found this only made it all more confusing, since all operating systems report the size using the original (and proper) method, whilst product labels use the new one (cue a whole lot of people wondering why their 4.7GB DVDs only fit 4.37GB worth of data and their USB flash drives are never the capacity they're supposed to be...). And because of the way computers work (they use binary), there is actually no benefit in making it as 64GB = 64,000,000,000 bytes - it becomes a completely arbitrary number and an inefficient use of computer hardware addressing (end rant).

If your SD card does not show up with the correct capacity (about 59.6GB) then there's definitely something wrong with it.

I think there is something wrong with it. I formatted it, went and took 3 pix, came back and put in the card reader and I got a message that it had to be forematted before it could be used. I followed the directions on the screen (after all, there was nothing on it other than those 3 pix, so not a big deal if they were wiped out), put it back in, went and took 3 more pix. Put back in the card reader..........same thing.

I should try it with another card and see if it is a card issue or a camera issue. I've been having trouble taking video with it and will probably have to send it to Canon. It's a 60D.

I put the card in my D20, formatted it in that camera, took some pix..............they do not show up when in the card reader. Soooo...........it has to be the card, not the reader since the reader works with other cards. *sigh*..........and it's a 64GB too.

Cards are getting less expensive everyday. Don't put all you eggs in one basket. 2 32GB cards are sometimes better than one 64GB card. Gene

I got the large one because we were at the pyrotechnics convention last August and I didn't want to have to schlep another card. It worked great till this last time last week.

Okay. It does sound like there is an issue with the card. If you haven't already, see if your card manufacturer will replace it for you under warranty. As I said before, they don't always need proof of purchase, just the serial number on the card.

It's a SanDisk..........I see no serial number on it.

Hmm. Usually there is a serial number on it. It may be on the reverse side in faint/small lettering (you might need a magnifying glass to read it).

SanDisk's RMA and replacement process is here:
http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answ...

In the past I have not needed proof of purchase.