Problems reading a CF card

[Woodman]

I have an EOS 5D mk3. If I try to read the CF card in a card reader external to a pc (mumerous pc's and card readers) the pc won't recognise the CF. If I directly link the camera to the pc it works fine.

Any one had similar problems?

[Stan]

Re: Problems reading a CF card

Perhaps it is the card reader or have you tried different readers with the same result

Stan

[Woodman]

Re: Problems reading a CF card

Perhaps it is the card reader or have you tried different readers with the same result

Stan

I get the same with several card readers and card combinations.

If I run diskpart (a dos based partition management tool) it sees the partition, but I am a bit loathe to dig around with diskpart any further in case I destroy the card.

When I get back home I will investigate further.

[Woodman]

Re: Problems reading a CF card

Spent some time going round this issue and what I did to fix it in my case, was to change the Removal Policy for the CF card from "Quick Removal" to "Better Performance".

So this is how you do it....

Insert the CF card into the reader and allow the disk icon to appear on the desktop.

Go into device manager in control panel, find disk drives and expand the group. If you have a multi card reader, there will be many disks shown. Right click the mouse on the appropriate disk drive then from the drop down menu select the Properties option.

Go to the Policies tab in the Device properties window and change the Removal policy from "Quick Removal" to "Better Performance". Take on board the warnings when selecting this option. The PC will ask to restart.

Problem fixed.

This process will have to be repeated per card reader.

[John Liddle]

Re: Problems reading a CF card

I also have a 5DIII and have had no problems at all with the CF cards I have used in it. My external card reader is a PNY USB 3.0 reader - from PC World I think.

I have followed your procedure above and I find that the Policy is set to "Quick removal"

[Woodman]

Re: Problems reading a CF card

Interesting.

Is your pc a laptop or desktop?

[Woodman]

Re: Problems reading a CF card

What size are your cf cards?

[John Liddle]

Re: Problems reading a CF card

Hi Woodman,

the PC is a desktop and the disks are 32GB Sandisk Extreme Pro (160 MB/s)

[John Liddle]

Re: Problems reading a CF card

Hi again - I assume you have tried re-formatting the card in the camera to see if that clears things up?

[Woodman]

Re: Problems reading a CF card

I re-formatted the card, the only thing that fixed it was to change the policy.