James Tauber

journeyman of some

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Unreadable Canon RAW Files on Compact Flash

Before going on my trip to Europe, I switched my Canon 10D to RAW mode and bought two 1.0GB compact flash cards.

Half way into the trip, my camera started getting "Err 99" problems. I lost a lot of shooting opportunities re-booting the camera after each error, but when a photo did successfully get taken, I had no problems downloading it to iPhoto on my PowerBook.

Then, on the second last day, I was transferring one of the 1GB cards to my PowerBook and it complained that the files were not a recognizable format. Judging from the fact the .CRW files were sitting in a temp directory, the transfer seemed to go okay. And I can view the photos without issue on the camera itself.

Anyone experienced this problem before? Any ideas how I can recover at least the embedded JPEGs from the CRWs?

I'm going to have to send the camera in to Canon to get the Err 99 problems fixed. That I can live with. Losing 160 photos is more upsetting.

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Comments (7)

gabriel on Sept. 1, 2005:

I'm also having a similar problem.I'm using Canon 20D
with my Hitachi 2gig CF and Lexar 1 gig CF and both of the CF cards are not useable.The 20D reads"err CF"
What's the deal...is there a program to fix this problem?

Tom on March 19, 2006:

Try transfering via usb and camera and not the flash card directly.

Yury on June 17, 2006:

I got similar problem with 30D today. Initially the camera started showing Err CF error and after that I got Err 99 when I tried to format a CF.
The errors are reproducible with different memory cards...seems like a trip to a Canon service center is inevitable.

Andrew on Jan. 29, 2007:

I encountered the same problem recently. My 20D says ERR CF and when try formatting, it says ERR 99.

Tried recovering the data but my card ain't recognized by the OS anymore. Sent in for recovery by a local company and was told that 'the memory chip failed'. Oh no. Is there anyone with a solution? I need to retrieve the photos in it.

danh on April 11, 2007:

I encountered the same problem recently. My 350D says ERR CF and when try formatting, it says ERR 99.

Tried recovering the data but my card ain't recognized by the OS anymore. Is there anyone with a solution? I need to retrieve the photos in it.

Alkmaar on May 21, 2007:

I had the same problem with my 300Dand a brand new SanDisk 8Gb card. The card was not recognised by the camera or my XP or Vista machine. I used Image rescue from www.lexar.com to successfully recover 297 photos of the Elfstedentocht rowing marathon we'd just won from the card. I still can't get the card to reformat...if anyone has autility that will do that I'd be interested to know about it...

Alkmaar on May 21, 2007:

Answered my own question. Using the advanced tools option of image rescue I can also format the card. Doh!

8Gb back up and running....

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Created: July 2, 2005
Last Modified: July 2, 2005
Author: jtauber