Dead Smartmedia card? Olympus D-490 Zoom

[Skawttey]

I have an olympus D-490 Zoom and recently it has not been working properly. With the smartmedia card in and when i turn it on, the lens comes out a little but then goes right back in. The number for the number of pictures remaining on the screen just flashes. I cannot access any menus. When i take the card out, it functions as it should with no card. Could my smartmedia card be dead?

 

[corkyg]

An easy to to find out - put in a different S/M card. It is good to have a couple of spares handy.

 

[SKORPI0]

Have the D-460 Zoom. If you have a Smart Media reader, try reading it there. Or go to your nearest Best Buy, Target, etc. and ask the associate if you can test your media with their cameras.

 

[Spike]

my dad has had the same problem with his olympus, I had to take his cards and format them using my reader and software to get them to work again. My olympus (D-360L) has had no issues with the cards so far. I am interested if this is a known problem?

-spike

 

[corkyg]

Am on my 5th Olympus (D320L, D340L, C2000Z, C3030Z, and now D40Z) - never had any problems with formatting S/M in the camera. That is really preferable to doing it in a reader writer - where you sometimes end up with a recycle bin inserted because of Windows running the show.

I must have 8 or 9 S/M modules ranging from 2 MB to 128 MB, and have only had one 2 MB (very early on) go bad.

The most common cause of failure, IMHO, is touching the gold surface and leaving a corrosive finger print on it.