I have been given a compact flash card with the request that I recover
files from the card. When a usb card reader is plugged, no reaction.
I've looked at the log viewer and there are no messages in any log when
the card reader is plugged in w/o card (I think that is normal) and no
messages in any log when the card is plugged in - pretty abnormal I think.


I have tested the reader with another card.

Any thoughts on getting a reaction from this card?

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Den 2011-01-04 21:10:41 skrev Patton Echols <p.echols@comcast.net>:

I have been given a compact flash card with the request that I recover
files from the card. When a usb card reader is plugged, no reaction.
I've looked at the log viewer and there are no messages in any log when
the card reader is plugged in w/o card (I think that is normal) and no
messages in any log when the card is plugged in - pretty abnormal I
think.


I have tested the reader with another card.

Any thoughts on getting a reaction from this card?



You have tested your card reader with another card, and that proved that
your card reader works?
Have you also tested the card (the one that doesn't work in your card
reader) in another card reader?


The only time it happened to me that a card didn't work in my card reader,
the card was broken (which I found out by testing it in other card
readers), except one when I tried a Memory Stick card in my reader,
because there is no Linux support for Memory Stick for my card reader…
When you tested your card reader, did you test it with a Complact Flash
card? Well, I don't know what kind of card reader you got, but most of
them support many kinds of cards.


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Johnny Rosenberg

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On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 12:10 PM, Patton Echols <p.echols@comcast.net> wrote:
> I have been given a compact flash card with the request that I recover files
> from the card. *When a usb card reader is plugged, no reaction. *I've looked
> at the log viewer and there are no messages in any log when the card reader
> is plugged in w/o card (I think that is normal) and no messages in any log
> when the card is plugged in - pretty abnormal I think.
>
> I have tested the reader with another card.
>
> Any thoughts on getting a reaction from this card?
>
It could be shorted out, i.e. dead.

Do you have any device that uses a CF card you could plug it into and
then plug that device into the computer? My son has a Canon digital
EOS whose flash cards don't read in my reader (which works on other
flash cards) but it works fine from inside the camera....

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On 01/04/2011 12:27 PM, Johnny Rosenberg wrote:

Den 2011-01-04 21:10:41 skrev Patton Echols <p.echols@comcast.net>:

I have been given a compact flash card with the request that I
recover files from the card. When a usb card reader is plugged, no
reaction. I've looked at the log viewer and there are no messages in
any log when the card reader is plugged in w/o card (I think that is
normal) and no messages in any log when the card is plugged in -
pretty abnormal I think.


I have tested the reader with another card.

Any thoughts on getting a reaction from this card?



You have tested your card reader with another card, and that proved
that your card reader works?
Have you also tested the card (the one that doesn't work in your card
reader) in another card reader?


Good idea. Tried it in a built in (not usb) reader on my windows
desktop. Shows as an unformatted card. Booted that machine to a live
cd and dmesg shows it as an unknown file system. Using dd to image to a
file now. We'll see what we get off of it.



The only time it happened to me that a card didn't work in my card
reader, the card was broken (which I found out by testing it in other
card readers), except one when I tried a Memory Stick card in my
reader, because there is no Linux support for Memory Stick for my card
reader… When you tested your card reader, did you test it with a
Complact Flash card? Well, I don't know what kind of card reader you
got, but most of them support many kinds of cards.



Yeah, this one is a dedicated (lexar) usb CF reader.

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>------------------------------
>
>On 01/04/2011 12:27 PM, Johnny Rosenberg wrote:
>> Den 2011-01-04 21:10:41 skrev Patton Echols <p.echols@comcast.net>:
>>
>>> I have been given a compact flash card with the request that I
>>> recover files from the card. When a usb card reader is plugged, no
>>> reaction. I've looked at the log viewer and there are no messages
in
>>> any log when the card reader is plugged in w/o card (I think that is
>>> normal) and no messages in any log when the card is plugged in -
>>> pretty abnormal I think.
>>>
>>> I have tested the reader with another card.
>>>
>>> Any thoughts on getting a reaction from this card?
>>>
<Remainder elided.>

I've done this several times. I'd be very curious to see what you
ultimately find, but I have to warn you that prospects are not good. The
CF can die in two different ways. In one, a read/writable cell fails
making the card unusable, but readable. This is equivalent to when a
hard drive has a head crash from a power failure and a part of the
magnetic media begins to lift off of the substrate. The card remains
readable, but the file is corrupted because of missing sectors. In the
case of the CF, though, the card is useless, but you can use Linux to
copy the raw bytes, ignoring unreadable blocks. (Alternatively, there
are tools out there that will do all the heavy lifting.)

Sometimes, however, the electronic controller circuitry is fried. This
is akin to the head controller failing on a hard drive. When this
happens, you can't even mount the card. I've never been able to recover
anything in this case. Even a hard drive platter can be physically moved
to another spindle, but a CF is just dead. If you figure out a way to
recover something, please let me know.

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On 01/05/2011 05:02 AM, Boggess Rod wrote:

------------------------------

On 01/04/2011 12:27 PM, Johnny Rosenberg wrote:

Den 2011-01-04 21:10:41 skrev Patton Echols<p.echols@comcast.net>:


I have been given a compact flash card with the request that I
recover files from the card. When a usb card reader is plugged, no
reaction. I've looked at the log viewer and there are no messages

in

any log when the card reader is plugged in w/o card (I think that is
normal) and no messages in any log when the card is plugged in -
pretty abnormal I think.

I have tested the reader with another card.

Any thoughts on getting a reaction from this card?


<Remainder elided.>

I've done this several times. I'd be very curious to see what you
ultimately find,


Thanks for the thoughts Rod. To let everyone know how it came out:

The card would not be read by a USB card reader, but when plugged into a
builtin multicard reader, it was recognized as a device. I don't really
know why. My hypothesis is that the builtin reader is attached via the
PCI bus and does not require a completely functioning card to show up.
The "why" is not important, the lesson is that if you are dealing with a
broken flash device, try a hardwired card reader.


I imaged the drive using " dd if=/dev/USBDrive
of=/media/USB2/flashdrive" Where /media/USB2/ was the mountpoint of a
usb pendrive and flashdrive was a file. I made a mistake here, because
the pendrive is FAT formatted and could only handle a 4gb file. The
better alternative would have been to image to a file on the harddrive
and go from there.


Once I had the image file, I used a file carver "foremost" with all the
defaults to recover 259 jpeg images. Of those, about a half dozen were
broken, with missing blocks of pixels or chunks rearranged. It is
possible that other tools would have done a better job. More can be
found out about the process here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery

As for the mistake, I told the card owner as soon as I figured it out
and offered to reimage the card and try again. He said he had something
less than 300 pictures on the card, he thought I had all of them, and
even if not, the ones that I recovered were all he was interested in.
So end of project.


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