Jump to content

Welcome to NikonForums.com
Register now to gain access to all of our features. Once registered and logged in, you will be able to create topics, post replies to existing threads, give reputation to your fellow members, get your own private messenger, post status updates, manage your profile and so much more. If you already have an account, login here - otherwise create an account for free today!
Photo

D90 not writing to memory card

d90

  • Please log in to reply
4 replies to this topic

#1
C2CPhoto

C2CPhoto

    New Member

  • Forum Member
  • Pip
  • 2 posts
  • Country Flag

Shot a series of photos at grandson's first birthday party with my D90. When I put the memory card into computer to download to Lightroom, there were no images from the entire session on the card (a 64 GB PNY). Images taken the previous evening were on the card, and after putting it back in the camera, images taken subsequently were properly recorded onto the card. Ran file recovery software on card, and it found no images from that session, although it did pick up old, previously deleted images from other sessions in the past (so the software was working). Camera is set to lock up if no card is in camera. During the session, I was checking the rear LCD to confirm exposures since I was using compensation to deal with strong backlighting. On several occasions I redisplayed the last picture taken to show it to my daughter. However, I don't remember if I ever cycled back to pictures taken earlier than the last one when doing a redisplay. 

My questions relate to what went wrong, and how do I prevent it happening in the future. Will the camera seem to be functioning properly even though it is not writing to the memory card--should it have shown error message?  Is there a setting that would prevent camera operation if writing to the memory card fails? Does the LCD read from the card, or the buffer? Does the last picture stay in the buffer until overwritten, so that redisplay could read it from there, even though it was not actually stored on the card? If the camera is not successfully writing to the card, why doesn't the buffer fill up and shut down operation like when a number of shots are taken in rapid succession? Is the camera's firmware supposed to check for successful storage before deleting an image from the buffer? 
Since the images don't appear to exist, there's nothing I expect to be able to do about recovering them. However, I don't want this to ever happen again. Can the camera be set to lock up if images are not being written to the memory card? If I frequently scroll back through previously shot images will this be a reliable way of indicating that the camera is recording the pictures as it should? Are there any other indicators I should be looking for that would warn of such a problem? 
Tried Nikon Technical Support, but all they said was that PNY cards are not approved and 64 GB cards are not approved.  They did not respond directly to any of the questions I raised.

If anyone on the forum has insight into what was going on, I would appreciate their input. Thanks for your help.



#2
Ron

Ron

    Nikonian

  • Forum Member
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • 2,255 posts
  • Country Flag
  • LocationMagic City

The only thing I can think of... other than an incompatible card, is that somehow the write prevent switch may have been set. That's the little slider switch on the side of the card. If you slide it in one direction the card can not be written to. When set to the other position, writing is allowed.

 

SD_Lock_SW_QUDFILmesnbqfl.png

 

The other thing is that cards do go bad. And, it's possible that this is what happened to you. Lastly, since Nikon said that they don't support your card, it's possible that there is some incompatibility or data limit hard coded into the D90 that you've managed to reach.

 

I would try another brand of card with a smaller capacity. Say, a 16GB Sandisk or Lexar. These cards should work with your camera.

 

--Ron



#3
Merco_61

Merco_61

    Nikonian

  • Premium Member
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • 10,587 posts
  • Country Flag
  • LocationUppsala, Sweden

Site Supporter

I seem to remember that the D90 doesn't support SDXC cards. It works well with class 4 or better SDHC, however. Class 6 is optimal as the camera bus can't write faster than that.

 

Nikon recommended Lexar and Sandisk cards when the camera was a current product. 



#4
C2CPhoto

C2CPhoto

    New Member

  • Forum Member
  • Pip
  • 2 posts
  • Country Flag

The above points are certainly possible, but I'm not sure that either was at work in this case.  As soon as I found that the card did not have the images on it, I put it back in the camera and took a few pictures, all of which were recorded normally.  And the card had been used for months with no problems, with about 250 pictures being taken after the last formatting and before the lost session.  All of those photos are still on the card.  Also, just as a check, I just tried the card in the camera with the write protect switch on, and a CHA error shows on the top LCD screen, while the camera locks up.  So that was probably not what caused the problem.



#5
Jerry_

Jerry_

    Nikonian

  • Forum Member
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • 1,524 posts
  • Country Flag
Based on what you describe, I'd rather suspect a bad electric contact between the camera and the card.

Be it because of oxydation or dirt, either on the pins or on the memorycard. In any case I would clean the electric contacts in the camera slot, as well as on the card.

You should also check - looking in the card slot on the camera - if no pin is bend, i.e. all are perfectly aligned.





Also tagged with one or more of these keywords: d90