CF card not being detected

[Salodin]

I have a CF card I use for my digicam, and it's worked fine for awhile now. Just last night I went to remove the card from my camera to upload some pictures, and when I put it into the built in card reader on my pc, it wasn't detected. I tried my usb card reader, and that isn't working either. I'd hate to format it to fix it, but I can't even get my computer to realize it's there to even do a format.

Does any one have any tips on getting this thing to work?

[Blabj]

If it's recognised in the camera then transfer the files to your computer via the camera.

If it's not recognised in the camera or the reader you will have to reformat it, but it's likely it's FUBAR if nothing recognises it. Just binned two CF cards today with that exact problem.

[Salodin]

Fuck...just took so many pictures over the weekend that I haven't moved over yet >_<

And yeah, it's not being recognized by either camera or computer atm. On that note, any recommendations on a decent cf card? I'm not looking for 16gb 90mb/s speed, but something decent for a slr camera use. Was planning on going to bestbuy to look around any ways, but if the markup is ridiculous I'll wait for newegg shit.

[Blabj]

I use Sandisk Extremes (I know you said you don't want mega fast/expensive but eh...) and even they can go sour.

From what I've experienced and read, the general list of good card manufacturers are these brands: Sandisk, Lexar, Kingston, Transcend and adata. The last 3 are going to be your best bets for bang for buck. I have had 3 adata cards for 2 years now and have had no problems whatsoever with them. Transcend's cards are widely available in America through specialist sites (bhphoto etc.) and ebay, and I think are the equivalent of adata here in Europe.

Also, make sure that your card reader is working by checking if it's recognised in device manager. It sounds silly but I've heard of photographers throwing away hundreds of pounds worth of cards because they thought they were caput when in fact it was their reader...

And one final piece of advice, there are programs that can try to salvage what little info is left on the card, so long as you can recognise the card in the OS... I hear SanDisk have quite a good utility for this.

[Blabj]

Some more info (gosh I'm in a helpful mood today!) the Kingston cards I am referring to are the x133 branded ones (link to amazon listing...) great for a budget, reliable and fast enough for shooting at a decent pace.

[Salodin]

awesome, thanks a lot!