It’s the middle of a shoot and the camera throws a card error, the card shows as empty, or the offload stops halfway through. If that card holds the only copy of today’s footage, what happens in the next few minutes matters more than anything a lab can do later. Footage on a failed card is often still there, but cameras and computers are very good at overwriting it when you accept the wrong prompt. Here’s what to do on set, whether you’re a DIT, a camera assistant, or a one-person crew.
The first five minutes
- Stop recording to that card. Swap in a fresh card and keep shooting if you need to. Nothing else should be written to the problem card.
- Let the camera finish. If the access light is on, wait until it goes off before you remove the card. Then power the camera down and take the card out.
- Decline every prompt. If the camera asks to format the media, say no. If it offers to repair or restore the card, think carefully before you accept. A camera’s restore function can sometimes save the last clip after a power loss, but it writes to the card, so it isn’t a step to take casually with footage you can’t reshoot.
- Take the card out of rotation. Put it in a case and mark it with tape. On a busy set, an unmarked card can easily end up back in a camera and get formatted by someone who doesn’t know about the problem. If it’s an SD card, slide the lock switch to the locked position.
- Write down what happened. Note the camera, firmware, codec, resolution, frame rate, card brand and capacity, the roll or reel number, and the last clip you know is good. Also record what the camera did when it failed. All of this helps an engineer later.
Keep the card away from other cameras
It’s tempting to put the card into a second camera body to see if it reads there. Don’t. A different camera may not recognize the file structure and may ask to format the card, or it may write its own folders and database files.
One careful offload attempt
If the card still shows up in a reader, you can make one attempt to get everything off it:
- Use a known good reader, connected directly to the computer rather than through a hub. Card readers cause more problems than you might expect, so a bad reader can look like a bad card.
- If Windows says the disk needs to be formatted, click Cancel. If macOS says the disk isn’t readable, click Ignore. Don’t run a disk repair tool such as chkdsk or First Aid.
- Copy the entire card, with its full folder structure, rather than dragging out individual clips. Many camera formats depend on sidecar and metadata files, and clips can span more than one file.
- Use your usual offload software with checksum verification and send it to a healthy drive with plenty of space.
- Don’t play clips directly from the card. Review the copy instead.
If the reader hangs, the copy slows to a crawl, or the card disappears partway through, stop. Don’t try again and again. Fast cards, including CFexpress, can run hot under load, and a failing card can become less stable each time it’s powered up. Let it cool down and move on to getting professional help.
What may have gone wrong
Different failures have different odds, and the symptoms offer a clue:
- The last clip won’t play, but the others are fine. The camera probably lost power or the card was pulled before the clip was closed. The video data is usually written, but the index that makes it playable may be missing. Keep the file exactly as it is.
- The card shows empty, or asks to be formatted. The file system is probably damaged. The footage itself may be intact, so long as nothing has been written to the card since.
- Someone formatted the card by mistake. A quick format usually removes the file system, not all of the data, but a card that has been shot on since then is a much harder job. Many cameras offer a low-level or full format too, which is worse. Tell the engineer which one was used.
- The card isn’t detected, or shows zero capacity. This points to a failed controller or physical damage. You won’t fix that with software. The memory has to be reached another way, which is lab work.
Why recovery software can disappoint with video
Consumer recovery tools are built mainly around photos and documents. A single long clip can be stored in many pieces, and when the file system is gone, the tool has to guess how they fit together. You can end up with files of the right size that won’t play, or clips with sections of other footage mixed in. If you do try software, run it on a full image of the card, never on the card itself, and save the results to a different drive.
Keeping a bad day from happening twice
- Offload to at least two separate drives, with checksum verification, before any card goes back into rotation.
- Only format cards in the camera, and only after the offload has been verified.
- Use a clear card system on set, such as tape colors or a designated case for shot cards, so nobody has to guess.
- Record to two cards at once if the camera supports it.
- Keep a log of cards and readers, and retire any card that’s ever thrown an error.
If the production carries insurance, tell the producer about the failure early, and keep the card and your notes.
Getting the card to a lab
Keep the card in a hard case, pack it so that it can’t move around, and include your notes. Our USB flash and memory card recovery page covers the types of cards we work with. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, see our Hollywood data recovery page. From anywhere else, our mail-in data recovery page explains how to ship it.
Need footage back from a failed card?
Take the card out of rotation and call Data Retrieval at (213) 986-4855. An engineer will evaluate the card and give you a fixed quote, and recovery only starts once you approve it. We work on-site across Los Angeles, the Inland Empire and Ventura County, and we accept mail-in recoveries from anywhere in the US.