Olympus 2GB xD Card corrupted by Recuva

[zan]

Have used Recuva's secure delete option to delete some files off an Olympus 2GB Type M xD card.

The deletion seemed to work OK however the xD card is now corrupt and Vista asks to format it each time I select it in Windows Explorer

Attempts to format the card result in the error 'Windows was unable to complete the format'.

 

I sold the xD card on eBay prior to securely deleting these files so that one is not 'sellable' now.

 

Luckily I have a second 2GB Olympus xD card so I was going to sell that, but wanted to securely delete the pictures off this one as well.

 

I thought the first card was a once-off (possibly the PC went into standby during the secure delete) but when I tried to securely delete the files off the second card the same thing has happened.

 

Now I'm screwed because both cards are corrupt. It's not possible to format the cards (have tried in multiple PCs - Vista and XP) and have tried in a Fujifilm camera but it gives the error 'Card not initialized' and won't format it.

 

I would recommend disabling secure delete capability on these Olympus cards.

[Guest MrRon]

Can you run Recuva in debug mode and analyse the card.

http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=11523

 

Thanks

MrRon

[zan]

Can you run Recuva in debug mode and analyse the card.

http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=11523

 

Thanks

MrRon

 

Here's the output...

Recuva_log_1_21_373__3_12_2008_9_44_.txt

Recuva_log_1_21_373__3_12_2008_9_44_.txt

[zan]

Here's the output...

 

OK, contacted Olympus and they believe that the card reader is to blame.

I am shipping the card to them and they've advised that they will re-program it and ship it back to me. I bought the card less than a year ago so it'll be covered under warranty.

 

Other sites recommend just using the camera that you're taking photos with for formatting and deleting of pictures. I think I'll do that from now on.