Here's an odd compact flash issue

[Jcake64]

so the cf is 16gb it came to me as a "can you do something with this ?" apparently it locked up a cannon digital camera, which worked when this was removed and replaced with another cf drive it's not seen in customers system, in my linux mint 19.3 using a usb reader it sees it as a 2 TB drive ? not sure where to go with it as imaging the wrong size drive seems pointless, any thoughts ladies and gentlemen ?

 

[Markverhyden]

It's probably corrupted. I'e seen these before with cf's. You can run R-Studio against it and search for RAW files. Unless it's physically damaged somehow you should have a chance are getting data back.

 

[Jcake64]

thanks Mark
I thought I'd ask here first as googling was ........disappointing more ad's than info, can we return to 2002 I remember web searches being better / / less adverts back in the day : )
Many Thanks

 

[Jcake64]

forgot to say threw testdisk at it gave up after it didn't do anything after 10 minutes

 

[Markverhyden]

In my experience test disk seems to work best on conventional OS drives, like FAT32 and NTFS. Forgot to mention Grenier also has Photorec.

 

[lcoughey]

It is not uncommon for failure, requiring chip off data recovery services.

 

[Jcake64]

Hi both trying photorec now it took 5 hours and doesn't let me look at the files it's recovered (if any) until it finishes as it appears to have locked the disk I'm recovering to ....been a while since i used it I'd forgotten all that, If its sucessful I'll let you know, Hi lcoughey, it's sat in this guys failed storage pile for 3 years so I don't think he'll go for the "off chip DR " so if it doesn't recover using software and my time i doubt he'll want to pay for professional services but I can ask, we'll see in 39 mins if that's needed
cheers guys
nice to be in the conversation rather than my old default of reading thru like I used to

 

[Jcake64]

did I say 39 mins ? sorry i meant 259h 39m 15s no hang on 180h

53h
.................................................... : (

still at least no one's looking over my sholder going "is it done yet ?"

we've all been there i'm sure

: )

 

[Jcake64]

well that was 5-7 hours of my life I'll never see again photorec failed to find anything, I'll walk the dog too late to call the customer and ask if he wants it to go to a proffesional DR co.ah well tomorrow is another day, and in the words of rhett butler "frankley my dear..........."

can I eject the warp core that might sort it ?

 

[lcoughey]

FYI, my lab charges a $500 CAD flat rate, les a 20% discount for you as a reseller. That puts your cost at about $300 USD. So, it isn't as bad as you may be thinking.

 

[HCHTech]

@lcoughey , I'll hazard a guess that, like hard drives, you prefer NOT hammering at it for several hours with other tools before it gets sent in?

 

[lcoughey]

@lcoughey , I'll hazard a guess that, like hard drives, you prefer NOT hammering at it for several hours with other tools before it gets sent in?

yeah...while flash doesn't have heads to scrape off surfaces, the NAND can degrade to the point of no return.

 

[Jcake64]

FYI, my lab charges a $500 CAD flat rate, les a 20% discount for you as a reseller. That puts your cost at about $300 USD. So, it isn't as bad as you may be thinking.

thanks actually that's reasonable, knowing as i do the cost of equipment training and time etc, unfortunatly he's written it off as a failed and not worth the time/money for what was some pictures of unknown/forgotten trip to wales he did when the CF crashed so sorry but if I need future DR I know where to go and tbf I'd rather deal with you than the big ltd co's we have dealt with before, who made a expensive rubbish job of a hard drive £1000 for few gb,s of unnamed pictures, it wasn't my money but I was disappointed with the results and that was a major uk company who shall remain ....nameless
many thanks
john

 

[Joep]

FWIW, and if chip-off isn't an option. In my experience with the Windows version of PhotoRec I never have a problem accessing the destination folders while it is still running.

As with many tools, if it's not picking up whatever it's looking for you hardly have any feedback with regards to what it's doing, if it's reading any data at all. It's why my own photo carver calculates entropy for any block it reads. This entropy is expressed in a value from 0 - 8 bits/byte which is then translated to a map.

If you want to try it:

• Click overrides and set size to 16 GB.
• Map staying black means no entropy at all (=no data), bright green is high entropy common for compressed data as found in digital photos.

I find it useful typically in cases like this. If it stays black you're beating a dead horse. If light green then it appears the data is there. if it's not picked up some parameter is probably off. https://www.disktuna.com/jpegdigger-jpeg-photo-recovery/

 

[Jcake64]

FWIW, and if chip-off isn't an option. In my experience with the Windows version of PhotoRec I never have a problem accessing the destination folders while it is still running.

As with many tools, if it's not picking up whatever it's looking for you hardly have any feedback with regards to what it's doing, if it's reading any data at all. It's why my own photo carver calculates entropy for any block it reads. This entropy is expressed in a value from 0 - 8 bits/byte which is then translated to a map.

If you want to try it:

• Click overrides and set size to 16 GB.
• Map staying black means no entropy at all (=no data), bright green is high entropy common for compressed data as found in digital photos.

I find it useful typically in cases like this. If it stays black you're beating a dead horse. If light green then it appears the data is there. if it's not picked up some parameter is probably off. https://www.disktuna.com/jpegdigger-jpeg-photo-recovery/

apologise for being short on detail ok the 16gb Integral ultima pro 300X udma6 compact flash from a canon (i think) camera crashed / locked up the camera 3/4 years ago customer replaced cf drive with another cf drive, camera work fine, cf can't be read in windows pc puts it in pile of useless drives he has, I come along for other problems, we are talking and issue of this drive and some others comes up i fix on site the other drives this cf drive not so much, so i take it with me in linux mint 19.3 cinnamon and win 10 pro cf is seen as 2tb drive rean testdisk no joy tells me to drive size incorrect . photorec ran but recovered nothing and thats where i am now, running dmde on it cos i know how to force it to only look at 16gb, although i suspect it'll pop up nothing

 

[Jcake64]

just to finish this off it didn't find anything on the cf drive ....was that really a week ago? jees time flys

 

[Joep]

I have no idea what this means. If you're referring to JpegDigger (it didn't find anything) then the point of the exercise was to look at the entropy map and tell whether it stayed black or that data was detected, map showing shades of green.

 

[Jcake64]

I have no idea what this means. If you're referring to JpegDigger (it didn't find anything) then the point of the exercise was to look at the entropy map and tell whether it stayed black or that data was detected, map showing shades of green.

ahh i see, no green anywhere it's an ex cf drive it has ceased to be if it wasn't for the fact it was nailed to its perch .....sorry I can never resist the Monty Python parrot sketch reference .....
it's dead but jpegdigger could be future useful