What the hell happened to my (video) footage?

[JBH]

I just started shooting with this t3i Canon Camera...

I was on the second and most extensive day of shooting for a client.

I finally got to my work station to ingest the (video) footage I shot only to discover that the only footage on the SD card was the footage from the day before.

This is not only extremely strange but very alarming, considering I reviewed (played back) some footage I shot today in the camera on location.

I have no clue what or even why this would happen.

Is my footage still somewhere on this SD Card?  Can it be recovered?  What the hell is going on!?

Anyone have an explanation?  This makes ZERO sense considering I didn't do anything different than when I shot all my other footage..

[JBH]

Here's an update

Called Canon and they (just as I suspected they would) denied all responsibility and pointed fingers to the SD Card.  Which is a Sandisk Extreme 32gb which, IS one of Canon's preferred venders and products.

I downloaded for free. 'Stellar phoenix photo (& video) recovery' (for mac) just to scan the card and see what it sees.  It turns out that there is a lot of video files on the card my mac and t3i can NOT see (access).   Unfortunately the 'preview' option did NOT work so, I can only assume the video footage I seek is what I am seeing in the 'Seller' file folder.  They want to charge $30 + to recover it.  Not bad but, free is better.

So, I talked with Sandisk reps and they have a copartnership with a company, (which I can't remember the name right now but, will include that company name in my next 'recovery' update.) that will allow me access to software that will SUPPOSEDLY do for free what Stellar recover software is charging to do.   However, this 'free service' comes with a disclaimer that if the desktop recovery fails I will be forced to a.) send in the card in to this company and b.) pay for the recovery of the mov. files.  Which make me NOT very confident that Sundisk's desktop recovery will actually work when there is a buck to be made going a different rout.  Excuse my skepticism.

 his ordeal makes, what I already believed religion.  That is, before ever getting into the world of 'non tape' videography, I was under the very strong conviction that the ONLY way to recored video data was the 'direct-to-drive' approach (nanoFlash HD/SD Recorder/Player anyone?)

[JBH]

The Truth & Nothing But The Truth... Lot's of good info for those interested in SD Cards, their crashes  and the cameras that crash them.

I'll see if I can clean up my grammatical mistakes this third and final post 

As I suspected, back in my last post, my skepticism was warranted. The company 'LC-Technology,' who is partnered with 'Sandisk,'  gives you, the new Sandisk owner, a 'free' trail version of their SD card recovery software.   Sounds great right?

It was actually AFTER I posted in my 'update' post above that I read online, story after story, after story... the very same thing. The poor soul, such as myself, who lost their video footage (mostly) or still images would run the LC-Technology recovery software and of course, it only got them so far yet, no recovered files..  HOWEVER, with the wave of a wand and,  $100 - $200 later you could mail in your card and presto! your video / still images were 'un-corrupted' and usable.  

Even though it all sounds a bit 'scammy'  to me and, the recovery software gang certainly have A LOT of professionals by the short hairs, in LC-Technology's defense, there maybe more to recovering data off these cards than meets the eye.  Then again?

Now that I said my peace here is some useful info that I learned from the Canon and the crash recovery reps at LC-Technology that may help you...

LC-Technology get lots and lots of cards (NOT just Sandisk) both in the US and Europe sent to their US / UK offices to be recovered.  MEANING, that SD card crash and burns are NOT uncommon and as a professional you need to accept the fact that it's only a matter of time before you are a 'victim' of an SD card crash and burn yourself and you'll need to take prevent measures before it eventually happens to you.

The crash and burn safeguards that I recommend is to spend the coin in rental or, in purchase of a record drive like the nano flash drive where your SD Card is running now as your 'backup drive' and NOT your main drive source.    I'm 99.999999% sure that you can record to both an external drive and your internal SD card at the same time.

Now, a Canon rep told me that the recent 'Transcend' SD cards are real buggy and to avoid them and the LC-Tech rep told me they get stacks of Sandisk cards.   A different Canon rep said that 'Kingston' SD cards where extremely stable cards and the LC-Tech rep told me that although he could not say how good or bad Kingston was he did say that he rarely would see them come in for a recovery.

Does the camera have a hand in crashing the card?  Canon swears on a stack of legal denial that their cameras are in no way crashing cards.  It's my personal situation that I had which makes me believe that Canon's claim of "no responsibility" is BS.  The card recovery rep agreed.  On the other hand it, seems different cards are MORE susceptible to crashing than others.  

The moral to the crash recovery story is backup, backup and backup BEFORE you get burned.