Dangers in copying pics from camera to computer

"CeeBee" wrote in message
. 164...
"Jim F B" wrote in rec.photo.digital:

Do you think it is a wise
safeguard to invest in a dedicated card reader?

For 10 to 15 bucks getting rid of all the hassle of connecting your camera
to the PC you mean? You bet.

Recently I wondered if there are still people owning cameras with memory
cards using a cable to go through the hassle of installing dedicated
software and dowloading pictures to a PC. I understand they're still
around.

in569
--
CeeBee

*** The Cookie Has Spoken ***

Dont see your point..seems to me everyone is taking 1 step forward and 3
steps back to accomplish what, in essence, is a simple process. ie transfer
files from camera to pc..
Plug in your USB connection & Power supply then use any existing program to
transfer/edit/delete your pics..
Seems simple enough to me.
macca

A friend has alerted me to the potential danger in copying your digital
pictures directly from your camera to your computer. Apparently, if the
camera battery goes flat while the transfer is taking place, it is possible
to lose all your pictures. Worse still, there is the possibility of
permanent damage to your memory stick.

Of course, the way to overcome this risk, is to use a card reader to
transfer your pics on to your computer. I was rather surprised to learn
about this possibility because I have always transferred my pics to my
computer directly from the camera.

Can anyone advise me why memory sticks and SD cards are subject to failure
in this manner? I would have thought that the manufacturers would have been
able to build in safeguards so that this sort of thing could not happen! Has
anyone experienced loss of pictures or damage to SD cards as a result of a
flat camera battery during the transfer process? Do you think it is a wise
safeguard to invest in a dedicated card reader?

Thanks for your advice.

Jim

"Jim F B" wrote in message ...
A friend has alerted me to the potential danger in copying your digital
pictures directly from your camera to your computer. Apparently, if the
camera battery goes flat while the transfer is taking place, it is possible
to lose all your pictures. Worse still, there is the possibility of
permanent damage to your memory stick.

Of course, the way to overcome this risk, is to use a card reader to
transfer your pics on to your computer. I was rather surprised to learn
about this possibility because I have always transferred my pics to my
computer directly from the camera.

Can anyone advise me why memory sticks and SD cards are subject to failure
in this manner? I would have thought that the manufacturers would have
been able to build in safeguards so that this sort of thing could not
happen! Has anyone experienced loss of pictures or damage to SD cards as a
result of a flat camera battery during the transfer process? Do you think
it is a wise safeguard to invest in a dedicated card reader?

Thanks for your advice.

Jim



sounds like a fairy tale to me. Do you have a web link? Someone must have
reported this if true.

"Jim F B" wrote in message ...
A friend has alerted me to the potential danger in copying your digital
pictures directly from your camera to your computer. Apparently, if the
camera battery goes flat while the transfer is taking place, it is possible
to lose all your pictures. Worse still, there is the possibility of
permanent damage to your memory stick.

Of course, the way to overcome this risk, is to use a card reader to
transfer your pics on to your computer. I was rather surprised to learn
about this possibility because I have always transferred my pics to my
computer directly from the camera.

Can anyone advise me why memory sticks and SD cards are subject to failure
in this manner? I would have thought that the manufacturers would have
been able to build in safeguards so that this sort of thing could not
happen! Has anyone experienced loss of pictures or damage to SD cards as a
result of a flat camera battery during the transfer process? Do you think
it is a wise safeguard to invest in a dedicated card reader?

Thanks for your advice.

Jim

The manual will clearly state that you should use the power cord while
transferring images

"Jim F B" writes:

A friend has alerted me to the potential danger in copying your digital
pictures directly from your camera to your computer. Apparently, if the
camera battery goes flat while the transfer is taking place, it is possible
to lose all your pictures. Worse still, there is the possibility of
permanent damage to your memory stick.

Of course, the way to overcome this risk, is to use a card reader to
transfer your pics on to your computer. I was rather surprised to learn
about this possibility because I have always transferred my pics to my
computer directly from the camera.

Can anyone advise me why memory sticks and SD cards are subject to failure
in this manner? I would have thought that the manufacturers would have been
able to build in safeguards so that this sort of thing could not happen! Has
anyone experienced loss of pictures or damage to SD cards as a result of a
flat camera battery during the transfer process? Do you think it is a wise
safeguard to invest in a dedicated card reader?

I've had images corrupted on transfer from a Sony P&S camera when the
battery was low. Fortunately, I noticed before I deleted them from
the card and re-read them after charging the battery. That time they
were all OK.

Flash memory can get rather screwed up if the power fails while it is
being written. Reading should still be safe, but be careful: the
operating system might update a "last accessed" timestamp on the files
when reading them, and if this goes wrong, you do indeed run the risk
of losing many files.

--
Måns Rullgård

"Jim F B" wrote in message ...
A friend has alerted me to the potential danger in copying your digital
pictures directly from your camera to your computer. Apparently, if the
camera battery goes flat while the transfer is taking place, it is possible
to lose all your pictures. Worse still, there is the possibility of
permanent damage to your memory stick.

Of course, the way to overcome this risk, is to use a card reader to
transfer your pics on to your computer. I was rather surprised to learn
about this possibility because I have always transferred my pics to my
computer directly from the camera.

Can anyone advise me why memory sticks and SD cards are subject to failure
in this manner? I would have thought that the manufacturers would have
been able to build in safeguards so that this sort of thing could not
happen! Has anyone experienced loss of pictures or damage to SD cards as a
result of a flat camera battery during the transfer process? Do you think
it is a wise safeguard to invest in a dedicated card reader?

Thanks for your advice.

Jim

Why would you even try transfering pics when your camera batt is flat :-s

Any one who is even a little bit serious about photography would buy a card
reader ... they ain't all that expensive!

Per Jim F B:
Do you think it is a wise
safeguard to invest in a dedicated card reader?

Yes.

Also because of:

- The convenience/portability factor. Keep it in your bag and you can
upload to somebody else's PC without installing anything.

- No worries about installing dicey camera mfr software on your PC.

I got a little USB2 plug-in reader for my CF cards at CompUSA. It's also
extremely fast..
--
PeteCresswell

Charles Schuler wrote:

Any one who is even a little bit serious about photography would buy a card
reader ... they ain't all that expensive!

Plenty of card readers (and Dozy OS's) do not honour the "media changed"
flag so you are between the devil and the deep blue sea.

XP will quite happily try to mangle flash media that you unplug without
explicitly unmounting, and then splat down the directory info of the
previous media onto the next thing you plug into the same socket. And
eject is conveniently next to format drive on the right click menu...

I have seen more media cards trashed by using card readers than by
connecting cameras as drives (remember that with USB 2 it takes only a
short time for a 1GB transfer). It is a bad idea to do file transfers
with a low battery - most cameras now do shutdown gracefully without
loss of data but not all of them.

User error is the most frequent cause of data loss by far - unplugging
an active drive with memory writes still in progress.

Murphy's law always applies in these situations.

Regards,
Martin Brown

"CeeBee" wrote in message
. 164...
"Jim F B" wrote in rec.photo.digital:

Do you think it is a wise
safeguard to invest in a dedicated card reader?

For 10 to 15 bucks getting rid of all the hassle of connecting your camera
to the PC you mean? You bet.

Recently I wondered if there are still people owning cameras with memory
cards using a cable to go through the hassle of installing dedicated
software and dowloading pictures to a PC. I understand they're still
around.


--
CeeBee

*** The Cookie Has Spoken ***

In my experience, you often don't need to install dedicated software when
you get a new digital camera, Windows does it all on its own. I don't really
find it a hassle connecting my camera to a cable, it's probably just as
quick as taking the card out of the camera and putting it into a card
reader.