Corrupt imagefiles when memory card is nearly full

[HStidsen]

I recently went on a trip where I took a lot of pictures. This, of course, filled up a couple of memory cards. Unfortunately, when I got home and copied the pictures to my computer, it turns out that about 30 of the imagefiles were corrupt and unreadable. The images were from two different memorycards and all were "in the end" of the card, taken shortly before the card ran out of space.

In both cases, there is one picture where it looks like the writing of the file stopped halfway through and the rest af unreadable. Opening the corrupt mages in a hex editor shows a file filled with "f" values. Both the JPEG and the ARW files are  the same, some of the ARW files are missing.

To me, it seems like the camera didn't read the cards right, or thought it had more space than it had, and wrote more to the card than what was possible and thereby created a bunch of useless files - possibly because the cards are of the relatively slow C10 speed class. Is this a likely diagnosis or should I worry that there is something wrong with the camera or the cards? I did suffer a few "corrupt image database file" errors which I did attribute to hot, humid and changing temperatures.

[jumpsuit · Accepted solution]

Hi @HStidsen and welcome to the Community

Memory cards can be very temperamental at times 😞

There are quite a few factors that can cause memory card problems / corruption.

These do include taking photos when the camera battery is nearly empty and letting a

memory card get too full before downloading the images to a computer.

(Cards that are too full may overwrite the card headers.)

Even formatting a card in the computer rather than a camera can slow down

data processing and cause problems.

I wouldn't worry about the camera for now unless it starts happening during a full battery / empty card 

situation.

Hope this helps

[HStidsen]

Thank you

Yes, it does seem that the memory cards are quite temperemental!

It was one of those trips where I didn't bring my computer, so I had to bring every memory card I owned - even a couple of 2 gigabyte cards So naturally, I did take as many pictures as possible on every card.

Battery level was good when the corrupt image files happened but I do remember some issues with the image database file becoming corrupted when I changed the battery and the camera did seem slower to start first time on a fresh battery.

Anyway, thank you for the info, I will have to remember to not let the memory cards get too full and batteries too close to empty!

[jumpsuit]

Hi

You're welcome.

Memory cards and I often disgree