Lost data on SD Card - what?

[Jax]

Hey all

So I took the P3P out today for a flight - never had any issues in the past, and didn't have any issues during the actual flight.

Have been having issues with my MBP reading micro-SD cards with an adapter, so attempted to plug the P3P straight in via USB. After telling me that it would take an hour to copy the ~15GB of files, I cancelled and figured I'd persist with the SD card method.

I cancelled the transfer and properly ejected it.

Then I spent some time trying to get my MBP to see it in the SD adapter, and finally it did! Except... no files on the SD card. Yet, only ~900MB free (16gb card).

I put the SD card back into the P3P, plugged back in via USB and the DCIM folder appeared, but nothing inside it. Opened up the DJI app to see if I could play back anything - I get a message saying 'empty card'.

What happened here? And can it be retrieved? This is urgent stuff, and will be really painful to have to re-shoot.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Shep]

Hey all

So I took the P3P out today for a flight - never had any issues in the past, and didn't have any issues during the actual flight.

Have been having issues with my MBP reading micro-SD cards with an adapter, so attempted to plug the P3P straight in via USB. After telling me that it would take an hour to copy the ~15GB of files, I cancelled and figured I'd persist with the SD card method.

I cancelled the transfer and properly ejected it.

Then I spent some time trying to get my MBP to see it in the SD adapter, and finally it did! Except... no files on the SD card. Yet, only ~900MB free (16gb card).

I put the SD card back into the P3P, plugged back in via USB and the DCIM folder appeared, but nothing inside it. Opened up the DJI app to see if I could play back anything - I get a message saying 'empty card'.

What happened here? And can it be retrieved? This is urgent stuff, and will be really painful to have to re-shoot.

Thanks for any help.

15 GB is a lot of data. Depending on your MBP, that could take some time to show up. As a last resort, if you formatted for fat32 - pop it into a Windows machine and see if it comes up..


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Jax]

15 GB is a lot of data. Depending on you MBP, that could take some time to show up. As a last resort, if you formatted for fat32 - pop it into a Windows machine and see if it comes up..

I formatted from the DJI app - will this format as FAT32?

Don't think it's my MBP as it shows files from a 64GB card almost instantly; also the card shows as empty through the DJI app

 

[Jax]

Just tried in a Windows PC, no files in the DCIM folder. Tried Data Rescue which found nothing. Now trying Data Rescue with the drone plugged in via USB.

Not looking good - but any thoughts as to why this may have happened? Is it my card (no issues before) or did I screw something else up?

 

[deltamike]

Am I missing something here? If you format an SD card it will erase EVERYTHING on the card. If you have formatted the card and still see the DCIM folder then that folder should have gone too so the chances are that there is still something in the DCIM folder.

If you use a Windows OS, insert the card in the PC. Then go to explorer and see if the card shows up in the left hand pane. If it does not, unplug and try again. Don't expect instantaneous reading. Give it ten seconds or so to read.

Any files in DCIM folder should appear. If they don't then have a look at the SD card properties. That will show you the total storage capacity and what storage is free. If you have free space near to the SD card capacity then the formatting has erased the files unfortunately.

When you format the SD card on a Win operating system the format should be in FAT32 and NOT NTFS.

SD cards don't last forever, so I would buy a new one and use that instead of your old one. When you buy one always choose a class 10. They are faster than any other class. When you get your new card, format it before use in your Win PC before use. I recommend Kingston cards. They might be slightly more expensive than your norm. If you buy cheap you get cheap results.

You have to remember that nothing on this earth lasts forever and could go TU at any moment and there is a chance that your card is faulty.

Just something for the future. 15 GB could be expected with video files. It would have been wise to download all 15 GB into a folder on your PC and seeing what it was. You have to exercise patience with video files. Had you waited then you might have recovered the vid that you wanted. It sounds as though you might have had many video files on there which could have amounted to 15 GB easily.

My hint is after you have a flight, dump all your video onto a newly created folder renamed with the date and location of your last flight. Then format the SD card ready for your next flight. That is good 'housekeeping' and will save a lot of confusion.

Sorry if the above is a bit basic for you, but I hope it helps,

Good luck,

Pete

 

[Jax]

No, I haven't formatted since shooting. I had formatted before shooting via the DJI app.

I'm using the SD card provided with the P3P, which is only ~7 months old (which is much newer than almost every other SD card I own).

I'm aware of the high file sizes of video - but was concerned about having the bird powered off battery for an hour to transfer, and also I know that transferring 15GB would take half or less of that time using the native SD reader.

The DCIM folder still exists, but the 100MEDIA folder and the clips that should be contained within do not. I know at least the 100MEDIA folder did once exist, as is the only thing that survived the original copy.

My thought, considering that there was 15GB+ of data on a 16GB card, is that I've not hit record to stop recording and let it write the file properly. I didn't power off immediately after the flight, so it's entirely possible I've forgotten to stop the recording and it's just recorded until the powers been switched off (although I took my iPhone out of the DJI app and unplugged from the controller, which I would assume would auto stop the recording, but anyway). I know the files the P3P creates aren't small, but I've shot more (than what I would have if I had actually hit stop) on that card in the past and still not quite filled it up

Strange though, as I would imagine if that were the case, there wouldn't be anything on there right from the start, rather than appearing with full file structure, then disappearing once disconnected.

I'll be reshooting this tomorrow, so it's not a total disaster - I just want to make sure that I don't have the same problem again.

 

[deltamike]

I took Shep's post the wrong way hence my post above.

I the dim and distant past I seem to remember when I ejected an SD card - like you - I did it properly but when I wanted to read the word .doc that was on it again, it had been erased.

Very odd and all I can think was that the PC was still trying to read it and my action of ejecting it caused the erasure somehow. One in 10 K chances maybe?

Thats all I can think of really.

Hope the re-shoot goes okay