Data Recovery on SDHC

[Kathleen Lingo]

My mistake- the error message was RESTORE MEDIA. Not format media.

[Michael Palmer]

THe restore message is OK to go ahead with, DO NOT Format that card. I don’t have a recovery solution but if you search here you may find one.

Good Luck
Michael Palmer

[Craig Seeman]

One should wait until the light over the card slot goes from red to green before hitting stop. Generally though, restore media fixes the resultant metadata damage but there have been cases where it can cause a clip to disappear. I suspect it depends what part of the metadata was damaged.

These people apparently specialize in XDCAM EX media repair.
https://www.aeroquartet.com/
XDCAM EX
https://www.aeroquartet.com/movierepair/xdcam.html

[Michael Palmer]

More Human Error

Good Luck
Michael Palmer

[Kathleen Lingo]

Question: When one is recording isn’t the light always red over the slot that is being recorded to??

[Craig Seeman]

And when it stops recording it will turn green. With SDHC cards that takes a bit longer than SXS cards. It can be close to 10 seconds before it finishes writing. The latest firmware update has speed that up a bit and has made SDHC a bit less human error prone.

Basically after you hit stop you have to wait until it’s done writing before hitting the record button again. If you hit the record button again while still red it will give you a media error and you will have to restore. The restore fixes the metadata but on rare occasions you can lose the last shot.

In other words if you hit record (to stop) and it’s still red and hit record again you get the error.

[Kathleen Lingo]

Another question I have that relates to this issue is about the restore function. I have always said “yes” to a restore prompt- are there any cases where I should not say yes?

[Michael Palmer]

I think if you were to use the same camera right when it happens you’ll be OK, I believe the buffer on board the camera needs to feed the card data that has either been interrupted or has become corrupt and the restore function re-writes this data. If you ever have a card that has this error multiple times in a row then you should replace that card to protect what material you do have on it. I can’t think of a reason not to immediately restore a card.

When the Panasonic P2 workflow came out they always warned users never pull a card from the camera before it finishes writing to the card. Well that we have found was these alternative SDHC/Adapter solutions take longer to finish writing to the cards and no one takes the time to look at the side slot to see if it turned green. Cutting a take, seeing the Tally Light turn off is not the indication that the camera is in a completely safe mode using the SDHC cards.

Good Luck
Michael Palmer

[Craig Seeman]

Basically wait until the light turns green above the card slot on the camera before doing anything like hitting record again or pulling the card out, and you should be safe.

If the card throws the restore message for any other reason (no apparent reason), as Mike says, that card shouldn’t be used. The new firmware I believe increases the buffer size which is why many of the lower quality cards now work reliably and the higher quality cards can now overcrank reliably. The total record times on the card are shorter as well so I suspect Sony improved the situation by using some space on the card itself as buffer much like virtual memory works on a computer.

[Olanrewaju Olakunle]

kathleen

were you recording on a class 6 or class 10 card. I had a problem recently when I mistakenly format a 32gb deklin SD card before coping the content of the card. since I just ordered more SD card for my ex1r I want to know if you having problem with SD card on ex1r I will not want lose any data again. i have been talking with the guys at aeroquater to see if they help recover the wedding video files, you may consider talking to them also.

Spirit