Now My Sony NEX VG30 Camera Screws Me Over

[EEVblog]

Many will remember my problem with my Canon HF G10 camera where it has twice caused me to lose a days shooting because it didn't save the video to the SD card.
Well, now my Sony NEX VG30 camera has done exactly the same thing.
I hit record, did some talking head clips, and even played back one on the camcorder and it seemed fine.
Put the card in my computer and nothing, just old footage from the camera.
Put the card back into the camcorder and the thumbnails show up, but won't play back.
This card was used previously in this camera to record the last mailbag.

Getting very sick of this s**t 

[Lightages]

Two cameras with SD card issues? Are you sure that the SD cards aren't failing/faulty?

[EEVblog]

Two cameras with SD card issues? Are you sure that the SD cards aren't failing/faulty?

Nope, only a few months old genuine Sandisk Extreme.

[bktemp]

When flash memories fail, most of them behave like read only devices. Since most file systems are buffered im RAM, new files will show up, but after a restart of the device all changed files are back to their prevoius state.
To be sure it is not the sd card, fill it completely with data and read it back. To do this, I use this tool:
http://www.heise.de/download/h2testw.html

[Rasz]

Getting very sick of this s**t 

its really simple,  all of those shitty camera firmwares are broken and cant handle deleting files

you need to format card in camera, shoot, download to pc, and when card gets full _format it in camera again_

Put the card back into the camcorder and the thumbnails show up, but won't play back.

yep, sounds like broken fat, you can probably get at those files if you carve this card in some data recovery program (full scan)

[EEVblog]

yep, sounds like broken fat, you can probably get at those files if you carve this card in some data recovery program (full scan)

Nope. None of them work, and yes I've tried all the ones people suggest.

[EEVblog]

To be sure it is not the sd card, fill it completely with data and read it back. To do this, I use this tool:
http://www.heise.de/download/h2testw.html

It's not the card, it's a firmware issue in the cameras, they cannot handle having a PC do anything to the card between recordings, or taken out/insert while the power is on, or *insert any other thing you can think of*

[ElektroQuark]

Can the camera streaming the video directly to a PC?
So you record in SD an PC in parallel... 

[EEVblog]

Can the camera streaming the video directly to a PC?
So you record in SD an PC in parallel... 

Technically it could from the HDMI output, but I wouldn't want to, way too much hassle.

[BillWojo]

That's why I like my P2 cards. They are little solid state raid memory cards. Very rare for them to have a problem. Prices on used ones have come way down. Actually they have 4 SD cards and a raid controller built into the thing. I would never trust important footage to a single SD card, brings back memories of using DV tape.

BillWojo

[EEVblog]

That's why I like my P2 cards. They are little solid state raid memory cards. Very rare for them to have a problem. Prices on used ones have come way down. Actually they have 4 SD cards and a raid controller built into the thing. I would never trust important footage to a single SD card, brings back memories of using DV tape.

That's of no use when your camcorder only supports SD cards.
I would have shot well over 50,000 clips on SD cards, and I've only lost data on a couple of shoots. So in the scheme of things it's not a big deal, just bloody annoying when it happens. And AFAIK, they have all been avoidable if I followed a strict reformat and handling procedure for each shoot.
I don't think I've lost actual data due to a failed SD card yet.
My Canon camcorders can record to two cards simultaneously if needed, and I would certainly use that if I had a once in a lifetime interview opportunity or something.

[David Hess]

I have had this happen as well with digital still cameras.

One would hope that the camera does some sort of quick verification that writes to the memory card are working properly but maybe they figure it is better not to detect this kind of problem because it would  make them look bad versus silently failing.

[mariush]

I would try replacing that card reader with one using another hardware controller / "chipset".  I imagine there could be some glitches/issues (or maybe esd something) happening when you insert the card into the card reader corrupting it.

My camera has usb connector on it, so it shows up directly as a removable hard drive when i connect it to the pc, so I have no reason to eject the card from camera.

[bktemp]

It is hard to belief that different cameras have the same problem.
Every SD card slot has a card detect switch. Most firmwares use this pin. My Nikon dslr even detects a new sd card when it is switched off.

Lets say the camera detects the new card. If the filesystem got damaged, maybe the camera recorded the data, but was not able to update the directory entry.
You could try to recover the file using this software:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
If the data is on the card, it will find it.

An easy way to test how smart the firmware is:
Remove the card and insert a micro SD adapter without a card inserted. This will fool the card detect switch. If it still records without an error, the firmware is crap.

[SeanB]

I just had one of those adaptors die on me, and the car camera firmware popped up an error. Put the card in another adaptor and it worked. Old one for some reason fell apart.

[EEVblog]

It is hard to belief that different cam
You could try to recover the file using this software:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
If the data is on the card, it will find it.

I've tried all these programs, they do not work.

[Rasz]

I've tried all these programs, they do not work.

You tried some, I doubt you tried all of them ;O)
How about FTK? or Encase? Video data is still on there somewhere, and in extreme cases can be recovered manually. Recovery is not a click to receive bacon process tho, you cant simply run a program and expect magic to happen.

You could try changing filesystem on your cards, its probably NTFS now, try FAT32 (a lot simpler, less to break,easier to recover).

[EEVblog]

You could try changing filesystem on your cards, its probably NTFS now, try FAT32 (a lot simpler, less to break,easier to recover).

They are all FAT32.

[Rasz]

You could try changing filesystem on your cards, its probably NTFS now, try FAT32 (a lot simpler, less to break,easier to recover).

They are all FAT32.

go NTFS then

[rob77]

i would suggest to never ever take the SD card out while the camera is powered on, or use the card eject/unmount feature if there is such a thing.
furthermore i would suggest to never ever put a SD card back to the camera if there was any external write done (e.g. on a PC). if you delete a file from that SD on a PC and put the SD back, then don't be suprised if the few-line-of-code implementation of the FAT driver in the camera will mess things up.
the FAT filesystem is the most fragile piece of shit ever invented... but it's very simple and therefore very popular. as it was mentioned above - the implementation of the FAT driver in devices is very simplistic or even poor, so the user has to compensate for that (by either never take the SD out, or if taking out and putting back ,then always format the card in the camera).

[jucole]

It wouldn't be something like when you open the memory card on windows in "view as thumbnails" mode, it then adds those Thumbs.db files etc to the memory card or some other unnecessary files which confuses the camera?

[bktemp]

It is hard to belief that different cam
You could try to recover the file using this software:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
If the data is on the card, it will find it.

I've tried all these programs, they do not work.

Did they recover anything? You should at least get some older files.

FAT is not the best file system, but it is simple an well documented (compared to NTFS or the exFAT crap), so it should be easy to implement correctly.
If a file does not appear the camera did not record it at all, or it did record it but was not able to update the directory entry.
If the recovery software finds (at least fragments) of the video, you know it was recorded. Then there is something wrong with the card or the filesystem. If no part of the video is found then the camera most likely did not record it.

[dexters_lab]

tbh if the recovery programs cant find anything then best thing to do is accept the loss and go do it again, shit happens as they say.

though i would want to know the cause of it for sure, windows is actually quite well behaved when it comes to removable media especially FAT based ones as there is no log file, meta data for it to funk around with. Especially compared with the crap that Macs like to splurge over removable media.

i would hazard a guess Dave is right and there is a firmware issue on the camera, a certain combination on events means when the card is re-inserted it doesn't initialize properly. Problem is if it's only happened a couple of times its going to be very difficult to try and identify any patterns.

i had an issue with my Nikon D5000, the initial firmware release didn't like certain sandisk cards and would randomly throw card read errors. You would think they might have tested it with a premium brand like sandisk!

[Someone]

To be sure it is not the sd card, fill it completely with data and read it back. To do this, I use this tool:
http://www.heise.de/download/h2testw.html

It's not the card, it's a firmware issue in the cameras, they cannot handle having a PC do anything to the card between recordings, or taken out/insert while the power is on, or *insert any other thing you can think of*

Sadly its an accepted part of the professional video workflow, digital media is reusable but only in the linear: format, contiguous writes in camera, offload to disks/tape, format and repeat.