mountainrivera wrote:
It is not unreasonable to expect a certain amount of hardiness out of a device used by people that may have to make a living from a product.
I would imagine that 90% if not more of the people out there who make a living from photography do NOT use microdrives. There was a time and place for them, but now that flash memory is so cheap, microdrives do not make sense. It is well documented that you can not drop these drives, even from a very low height. You really should have done more research before your purchase. Yes, it is a costly mistake.
I posted to see if anyone had any advice and thank those that offered. Being reminded about what an ass I am for using the MD - as right as that may be - is not really doing much to get my pics back and just serves as a buzz kill.
Thanks man.
I hoped it helped ease your pain a little.
Back when that happened to me the IBM Microdrives were $475. and with tax and all they were just over $500 for a 1 gig card. Lexar had just released the first 1 gig CF card and its retail price was $1000.
Thats right a grand for a 1 gig CF card. So needless to say the micro drive was it.. It had its nitch and time in the market. But even back then they did not advertise the problems if you dropped one.
Now days it hard to justify using one. I find it hard to believe that you can get the cards so cheap now. Major improvements in speed and in cost in the past 8 years or so.
I still have 2 of them that work perfect if anyone is interested...
I didn't intend to mock you or anything I just simply wanted you to realize that there is little if any hope to get your photos off the card.
If you find anything that works please let us know.
I still have 1 card in a drawer waiting to one day get the files off of it.
Hitachi discontinued R&D and sales of Microdrives because they are selling so few. last year, they sold under 7K of them. that's right, under 7 thousand units total worldwide. their time came and went very quickly. i have one inside my Pentax *istD. it made sense back then.
Herb...
Ben Horne wrote:
I would imagine that 90% if not more of the people out there who make a living from photography do NOT use microdrives. There was a time and place for them, but now that flash memory is so cheap, microdrives do not make sense.
I tried a few things like the software and rapping it to try and free stuck heads. Looks like I am SOL. Good thing the shooting i did was a favor rather than a paid job but I still feel like a shit head in any event. I am actually looking to sell my 1DS for a 1dii so I can have the extra drive as a backup. Maybe I am overreacting but I am going to be paranoid for a while.
mountainrivera> I tried a few things like the software and rapping it to try and free stuck heads. Looks like I am SOL.
Try an old trick that sometimes worked with hard drives that couldn't be read:
1. Put the microdrive in a plastic ziplock bag, squeeze out all the air you can.
2. Put it in the freezer for at least two hours.
3. Take it out, remove it from the bag and quickly insert it into a CF reader.
4. Be ready to run recovery software (if necessary) if the computer will recognize the drive.
Otherwise put it away and maybe someone else will come up with a successful recovery trick in the near future.
Best,
Andy
