SanDisk Ultra SDHC 8GB - File Transfer Lockup

Greetings, SanDisk community,

I ran into a problem today with my SanDisk Ultra SDHC 8GB card. I recently returned from vacation and used this card in my Nikon Coolpix L840 camera. I took many pictures and videos and finally got around to transferring all of it onto my desktop PC for safe-keeping. My desktop runs Windows 7 Professional, 64-bit. It has 8GB of usable RAM and a 1TB HDD.

To start off, I had my SDHC formatted before I left for my trip so that I had a clean card for my camera to use. I should note that this particular Nikon camera (perhaps other models do this as well, I’m not sure) creates new folders after reaching a certain capacity. That is to say, by default it begins with a folder titled “100 NIKON.” Once that reaches a certain file size, a new folder is created, “101 NIKON,” and subsequent photos/videos are stored there until that hits its limit, and so on.

So naturally, I went folder by folder for my file transferring. The first folder transferred without problems. Suddenly, the second folder ran into an issue and an error popped up on my screen: “An unexpected error is keeping you from copying the file.” It went on to say “The volume for a file has been externally altered so that the opened file is no longer valid.” I do not have the full error message, but these were the main points (which I still have copied because that is what I wrote into Google in my panic). What got me into a panic? The folder, which had nearly 200 images, was reduced to one file, which was completely blank with no file extension. The file is titled “USBC----” with the dashed lines indicating some random characters. It still had a fairly large filesize though - something around 600,000 KB, which seemed accurate given the number of photos and videos inside the original folder.

So I took out my SDHC card (which is plugged into an SD to USB adapter) and plugged it back in. I was prompted to fix problems with my USB drive (typical message you see for USBs or other cards you’ve used extensively), and I thought this would be a good idea. That was a mistake, because now, instead of a folder containing that blank, inaccessible file, the folder itself has become an inaccessible file (still retaining the original name however, “101 NIKON”). And its filesize is now 32 KB. I have no idea what happened, but it seems that everything from that folder is gone now. It was originally massive, and now it’s been reduced to almost nothing. The only thing giving me hope is the fact that the storage space bar for the SD card (which can be seen from “My Computer”) has not moved. Maybe some files have gone invisible? I’m not sure.

Thinking I’d resolve this later, I moved on to the next (and last) folder on this SDHC, and sorted it so that I could transfer my videos first. Wouldn’t you know, after transferring one video (of three), I got the error again. My files disappeared, were replaced, etc. Exact same thing as the other folder. Except I won’t make the same mistake of “repairing” my card. I honestly have no clue as to what is going on, and if anyone could offer some insight, or even a solution, I would really appreciate it. It would be a shame if I lost all of the photos and video I took, on my first trip out of the US… that is what makes this so frustrating to me.

Thank you,

IvoryOnyx