TO ANYONE WHO HAS OR USES AN OLY DIGICAM WITH xD CARDS
DO NOT USE THE CARDS IN ANY OTHER SORT OF DEVICE FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE
THAN DOWNLOADING THE FILES!!!
It may be possible to do so, if you really know what you are doing, but
there are people who have lost the ability to use a card short of
sending it to Oly for "repair" (reformatting).
Steve Goss wrote:
> Hi, Y'all-
> I think I've trashed one of my Dad's XD cards for his Olympus digicam.
>
Oops! Oly cameras are famous for being dodgy about their xD cards. You
really shouldn't use them in anything else, except perhaps in a Fuji camera.
> The camera can tell that there is a card in it, but can't show any of the
> pictures.
>
Oly uses some "different" formatting or files or something to support
their panoramic function. The net wizard may have messed with that,
rendering the images unusable by the Oly camera. This incompatibility
can work both ways, with a file browser unable to access a card with
compromised formatting/files on it.
> Dad's Compaq Presario has XD/compact flash/SD/etc. port on the front, and it
> doesn't even recognize
> that there is a card in the slot.
> On the other hand, his HP 8250 printer does recognize the card and shows all
> the pictures.
>
Excellent news. A device not expecting the special Oly stuff can read
the files, so they aren't really gone.
> So what is the best way of handling this? print what he wants with the
> printer and then format it
> in the camera?
>
If that's all he really wants, it's an easy solution. If he wants to
recover the original files, there are a couple of options that I know
of. I suspect that one of the recovery software apps may be able to find
and restore or download them.
An alternative that has worked for many folks with this general sort of
problem is to put the card in a Fuji camera. The Fuji may well be able
to see and download the images. Some have also been able to format a
card that their Oly camera won't recognize in a Fuji, then format it
again in the Oly. I'm sure there are other low level file access
methods, but I know nothing about them. Presumably, file recovery apps
would use them.
> How I killed his card:
>
It's not the card hardware that's dead, of course.....
> I'm setting up a network so my Dad can share files and printers between his
> Presario and his old
> IBM laptop. The Presario runs Windows XP, and the laptop runs Windows 98. The
> XP network wizard
> wants to create a setup disk for other machines on the net, but since the
> Presario doesn't have a
> floppy, the only drive it will create it on is one of the XD/compact flash/SD
> ports. Not a CD, and
> not a USB Jump drive. The network wizard did manage to put a file on the XD
> card, but then the
> Presario lost all contact with the card. Suggestions on how to tame the
> network wizard would be
> appreciated too.
>
I've set up a wireless network between an XP machine and two 98 machines
without using any setup disks. The setup disk is just a "convenience"
for getting needed files and settings around. You can do it other ways
(or at least, I could, but I don't remember the details).
Good luck!
Moose
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