Why is my camera saying that my memory card is unusable?

Question

I have over 200 fotos on my camera (memory card) and was letting my niece have a look at them and when she handed it back to me it came up that the memory card was unusable, i think she may have hit something, ive tried formatting it again but it wont let me, can anyone help?? the memory card is a xD 256MB

Answer 1

If you can still view ALL the photos, but can't delete them, the memory card might might have been locked inadvertently by your niece.  There is a lock switch on the side of the SD memory card typcialy used by Kodak.  To find the lock switch, turn off the camera, remove the memory card, turn the card label side upright towards you, and look for it along the left edge.  However, Kodak camera (and most others) typically give a big message like "locked memory card" when the camera is powered up with a locked memory card, or try to take a picture with a locked card.  (Also a locked card will prevent you from deleting any/all photos.) If the memory card is not locked, then:

The problem may be that there is problem with at least part of the card memory being corrupt, especially if your niece turned off the camera while it was reading or writing something to/from the card. Download your pictures that you want, or can, to your computer, then then try to format the camera while hooked up to your computer.  That worked for severl people that I know had the  problem with a corrupt card.  Also many newer computers have slots for most common camera memory cards.  If you don't have one theres a good chance a friend, coworker, or other family member does.  Turn off the camera, remove the memory card, and download any pictures, and erase the card through the computer memory card slot (you previously made sure it was unlocked).  Or you can get USB card reader to plug into a USB port for $15 or less at Wal-mART to do the same thing.

At "over 200 fotos" your memory card may be full, and your camera panicked when your niece tried to take a final picture or turned it off when it when it was doing something esle.  See procedure above for a corrupt card.

You didn't mention a make/model of camera.  A previous poster mentioned getting at least a one Gigabyte card.  Some older cameras have limitations on the amount of memory they can use on a memory card.  you may be near this limit with "over 200 fotos."  My old Kodak is like this - its limitation is 256 Megabytes.  It'll write to a larger card just fine, but as soon as it reaches some liit on the number of files it can write on a 16 bit file allocation table (FAT), the camera will just sit there and give a message like "Sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that" when I try to take a picture - even though there's plenty of memory left on the card.  Better check with your camera's user manual before getting a larger memory card.

Answer 2

maybe your card is bloked ; go out your card and look in a border , there is a buton to block the card . good luck !

Answer 3

I just took this from Rangefinder Magazine and I think this will help you as well as give you some things you can do to "save" your existing images.

First do not use the card until you have run some kind of recovery software on it.  

"Flash media makers Lexar and SanDisk both offer data recovery software."

"Although flash media are extremely reliable, host devices and users sometimes are not. Cameras can mysteriously reset themselves and show a used card has no images, computers can show a card as corrupt when trying to read it, and of course, users can delete images or even reformat a card accidentally.  As long as new data has not been written over the existing data, there is a good chance that software can be used to recover the missing, corrupt or deleted data."  -- Stan Sholik

You may want to buy at least a 1GB xD card (under $10).

Formatting your card after each use (after you have copied all your image files to your computer), refreshes the card and writes new file folders as well as an image index file (File Allocation Table)

Answer 4

I'm having the same problem, but I can't get my camera to do anything at all except display the message "memory card is unusable."  I can't take pictures, download pictures, or even see the pictures on my camera.  It's totally stalled.  I don't know what to do.

Answer 5

It might be corrupt.  go talk to the place you got it from, or some kind of computer place like best buy,  and they can try to salvage the pictures from it.