Help - emergency

[Chris Parker]

On set and just had a 16gb card not read in my reader. This is a new card with the new firmware. Took it out and tried putting it back in the camera and now it will not read in the camera. There is a crucial take on here for this big budget network series. What are my options for data recovery as fast as possible? I am located in Toronto.

Any quick help would be greatly appreciated.

[Brent@RED]

Sorry to hear that, Chris. The quickest way is to get us the card so we can attempt data recovery here at RED. Do you want to create a support ticket on www.red.com/support? Either me or one of the tech support guys will get back to you with details.

To be safe, since a faulty external card reader can corrupt footage, I would not use that reader until we have verified it is not the problem.

BC

[Chris Parker]

as soon as it happened i had the camera dept. throw another (fresh) card in the camera right away and roll off a few test shots in between takes. ran it through the same card reader and all was fine. then, i put the 'unreadable' card back in the camera and again, it would not read. also, after that, i took the 'unreadable' card out of the camera, put a fresh one back in, and it would not format.

i powered the camera down and up, and it formatted the fresh card fine. just to see if putting the 'unreadable' card in the camera was the source of this problem, i repeated the exact process......put the 'unreadable' card back in the camera, it would not recognize it. then put the fresh card back in, and it would not format that one either. then, powered down, powered back up, and it formatted the fresh card and we shot a few more takes. took it back to my cart and ran it through my reader (the same one) and all was fine. the problem seems isolated to that card but......

i will use another card reader now as per your recommendation. we have shot over 180 mags (16GB cards) on this job already and this was the first BIG problem. Had four takes hang on post and lose a clip over the course of the shoot, but at least we knew that right away.

this one though has the producers on edge. and wondering about the chances of data recovery success. i will most likely courier the card to you tomorrow but will let you know. i guess there is nowhere in toronto i could send it to? or because it is officially a RED product, do you think you guys should be the ones to look at it?

[Brian Fairbanks]

Hi Chris,

Our guys will do everything possible. We suggest bringing it to Red, because we have the software/hardware that will give the best shot of recovering the data. If you need to reach anyone tomorrow, please email myself (bfair-at-red-dot-com) or Brent (brent-at-red-dot-com).

Thanks,
Brian