__ Smartmedia... Did the screwdriver do it? __

[Blain]

I had taken some picture for a directory that I'm working on. Of course people like to see how their pictures will turn out. Most of the people reviewed their pics from the camera, just after they were taken. All of them showed up just fine then.

My camera uses smartmedia disks. I removed the disk and had it laying on my desk, before I started working with it (about one day). When I put the card in the reader, nothing was on it. I tried the card back in the camera with the same result.

I'd been doing some hardware swapping and had a screwdriver laying on the desk also. It was between 8-10 inches from the disk at any one time.
I found out later that the screwdriver has a magnetic tip. Was it the screwdriver that screwed up my pictures? Or is it possible that smartmedia card just lose their data from time to time?

Thanks

 

[boomerang]

SmartMedia = Bad

I just sold a perfectly good camera because I was fed up with trashing SmartMedia cards. And I mean literally trashing as in having to throw them away. Do some searching on this issue and you will see it's a common problem. The best way to deal with a SmartMedia card is to put it in the camera and leave it. Transfer your pictures through the camera. Introducing the reader into the equation makes the failure rate higher.

The screwdriver had nothing to do with it.

SmartMedia = Bad

 

[corkyg]

I don't agree with that at all. I have used Smart Media as well as Compact Flash for over 6 years now. Am on my 6th digital camera, and have NEVER done anything but transfer images by moving the media to a reader/writer. If the screwdriver tip had any magnetic residue at all, that could delete the images on the media face. It can probably be reformatted in the camera. Smart Media has been the victim of a lot of negative hype mainly caused by pilot error, Yes, there are bad ones - and so there are bad Compact Flash. The Smart Media can be abused a lot more than C/F. I have actually put S/M in its vinyl sleeve, put it on the driveway and run over it with a car. It worked perfectly afterwards. I would not dare try that with C/F. Today I use S/M, C/F and Microsticks - all in reader writers, and never have a problem with them.

 

[boomerang]

I'm not going to argue the point with you. I had an Olympus camera, with a ZIO reader, and later a Dazzle reader. I had 4 SM cards trashed. One using the ZIO and 3 using the Dazzle. One card was an Olympus, 2 were generic and 1 was a SanDisk. One 8MB card and three 128MB cards.

Perhaps I had a bad reader or camera, cards or combination I don't know. I do know that after doing extensive research online, I found that many others were having the same problems I was having. There are entire websites devoted to trying to make these cards work again.

I'm glad you have had such good luck with them. I have not. And in my opinion they are a substandard form of media.

To each his own.

 

[AIWGuru]

Flash is not magnetic.

 

[Blain]

If the smartmedia cards aren't zapped by magnetism, I guess I need to be shopping for another.
I don't have any other explanation as to what happen to it.

I love my Fuji camera, so switching over to CF or any other format isn't possible.

 

[corkyg]

If it was in the reader/writer during boot, it could have been written to as any normal drive - with a recycle bin, etc. That could have corrupted it for the camera - or if you pulled it out of the reader writer without letting Windows release it in "safely remove hardware" - that could also have caused it.

BTW - I just took an old 16 MB S/M, put a picture on it - then rubbed the metallic surface with a refrigerator magnet - no change. Picture stayed perfect.

BTW, S/M may be born again. Basically it is NAND flash memory - now there are some major advances in that technology. NAND

I don't blame you - Fuji is a good camera.

 

[vegetation]

Originally posted by: boomerang
SmartMedia = Bad

I just sold a perfectly good camera because I was fed up with trashing SmartMedia cards. And I mean literally trashing as in having to throw them away. Do some searching on this issue and you will see it's a common problem. The best way to deal with a SmartMedia card is to put it in the camera and leave it. Transfer your pictures through the camera. Introducing the reader into the equation makes the failure rate higher.

The screwdriver had nothing to do with it.

SmartMedia = Bad

I'll agree with what you say. I had an Olympus digi cam about five years ago now that used smartmedia (just released at the time). Three cards, all from different brands, had severe corruption problems after just a few months. Fed up, I went to a compact flash based camera and till this day have never ever had any issues, even with cf cards that have been used so much the outer labels are coming apart.