File is corrupt and unreadable

[Paul G]

Having some dramas downloading my last shoot into adobe Bridge (NEF/Raw from Sandisk CF card)

The download starts then stops halfway through.

From some of the photos that have downloaded a couple are saying "file is corrupt or unreadable" if I try to open in CS4 and when I try to delete the file of folder from My Pictures it says the same thing and will not let me delete file or folder.

What can I do?

I also been having trouble with the computer detecting my camera and when the external hard drive was connected at time of download for backup neither wanted to play the game. Camera would only start to download when the external Seagate drive was disconnected. I've never had problems like this before and I'm a bit nervous as the pictures were from a wedding I shot last weekend.

[I @ M]

I am no expert Paul but right at this stage I would stop trying anything else and source a card reader and even another pc / mac to see if they can be simply copied direct from the card rather than relying on possible software or camera recognition problems.

[Paul G]

Yep I was thinking of a card reader as my next step but the budget won't allow one just at the moment. It's annoying because there seems to be a few issues at play here and it has me a little worried as it hasn't really happened before.

[Analog6]

Paul, you can get them for $10-20 at Big W, K Mart, discount shops etc.

[Paul G]

Cheers Odille I'll check it out. The ones I've been looking at are the Sandisk and Lexar ones for between $100 and $140.

[kiwi]

I have a sandisk card reader - it cost like $30, the firewire ones are the expensive sort, but you prob dont need them

[ameerat42]

Paul, you can get them for $10-20 at Big W, K Mart, discount shops etc.

But like the ones I've got for that price, they may not read cards over 2GB. If you need to read larger cards you usually need to pay about $30. Am...

[Paul G]

Cheers guys and girls.

Well I just got home from work and went to boot up the computer and things seem to have gone from bad to badder

Computer went into Check Disc mode and deleted stuff and rescued orphaned files etc etc . Same thing happened to the same drive about four to five months ago and a friend was able to rescue most of it and get it running okay. Think I'll just go for a new drive this time. Bloody Seagate - there all as bad as each other I think.

Still don't know if this has any relation to the downloading problems last night though?

[Paul G]

I'm really starting to get angry.

Tried downloading the the card through the camera again and had no luck again. Never before have I had this trouble.
The download started okay, got to about file 11 of 440ish, stopped, waited and waited and waited and waited then nothing, then the following messages were displayed:

From Bridge I presume...

Files were not obtained from device

Adobe Bridge CS4 cannot obtain all files from this device. Please ensure this device is connected properly (yes checked 69 times now ) , or that the battery is charged (yes, yes and yes).
Files already copied to hard disk will be available at:
G:\y Pictures\Wedding\ etc etc

Another message balloon at bottom right of screen says:

Windows - Delayed Write Failed

Windows was unable to save all the data for the file G:\$Mft. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or a network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.

Do any of the knowledgeable tech people out there have any ideas what might be going on here? I am at my wits end and don't know what to do.

[I @ M]

Paul, I still think that your best bet is to get to another computer and copy them straight from the card to the hard drive, burn them to cd / dvd ---- at least twice ----purely to ensure that you have them backed up and then start to investigate your own unit by trying to load them from the cd / dvd.

And maybe a thread bump might get someone else interested.

[ricktas]

Sounds like there is either an issue with the hard drive you are writing to (all hard drives will fail eventually), or there is an issue with your computer. The :

Windows - Delayed Write Failed.Windows was unable to save all the data for the file G:\$Mft. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or a network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.

Message usually appears if there is a connection issue with the drive, in this case G drive. It could be drive failure, controller failure, power supply failure or more. All could be intermittent until such time as complete failure occurs. First things first, have you got whatever is on G drive backed up elsewhere?

[arthurking83]

Are your images viewable directly from the card?

Disconnect the external drive, and make sure any software for it(if you use the bundled Seagate software) is not running(Task Manager is good for stopping errant programs).

Don't download any images to your PC. Just try to browse any of them directly from the card. M$ has raw file viewers and any number of other image viewers can also read directly from the card too.
Two that come to mind are the program that came with your camera(ViewNX) or FastStone Image viewer. ViewNX will be slower from a card tho!

if the images are not corrupt then it could be a hardware or software issue.

I originally had trouble with my Seagate FreeAgent software, but updated the software to the latest version available from Seagates website. The FreeAgent software is basically a backup program, and eventually worked well, but then I found a much more flexible program called RichCopy 4.0 and it's ability to backup files is much nicer than most other programs.. and is free!

That was on WinXP and now I'm running Win7 and have only loaded RichCopy as my file backup program.

I think the FreeAgent program also had a drive analysis tool to check the external drive for failure or impending failure too.. If you loaded the software try it and see.

Just hope that the card is definitely not corrupted in any way.
You could also load it back onto the camera and make sure the images are all still intact too, by viewing the images on the camera.

I need to replace the PSU on my PC as it's failing and randomly rebooting my PC now... bye!

[Paul G]

Paul, I still think that your best bet is to get to another computer and copy them straight from the card to the hard drive, burn them to cd / dvd ---- at least twice ----purely to ensure that you have them backed up and then start to investigate your own unit by trying to load them from the cd / dvd.

Cheers Andrew. Might see if I can borrow some time on a computer of one of a couple of mates here. One of whom has CS4 loaded so that might make it more familiar for me.

Sounds like there is either an issue with the hard drive you are writing to (all hard drives will fail eventually), or there is an issue with your computer

I'm a bit unhappy with this particular drive. It's a Seagate 500GB that's been in the case maybe 10 months and I've already had issues with it showing bad sectors about 4 -5 months ago. One of my mates was able to help me through that one but it's not showing bad sectors this time. It's running ChkDsk once since I had the Seagate External Drive (Backup connected) and I'm a bit hesitant to turn it off at all now. Strangely enough no software bundle came with this external drive. Apparently it all has to be downloaded via their site these days.

The :

First things first, have you got whatever is on G drive backed up elsewhere?

Have about 80% of files backed up at this point nothing from the last couple of months as I haven't been doing a lot of shooting, but I'm even hesitant to connect the backup drive in case there's something wrong with it too.

Are your images viewable directly from the card?

I can view them okay in camera and they will view in Bridge - they just won't save to the selected folder's.

Don't download any images to your PC. Just try to browse any of them directly from the card. M$ has raw file viewers and any number of other image viewers can also read directly from the card too.
Two that come to mind are the program that came with your camera(ViewNX) or FastStone Image viewer. ViewNX will be slower from a card tho!

Might try FastStone. Can't remember if View NX came with the package when I got my D200 (seconhand).

if the images are not corrupt then it could be a hardware or software issue.

I originally had trouble with my Seagate FreeAgent software, but updated the software to the latest version available from Seagates website. The FreeAgent software is basically a backup program, and eventually worked well, but then I found a much more flexible program called RichCopy 4.0 and it's ability to backup files is much nicer than most other programs.. and is free!

That was on WinXP and now I'm running Win7 and have only loaded RichCopy as my file backup program.

I think the FreeAgent program also had a drive analysis tool to check the external drive for failure or impending failure too.. If you loaded the software try it and see.

Just hope that the card is definitely not corrupted in any way.
You could also load it back onto the camera and make sure the images are all still intact too, by viewing the images on the camera.

I need to replace the PSU on my PC as it's failing and randomly rebooting my PC now... bye!

Cheers for all the tips. Gives me a bit to hunt through. Might try the driver update for the Seagate External. I'm still running Win XP on a Pentium4 machine. Another friend suggested maybe trying to download small batches of files at a time in case the load is too much on the system.. It's a full 4GB Sandisk Extreme III card, shot in RAW and holding about 440 wedding images. Bride breathing down my neck already after a week and I can't even download the shots .

I do have another card of images from my son's 3rd birthday party today so I might even try giving that one a go and see if it will download.


Thanks again for all the tips everyone.

[arthurking83]

The other option as you're using a Nikon is to try using Nikon Transfer(version whatever is the latest).

I used to manually download/transfer my images direct from the card with a copy/paste routine, and then watched Andrew(I@M) doing it via Nikon's Transfer program. Looked easy enough and adding keywords and stuff like that seemed like a cool feature to have in the future.

I'm now convinced that this is a better way to transfer files than my old method of copy/paste.
I dunno what Bridge is other than as a means of transporting something across a depression of some kind ... LOL! don't use Adobe products.. but I doubt they're an issue.

One step at a time is the best way forward.
I didn't realize that the drives no longer come with the software.. I thought the FreeAgent versions did, and the Desktop versions of the Seagate external drives didn't.

The other day, I only just got myself another 1Tb external Seagate drive as my currently connected version, is way too full for me to do a proper backup.
They're an honest drive, as far as I'm aware not any more prone to hardware issues than any other drive manufacturer.
My old version is the FreeAgent, and my new version is the cheaper Desktop model. I thougt it was due to some software differences or whatever.

[Paul G]

Checked and mines a Seagate External Desktop 500gb
Tonight I started with some diagnostic testing. I downloaded the SeaTools Diagnostic program from their website.
Good news is my 6year old 80GB Seagate drive is fine, my Seagate External 500GB is fine but the diagnostic is telling me that my new, less than 10months old, 5026 power-on-hours, 500GB Seagate HDD (Model# ST3500320AS, Serial# 9QMAMD1K) is crook. It failed three of the main tests: Short Drive Self Test, Long Drive Self Test, and Short Generic Test. Strangely it passed the S.M.A.R.T. Flag test so I don't know what that reveals as that was supposed to be another of the tests for a drive failure. I guess it's time to look for the receipt and backup what I can....

[dulvariprestige]

Paul i just went through some dramas with my near new 1tb seagate expansion drive, when i tried to access it, it would say that it was unreadable and corrupt, the drive still had power, you could hear it spin up, passed all tests with seatools , tried rebooting the drive, and then a window came up saying that i needed to reformat before using, took it into my local computer store with fingers crossed.
In the end, it seemed to be the casing that was causing the problems, so that external drive is now an internal drive and so far so good.