Good Practice
& Data Loss

When your card becomes corrupt or the dreaded “CARD ERROR” message pops up on your screen presenting you with an unreadable card? Help is at hand!
Luckily, we have the best advice and tips to try and prevent this from happening as well as some useful instructions on what to do if it does!
Reasons for Corruption
There are a fair few reasons why a memory card can become corrupt and more often than not it's hard to give a specific reason unless the there is visible damage. Main causes for card corruption in no particular order:
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Visible damage
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Faulty card istelf
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Incorrect insertion
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Unsafe removal
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Fake or Copy cards
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Power surge
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Voltage issues
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Static
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Camera faults
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Reader faults
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Moisture
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Extreme temperatures
Simple steps to prevention of data loss:
Avoid purchasing cards and readers from brands that aren’t reputable. Stick to the reliable brands we all know such as SanDisk. Angelbird, Sony etc. If you purchase cheaper cards it's likely the quality will not be as good and you never really know what standard you’re going to receive. ALWAYS make sure you are buying from a reputable source to avoid getting fake or counterfeit cards.
Avoid removing the card out of the camera or the reader whilst it is in use – this is usually the main cause of card error.
When the camera is finished writing to the card, allow a few extra minutes to pass just to make sure and Power off the before removing the card completely.
Always keep the card in its protective case when not in use, this will prevent any external damage when it transit etc.
Keep the card out of extreme temperatures, avoid areas of high moisture, extra sealed protection may be necessary in extreme conditions
Use the protect tab switch on the side, this tab will prevent overwriting your data.
Poor connection is commonly caused by the connection points becoming dirty or damaged. If damaged avoid using as it is likely to corrupt, if dirty contact your supplier or if you own the card you can attempt to clean with a cotton bud and isopropyl alcohol but be very gentle!
Offload your data as soon as possible to avoid any incidents which may cause corruption. To be extra safe, make sure you save more than one copy of your data so that you always have a back-up. Save these on multiple different storage medias such as the Cloud or a local drive.
Transferring data when your camera is low on battery is very risky. Doing this may result in corruption of the card. Make sure when doing so, the camera is fully charged.
Do not force the card in/out of the camera or reader. This may cause damage such as bending the card, damaging the memory chip or breaking the circuits.
DATA LOSS RECOVERY
There is free software available to download from the internet which will retrieve your lost data however, this is risky as many free applications come with bugs and may not retrieve all that was lost so we wouldn't recommend it, they could also cause even more damage or loss of data. The best thing to do before attempting to rectify the issue yourself is to contact the manufacturer or supplier who will advise on what to do, if you have bought from a reputable brand or supplier a support service is sometime available or you will be redirected to a reputable data recover company.