What if I fried my memory card?

[alocai]

Hi there!

I need some urgent advice.

I put my camera underwater during my vacation. The camera is supposed to be waterproof (10 m). I was using it at a depth of only 4m. All of sudden, I see in the display of the camera a "Memory card error" message.

I took it out of the water and realized that there were a couple of droplets in the battery/memory card compartment. Damn it. Blew the water away and in a desperate attempt to check the stability of the camera, I turned it on again. (I guess that was a bad idea, since I might have fried my memory card then).

The camera has been working fine since then. But the memory card is not readable anymore. I let it dry for a few days. I even tried with a hair drier. But no way. No phone, computer or camera recognizes the card. It's a micro SD, 8 GB.

I had around 1000 pictures of my vacation in that card. Unforgettable moments with people, incredible landscapes, beautiful shots... You guys who like photography know how bad loosing shots can be. My creativeness and imagination all gone because a camera manufacturer (in this case, Olympus) sells what they don't provide. Just annoying. :-s

In case the memory card is toasted... Do you think there's any freaking way to recover my pics?? I wish I had lost the camera instead of the pics. A camera is something you can pay with money. My shots are priceless for me.

Any advice, contact or tip will be highly appreciated.

Thanks for reading this. And keep shooting!

--
/alocai
Flickr: alo_'s Photostream

[gturner]

I do not know what electrical surge damage (which is what you describe)

Do you have a card reader? Maybe get one and try and read the card off your computer.
there are services that can retrieve data from memory cards which are expensive. There are some available on the web. Also call your top end camera/ photo lab, they are sure to have some ideas

here is one I found
FileRecoveryTools | Products | F-Recovery for SD™ Card

good luck

[TheDarkReaver]

Because of the nature of the damage I reckon you're probably going to need a service like this: fix repair corrupt CF xD MSPD SDHC SD Memory Card error not formatted

It can get pretty pricey though.

[ML Photography]

Never ever use hairdryers on electronic equipment!!!

Next time (but I hope this won't happen again!) dry it externally with a cloth and then put the thing in a closed box with uncooked rice (this draws humidity away) overnight or longer.

BTW, this helps with mobile phones as well, but in this case remove the battery immediately because some corrosion process takes on the electric circuits takes place if electricity is there

I hope this helps somenoe...

[oldwolf]

Originally Posted by ML Photography

Never ever use hairdryers on electronic equipment!!!

Next time (but I hope this won't happen again!) dry it externally with a cloth and then put the thing in a closed box with uncooked rice (this draws humidity away) overnight or longer.

BTW, this helps with mobile phones as well, but in this case remove the battery immediately because some corrosion process takes on the electric circuits takes place if electricity is there

I hope this helps somenoe...

+1

Also make sure that whatever computer/laptop you take the card to, can read the card. There are two types of SD cards. One is your normal one that most computers can read. The other is something called SDHC that older computers can't read without a special reader. I have a point and shoot that I can use the SDHC cards in but it requires a special reader that I plug in to my USB port to be able for me to pull the images off it.

[CRider]

Originally Posted by ML Photography

Never ever use hairdryers on electronic equipment!!!

Next time (but I hope this won't happen again!) dry it externally with a cloth and then put the thing in a closed box with uncooked rice (this draws humidity away) overnight or longer.

BTW, this helps with mobile phones as well, but in this case remove the battery immediately because some corrosion process takes on the electric circuits takes place if electricity is there

I hope this helps somenoe...

Big +1...this saved my iPhone after some dummy that doesn't need named dumped a pint of Guinness on it

[alocai]

Thank you everyone for your kind responses.

My card is resting in rice at the moment but, to be honest, I'm a bit hopeless about it.

I think that the memory module in the card might not be damaged and that a recovery performed by specialists is possible.

Since Olympus is responsible for the damage in the card, I will talk to them to see if they can pay such recovery (and I'm quite hopeless about this also).

I will let you know what happens at the end... Thanks again!!

/alocai
Flickr: alo_'s Photostream

[Woody]

I guess the lesson is:

Use 4gb cards and rotate frequently. 8gb of data is just too much to loose.

Down load and format cards after every shoot. You can buy a cheap HP laptop in Australia for around $250.00 with a card reader and wireless connectivity. Upload to flikr or piccasa every nigh when away from home. Never ever have 1000 shots on a card and rely on it being reliable.

Dont winge if you haven't used reasonable precautions to protect your images.

Cheers
John W

[ML Photography]

Did it work?

Could you manage somehow to retrieve your pictures?

Just asking cause I'm curious... LOL

[like-I-see-it]

I recovered an accidentally reformatted HD partition with this program:
Recover files from formatted partition, deleted partition, unreadable drive, camera card, memory sticks |iCare Data Recovery
Never had to try it on a damaged SD card ----yet.