3.3 smartmedia- card error

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I'm using a C-2020Z camera with smartmedia. Lately, I'm having a problem. The camera tells me there is a "card error". It wont format the card, just continues to tell me "card error" I've had this problem with Olympus brand, d-store, and delkin. While waiting on hold today for the Olympus tech support I took the media out of the camera, rubbed the face of it across my chino pant leg and then put it back in the camera. Low and behold, the card is readable again and works fine. My guess is that there was a build up of static on the card. Can anyone tell me the correct way to clean/remove static from card? Also, is this a common problem? Am I one the rig

-- Chod Lang (azores@blast.net), June 29, 2000

Answers

You are not alone. I don't have any advice for you, but I've been having the same problem. It happened a few times in the past, but lately it's been happening more and more. Have you heard anything about how to fix the it?

-- Philip Hawke (philip.hawke@tokai.or.jp), July 29, 2000.

This may or may not apply, but if it's actually a static problem, have either of you considered treating the card and card contacts with any type of antistatic product? Either an antistatic wipe or a spray? They sell them in Radio shack, and most office supply places carry antistatic stuff. You might even try just giving the card a wipe with an antistatic cloth intended for laundry use.

Do read the instructions first, and be sure that the product will not harm plastic.

I have a question, do you frequently remove and reinstall the card? Is that perhaps how the static is being generated? I remove my smartmedias all the time to transfer them through a PCMCIA adapter, and haven't noticed any trouble. The only time I had problems similar to those you mentioned is when I used a viewer program to open the files through a reader, rather than just copying them to disk. I have no idea how rubbing a card on your pants leg could resolve that sort of a problem, in my case I needed to reformat. Perhaps it really is static in your case.

Is your camera operated in a static rich environment?

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@surferz.net), July 29, 2000.


format the card in your camera and dont just move the folders to your desktop most camers have there own way to fomat there cards i found that out with my p5 toshiba it would take forever after i took a picture i would wait about 20 sec. to take the next one and then i started to use the camera to format back to about 1 sec or less ontill i can take the next pic heheheh weee fixed

-- dave co (wwa@wwa.com), November 27, 2002.

welcome to the club of fools with cameras using smart media. C-2100c reads card error, will not reformat. but I can use the card in my rio mp3 player, pda, or usb to move files from computer to computer. Any one of the three will reformat the card. But not the cameras. To many of us with different brands of cameras with the same problem using smart media from different suppliers like sandisk,pny etc. Next time buy a camera using compact 2, or memory stick. P.S. if you own a Rio mp3 player there is a program online that will allow the Rio to reformat the card back to it's factory specs then the camera will read the card.

-- big boy (ken2165@hotmail.com), January 01, 2003.

Same problem, the only time I have a problem is when I put the 3.3V card in the reader/writer. It downloads the pics perfectly, and when I take it out, my Olympus D-460 Zoom reads "card error", I tried everything through Olympus support but in the end they told me my card was bad. I bought a new 32 MB card, took pics, worked fine. I put it in the reader, works fine. Placed it back in the camera and DARN, it reads "card error" again and will not allow me to access the menu on the camera to delete the pics or forma the card. This is getting expensive and I think Olympus is the problem. ANY SOLUTIONS?

-- Jeff Remas (jar546@adelphia.net), January 18, 2003.


Hi Jeff,

I have the olympus 3020Z and I am experiencing the same problem. I too use a card reader. I thought there was something wrong with the card, but I bought a new card and same problem. I have isolated the problem to two factors. The first one is maybe the card reader is scratching up the card. The second is maybe something wrong with camera

-- ken leu (kenleu@hotmail.com), January 18, 2003.


Same problem, the only time I have a problem is when I put the 3.3V card in the reader/writer. It downloads the pics perfectly, and when I take it out, my Olympus D-460 Zoom reads "card error", I tried everything through Olympus support but in the end they told me my card was bad. I bought a new 32 MB card, took pics, worked fine. I put it in the reader, works fine. Placed it back in the camera and DARN, it reads "card error" again and will not allow me to access the menu on the camera to delete the pics or forma the card. this did not happen with my windows ME, but I got a new computer with XP and now it does not work

I can not even bring up the menu on the camera to format.

any help???

-- Dutch Schotemeyer (lmssportscards@yahoo.com), February 01, 2003.


It isn't just an Olympus problem. I use a Fuji camera and this just started recently. Camera has worked great for over a year, then a month or so ago it gave me that problem. I remoived the card, rubbed it on my pant leg and put it back in and it worked.

But today no matter what I do I get that error. Cards I haven't used in a while worked fine in the camera. Then uploaded the pics using a usb adapter just fine, put it back in the camera then that darn "card error" message. No matter how I clean it I still get that error with 4 cards.

I have another usb adapter, same darn thing. This is making me think if this problem isn't caused by a weird virus or something XP related. I now have 7 cards here that will not work in my camera. They don't all just die all of a sudden.

-- Mike (admin@pcabusers.com), February 02, 2003.


Whoa, having same problems here, with Olympus D550Z and PNY 128MB Smartmedia card. Camera won't format, shows "Card Error". I can format it in PNY card reader, using Win98SE, but still can't use it in camera.

Other forums indicate that a ZiO card reader (COMPUSA, ~$20) comes with smprep.exe, that will, with some tweaking, get it to work and make it "Pana" compatible.

Still others say to put it in a Fuji camera, and it will format it correctly, and make it usable again.

Going to try the Fuji fix, then the ZiO. Will try to let you know the outcome. Would appreciate if anyone else has found a workable solution.

Steve

-- Steve Lemaster (stevelemaster@adelphia.net), February 10, 2003.


Yep, Olympus C700, Sandisk 64 Meg card, less than a year old, all of a sudden "card error". Can't do a damn thing with it, but Sandisk have agreed to send me a new card at no cost, so while it is still a mystery, I am pleased at the response from Sandisk. Methinks that this is a bug that has yet to be fixed in smartmedia cards and cameras utilizing this technology.

-- John Cornell (jdc65@dana.ucc.nau.edu), February 21, 2003.


buy a card reader that could low-level format the card. There are a few readers that could do that. Zio, Dazzle 6 in 1 or 8 in 1, Sandisk SDDR-09, Imation Flash go multi 6-in-1, etc.

Never touch the gold plated contact surface on the card. If it gets dirty, use a soft pencil eraser to gently "erase" the contact area. This helps sometimes.

--==NICK==--

-- S. Matsuda (mr.nicky@doramail.com), April 10, 2003.


I had this problem too. I thought it had to do with having edited files directly on the card in windows XP, but it might be my new USB card reader. In any case, I tried reformatting the card with Windows XP (FAT and FAT32) and with Mac OS X (Mac OS, Mac OS Extended and Unix), zeroing out the data. Then I hit one of the cards with a rare earth magnet, hoping it would erase whatever bits were confusing the camera. (amazingly, the disk still appeared to be formatted on the PC!)

Nothing worked. In desperation, I hunted down a guy on the Photoshop engineering team who had a bunch of cameras. He tried several things (OS formats, formatting using Olympus E-10, C-700, E-20), and we found one thing that worked -- formatting it in an old Olympus E-100rs. Then just to be sure I reformatted it in my C-700. Since then I found this site (http://www.marsh ost.com/~rashmun/ that hints that it has something to do with some expected panorama files. The site is big on bright colors and large fonts and exclamation points, but if it really said what do do I missed it.

-- Mike Jennings (mjenning@adobe.com), May 21, 2003.


I just had the same problem today, got card error, camera wouldn't do a thing. I formatted the card in my Microtech card reader, and card is usable again.

-- CATLADY (catlover9@deletethispartcatlover.com), May 30, 2003.

Hey I had the same exact problem with my fujifilm finepix 4800Z and using the smartmedia on an mp3 player and as a portable drive. All cards formated outside of the camera read "!Card Error" in the camera, and rather than spend time trying to fix the problem myself I called Fujifilm, whom I considered responsible for my woes. They gave me a solution that surprisingly worked for all cards in question:

Cut a business card (or any thin and moderately rigid piece of cardboard) down to the shape of the smartmedia card (but longer than the card for reasons that will soon be obvious). Then rub this cutout around in the slot where the card goes in the malfunctioning reader -- my read error was caused by dust in the device, and this removed it. problem solved and i am happy.

-- marshall (mardukii@hotmail.com), June 09, 2003.


I've written a little utility that fix the Sandisk cards error: being it still a beta test, I can provide it only upon request.

-- Dankar (daniele.carissimi@libero.it), June 09, 2003.


Common problem "Don't format with the Windows Format utility" Try this site has info on backup and smprep.exe format utility that works with many card readers including Delkin.

http://www.marshost.com/~rashmun/

-- Rob Ashmun (rjashmun@attbi.com), June 10, 2003.


I'm using OLYMPUS C4000 and a 128m smartmedia. some friend has asked me a favor to transfer some files (128m+) via my MP3 player with a biult-in of 128m and have to work with the smartmedia together to complete the favor. after formatting the card with the software from the mp3 player, the card is no longer formattable in the camera, and the official website of OLYMPUS in Chinese told me that the card may no longer be used in my camera, though it can continue service in my mp3 player or the smartmedia slot in my laptop... m too, think this should be a bug that has to be fixed in the future generations of smartmedia and DCs.

-- cking (lineardependence@vip.sina.com), August 02, 2003.

Just want to say that marshall's solution worked really well for me. Took two minutes and my very expensive useless bit of plastic is a camera again. Thanks very much.

>>>>>>>> Cut a business card (or any thin and moderately rigid piece of cardboard) down to the shape of the smartmedia card (but longer than the card for reasons that will soon be obvious). Then rub this cutout around in the slot where the card goes in the malfunctioning reader -- my read error was caused by dust in the device, and this removed it. problem solved and i am happy.

-- marshall (mardukii@hotmail.com), June 09, 2003. >>>>>>>>

-- Luke Nicholson (sorryfake@greenspun.com), August 13, 2003.


I got a Dazzle card reader/writer and soon my 128 MB SanDisk SmartMedia card read Card Error in the camera. I tried reformatting. I tried going to a camera store and using a Toshiba to reformat since someone online suggested it. I took the card to another camera store and they examined it and said two terminals weren't working and that wouldn't be caused by the card reader/writer. So I proceeded to use another 128 MB SanDisk SmartMedia card and exactly the same thing happened. I returned the Dazzle and bought a SanDisk card reader/writer and everything works fine. I contacted SanDisk, gave them the whole story, and they said they would be glad to replace the cards and they'll even provide free FedEx of the damaged cards. Yea SanDisk!

-- Sharon Young (soy@cox.net), August 13, 2003.

OLYMPUS SUCKS MY ASS.

tech support said my d-550 was bad.

tech support said my media was bad (using 3 brand new cards)

my cards work just fine on the pc, and on my laptop.

screw olympus

-- teks (teksmex69@hotmail.com), October 31, 2003.


I have the same problem with an Olympus C-700, using either Olympus or SanDisk Smartmedia cards.

I think there are 2 things going on here:

1. There is definitely some static or other physical issue since sometimes pant legs or pieces of cardboard seemingly fix the problem. Unfortunately this fix has not worked for me.

2. I agree with those above who suggest that some formatting done by the computer can confuse the camera. It seems that when I download very carefully, making sure the computer cannot change the card format in any way (file folders same names, all files the same, etc.), then my camera reads the card okay. But if I change anything on the card when downloading, then my camera rejects the card forever. And occasionally even when I'm very careful, the camera still rejects the card forever.

This is extremely frustrating and an expensive problem. I'm glad to read that SanDisk will replace cards.

Very interested in any further suggestions. Perhaps Olympus should provide a software fix.

-tamily

-- Tamily (taw18@columbia.edu), November 28, 2003.


Ditto to the smart cards working for a while, put in reader, works fine, but when placed back in camera, it wants to format it, then it stops and says "card error". I put my zio card reader on my wife's laptop and ran Zio's "smprep.exe" from the software that came with it (it will not work on win2000) which I chose "full format", then it asks if you want "CIS" restored, and I chose yes. My 32 and 64 mb cards now work in my Olympus 490D again!!!!!

-- Coho Carl (cohocarl@elvis.com), November 28, 2003.

Having the same problems with my SanDisk SmartCard. My SanDisk Reader works fine, but the camera keeps asking to format the SmartCard or shut down. Then it changes to Card Error. I have two 128 MB cards and one 32 MB cards and all three have a card error. Once when this happened all I did was clean the card and it worked. Now nothing. I've tried about everything, including wiping the disk and sticking the cardboard into the reader and camera, to no avail.

-- Deb Davis (deb_rella@yahoo.com), November 29, 2003.

Had a "memory error" on my 64 mb Memorex SM card used in my Olympus C- 2020Z. I had it once before but it went away, but this time the problem was no easily solved. (It happened after I transferred the image files to my laptop and then erased the files from the SM card.) The card could be formatted in my SmartDisk universal reader but still did not work in the camera. Tried cleaning of the card and cleaning of the camera slot (using the business card) but that didn't work either. I tried my Zio reader but that said the card could not be formatted.

Then, I found the smprep.exe utility in the CD that came with the Zio reader, and ran that. But it got stuck on the "CIS restore" step during the Full format and the message said "cannot proceed." I thought all was lost. But there is a happy ending: I then tried the Quick format which went OK, and then went back and did the Full format. There was no step for the "CIS restore" this time and it took a little longer as it scanned all the "blocks" in the card, but at the end of it, the card is working again in the camera. So this might be a workable solution for this problem.

-- John Tjia (mail@johntjia.com), December 05, 2003.


1) As said before there is the physical contact dirty/smudged/scratched scenario that can sometimes be fixed by the cleaning by vaious methods mentioned above.

2) NEVER, NEVER, NEVER do anything but a READ when you plug the SM into a card reader for downloading pics to your PC. Don't DELETE the files on the SM by the PC (do that on your camera). Don't WRITE anything to the SM by the PC/Card reader.

3) Next time buy a CF based camera

-- Jim (jim@aol.com), December 06, 2003.


I have a simple solution. Use a normal working SmartMedia card to take a photo in the DC and copy all the contents (directories/files) to the computer. Then, use a card reader to transfer all these files back to a problematic SM card formmated under Windows XP.

You will discover that the SM card could be read by the cam again but at an extremely slow speed. Wait sometimes and you can use the cam to format or initalize it. The card will back into normal afterwards.

I tested it under a Olympus C-2020 zoom DC. It works because this is actually a formatting problem.

-- Nicho Wong (nicho@cam.hi-ho.ne.jp), December 09, 2003.


I too have this problem occasionally, and rubbing the card on my pant leg fixes the problem.

-- Brian Geppert (gepdog88@hotmail.com), December 14, 2003.

Chalk up another vote for dirty camera. I cut a business card the shape of the data card (a little longer), swabbed a little rubbing alcohol on it, went in-out several times, and *poof*, no more "card error" message!

-- Daniel Shy (daniel_shy@sbcglobal.net), November 26, 2004.

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