Corrupted images from card reader, readyboost or card?

[traralgondave]

I have recently purchased a Canon 450D and 2 SanDisk Extreme III 4GB memory cards. Having spent over an hour in my garden taking a selection of shots I came in to my laptop, removed my ReadyBoost SD card from the built in card reader and stuck in the camera card. I copied all images, only to find that all the handheld images were there and all of the images taken with self-timer and tripod were not! The images showed up whilst being taken on the LCD image viewer. When I put the card back in the camera the images say "Image cannot be displayed." Is this most likely to be a problem with ReadyBoost continuing to run and messing up the card, a problem with the card itself or am I better never to use the card reader and plug my camera in by cable? How common is this problem as it's a little worrying to think this might happen on a grander trip than out to my garden! Computer is new Sony Vaio running Windows Vista Home Premium. I reformat the card each time I put it back into the camera. Any coments or advice welcomed.

 

[N1ntend0]

I think you need to enable each card for readyboost, not the card reader.

TBH I'd have 1 card reader and use it almost exclusively for readyboost (i.e Sandisc extreme on firewire 800) and another for copying images over.

If I need the speed of the faster reader then I remove the readyboost in properties and ensure all the performance tweaks are off (write combining) etc and only then remove the Extreme IV I use for readyboost.

I can do this as my laptop doesn't seem to like the forewire reader so I use a usb one.

Personally i'd only use high quality card readers, they are faster and time is more important to me than a few quid saved on a really cheap reader.

Coming back to your problem do you have any image recovery software? may be worth a try to see what it can find on the card.

 

[traralgondave]

Thanks N1ntend0. The card reader is built into my laptop and yes I enable a separate card for using with ReadyBoost. I just think the card reader was confused with the swap of cards and that is what caused the corruption. I think I'm going to stop using the card reader altogether and just plug in the camera via USB cable from now on, working on the principle that the less times I move the card the less likely it might be to go wrong! Thanks again for your thoughts. Traralgondave