# eek! trying to download my cards and i got the error message "unsupported or damaged"



## tezaten (Apr 7, 2013)

help! this is the first time i've ever got this message. i'm trying to download a card from a wedding i shot yesterday and i'm getting the message "file appear to be unsupported or damaged". i can see them in my camera when i play them back perfectly and i am praying that these can be recovered. i use a camera 5d mark ii and a lexar professional 1000x 16gb CF card UDMA 7. i also use lightroom 3. i've never had this problem before. card was formatted before i started the project and the card is brand new and used several times before the wedding to ensure that it works properly. any advice is appreciated. i'll probably send this off to lexar in the morning. thank you!!!


----------



## clee01l (Apr 7, 2013)

Welcome to the forum. 
The problems may be with the card, with the method you connect the card to the computer, or the device used to read the card.  
Try using Finder to copy the contents of the card to a location on your HD, then try to import the images from this location.  I would suspect a bad USB Cable, or USB Card reader or if the camera was used as a card reader, the battery charge level might be to weak to power the camera as a Mac device.


----------



## tezaten (Apr 7, 2013)

Thanks Cletus, 
I tried that with the same error message. It's also saying "disc was not ejected properly". Now I don't want to mess with it. Do you think the safest thing will be to send it in to Lexar? I am worried about fooling with it any more than I already have. Has anyone ever had any experience sending in a card to Lexar?


----------



## clee01l (Apr 7, 2013)

tezaten said:


> Thanks Cletus,
> I tried that with the same error message. It's also saying "disc was not ejected properly". Now I don't want to mess with it. Do you think the safest thing will be to send it in to Lexar? I am worried about fooling with it any more than I already have. Has anyone ever had any experience sending in a card to Lexar?


That is probably the last resort.  There are lots of things to try. And there are recovery programs that you can use to do read the data your self. 
What was the that in  "I tried that with the same error message"?  I don't have any information on what you are doing. Please be specific and try not to panic.  

How are you reading the card in OSX?  I need to know how it os attached, what cables and devices are involved and whether it is a CF card or SD?
If you can read the images on the camera back with the card inserted. then I think you can recover your data. 

You get the ""disc was not ejected properly" when you yank the card out of the slot without properly ejecting it first in finder. 

What kind of Mac  do you have and have you tried reading the card in another computer?


----------



## tezaten (Apr 7, 2013)

Hi Cletus, 

Thank you so much for your help! The good news is that I switch out my CF cards often and have a backup photographer with me, so I am trying not to panic! I have all of the important parts of the day intact...just missing some good guest shots, dancing shots...it's funny, no matter if it's 50 images or 1,000, the feeling is the same...I took them for a reason and I feel sick that I can't import them.

I tried going to Finder as you suggested and I get the error "The disk was not ejected properly" and it looks like my Mac is ejecting it and then recognizing it and ejecting it and then recognizing it. When the Lightroom import folder opens, I try clicking on EOS_Digital (the name Lexar card reader), it disappears again. I can see the images and it says "Preview not available for this file" in light grey...but that's only for a moment and then the card reader disappears again. I've tried shutting down, unplugging it, I've also tried importing the images onto another computer. I was able to recover about 1/4th of the images on another computer and there seems to be nothing wrong with them. 

I am reading my Lexar card with a UDMA Compact Flass SD Reader (USB 2.). It is attached to the hard drive (back of the computer) with the wire that came with it. It's a CF card. 

Yes, I can read the images on the camera back with the card inserted. A very, very few of them say "cannot playback image" and are teeny tiny. All others are fine. 

I have an iMac, it's only 1 year old and it's the big one. Hope this info helps and thank you again for taking the time to help me.


----------



## tezaten (Apr 8, 2013)

Update - I've been letting it sit in the card reader in the time it took me to type the latest reply (about 3-5 mins) and I got a pop-up "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" with three options "initialized, ignore, eject". I ejected it since I'm not sure what to do.


----------



## tezaten (Apr 8, 2013)

I'm also trying to copy the images directly from the camera and that doesn't seem to be working either.


----------



## clee01l (Apr 8, 2013)

tezaten said:


> Yes, I can read the images on the camera back with the card inserted. A very, very few of them say "cannot playback image" and are teeny tiny. All others are fine.


 This does sound like some of the images might be corrupt on the card. One bad image may be all that it take for LR to choke on the card.


Can you try this card in a different card reader *and* on a different computer?  That would be my next suggestion.
After trying that, there is software that you can download and run that might be able to recover most of the content of the CF card.  Here is a link: http://cf_card_recovery_for_mac.en.softonic.com/mac
I've never used this software. And I have never tried to recover using a Mac, but I have done this with success on a PC with SD cards and of course different software.

If you are not successful with either of these two options, Open the Disk Utility and insert the CF card in the card reader.
 Select the CF card in the Disk Utility and click on the First Aid tab.
 Next click on the {Verify Disk} button and
after that completes, click in the {Repair Disk} button.

After the Repair Disk has completed repeat Step 1.
If you are unsuccessful after the above steps, you can see if Lexar can help.  Be sure to tell them all of the effort that you have performed for recovery.


----------



## tezaten (Apr 9, 2013)

Hi Cletus, 

Thank you so very much for your help with this! I plan on following your suggestions. I called Lexar and told them about the problem. I wanted to see what recovery software they recommended as well as see if they had any additional suggestions. Like you, they also suggested trying a different reader. Apparently, some of the old Lexar UDMA 2.0 card readers don't support the new Lexar CF 1000x UDMA 7 cards. This could have corrupted a file or two They mentioned this could be a part of the problem. I ordered a new UDMA 3.0 card reader from B&H and it should be here soon. I'm going to try the new reader on a different computer and see how it goes. Then try the recovery software. The Lexar guy also said that the fact I can see the images on the back of my camera is a very good sign, like you said. I'm still nervous though....just want to get these images on my computer and start working on them!!!

Thanks again!


----------

