Canon 5D writing corrupt .CR2 files

I'd see if you can open the files from Canon's software. Are the files viewable on the camera? If so, hook up your camera to your computer and try to retrieve the files that way.

In the future, format a card and use it only in that camera. You open yourself to too many potential problems swapping cards back and forth. If it's an expensive wedding, there's no excuse not to have plenty of spare cards available.

Eric

Hi,

Are you trying to view the files while still on the CF card, or have you copied them to your computer hard disk? If you haven't already done so, copying the files might help.

You should try file recovery software. There are several free versions and they usually work. Here's two.

http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/file_recovery/info.htm?language=1 http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/smart_recovery/info.htm?language=1

The outcome is the same wheather on the card on on the computer...and the files are corrupted when veiwed in the camera or in Canon software. I will try the recovery software...any other ideas? Also, in a 2nd look only about 50% of the files from the 5D come out corrupted and its spread in a random order througout the event.

When you say 'corrupted' are they unreadable (by any means) or are the images you see in some way damaged i.e. unwanted lines/colours etc?

If that are unreadable then you could try an image recovery program, it helped me when a CF card 'corrupted' my images.

Hi Jeff:

Images are damages...some images are viewable but may have sections that are missing (say the bottom half or the corner), others can not be viewed at all even though the data is there...I'm not sure if image recovery software can actually fix a damaged file...

No, I too think that an image recovery program will not work in this case. I can only assume that moving the card from camera to camera must have overwritten some of your images. It may be that the 5D and 20D have different set ups and don't recognise each other. On the other hand the card itself may be damaged.

I had a CF card that 'lost' all my images but I was able to 'recover' them with an image recovery program. However there was damage (or a flaw) on the card that screwed up some of my images every time I used it. I threw the card away. I am sorry that none of this helps your case although some of my screwed up images I was able to painstakingly restore in PhotoShop. These too were wedding photos.

If you shot in RAW mode, you could try a software called "RAW Developer". Just google it, I think the company that does it is called Irident. Thing is: Photoshop & Lightroom are extremely fuzzy when it comes to corrupted RAW files. I had a complete shoot that wouldn't open in Adobe's software but went OK with RAW Developer. Same for JPG ? though this is an assumption from my side: Try anything else but photoshop... i.e. Graphic Converter in a Mac.

I would still try the file recovery software. Files often get damaged because they get parts of the data from two or more separate files mixed together. A good file recovery program may be able to sort some of that out. Don't give up just because some do not believe. :)