Help reading Compact Flash card - help appreciated

imightbewrong

Hi 'togs

We have a Canon 7D with Compact Flash.  We can take photos ok and browse them on the camera - however we are no longer able to do download the photos onto the PC - have tried:

- USB cable from two Win10 PCs to camera - it simply doesn't appear
- Putting the card in a card reader, usb from that to PCs - again it doesn't show up

Has anything 'happened' to CF card reading in Win 10?  Are there any gotchas or known work-arounds?   Need to take some 'important' photos today but unsure about using the camera currently unless I want to display them on the 2" viewer on the back.

Thanks!

newbie1

Have you installed Canon’s EOS utility software on your PC? If not try using that with camera connected via USB. For the card reader does it work with SD or other cards?

imightbewrong

Thanks - will try to find another card to test.

Trying to get utility - went to Canon site but it just sends me to an 'updater' for it, which expects the utility to already be installed.  Does this mean I need to find my CD from a decade ago? :-/

EOS 7D - Support - Download drivers, software and manuals - Canon UK

imightbewrong

Okay I found the 'solution disk software' pack which apparently includes it - trying that.

imightbewrong

Okay thanks - installed that which didn't resolve it but then switched to a prior USB cable and between all that it seems to have worked - I can download the photos through the camera again.

Thanks

shotokan101

Might be worth having a look at this if you want to try and get the card reader to work

4 Ways to Fix SD Card Reader Not Working on Windows 10 | Driver Talent

spannersatcx

not all usb cables are the same some just charge some do data as well!

Johnmcl7

Glad you've got it sorted and as you've found it's always worth trying another USB cable as I've come across odd problems in the past that have been down to a USB cable even though it seemed to be a decent one with no damage to it.

In terms of your original question I've not seen any CF issues with Windows 10 as it's an older technology now which hasn't changed much (purely speaking about the original CompactFlash not newer standards like Cfast) so as long as the PC is working ok with mass storage devices, it should be ok with compact flash.  Have you managed to get the reader working with the different USB cable?  It would be handy to make sure you have a working backup if the camera isn't usable.

For completeness SD cards can be a bit of a different story mainly because there are three SD standards which are SD for up to 2GB, SDHC for 4GB to 32GB and SDXC for 64GB and above.  If you're reading an SDXC card then the reader has to support it but even though it's been out a while, I still occasionally come across newish card readers particularly those builtin to laptops that can't read SDXC cards.

12harry

Good to read yr CF-problem is fixed.
Since CF cards are more-expensive -per-Gb ( than plain SDXC), I wonder they are still being pushed by both Canon and Sony ( others?).

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Odd isn't it that something that's branded as "Universal" appears deficient in several ways - the power capability for one.... perhaps the Standard should have been written so only cables, connectors, kit that adheres to the USB standard should be branded as such.
However, almost any Standards is better than none . . . presumably power USB cables will have lower resistance and if either end is suitable a higher charge is possible . . . but if plugged into a normal USB outlet, could it know, I wonder....?

I thought the output for USB is current-limited, so I'm not sure how a higher-charge feature can be implemented.... or is it another con to sell us something we already have: I wonder that too.

Johnmcl7

Neither Sony or Canon in any way 'push' compactflash, it's just kept there primarily as a legacy standard these days since its successors never took off plus decent CF cards are still extremely fast.  Nikon have been trying to push the new XQD standard which is the replacement for Cfast (which is the replacement for compactflash) but in general compactflash has been hard to replace.

I've never seen a power only USB cable and if such a device exists it wouldn't technically be a USB cable as it doesn't meet the standard.  While it is normal for a charger to show as power only with no data, that's because the charger is only producing power with no data rather than a feature of the cable itself.

The original power spec for USB was a maximum of 2A at 5V, Qualcomm were one of the earlier ones to go above this with their non-standard Quickcharge feature (other companies also use this under different names such as Samsung's adaptive charging) which requires additional circuitry in the devices which communicate with each other to work out the power capabilities and if compatible, go above the USB charging limit.

USB Power Delivery now also allows for much higher current and voltage which also works in a similar fashion with the charger communicating with the device to work out what current and voltage the device can take.

This additional hardware is missing in older spec USB devices so the charger doesn't know what level of charge it can take, it's crucial this is done correctly otherwise it could burn out devices by supplying too high a current and voltage.  In the early days of the higher USB-PD spec, some chargers/cables were not actually compliant which could mean if you plugged a charger into laptop which could use the maximum power delivery profile then to mobile phone with a much lower profile the system didn't switch down and could burn out the lower powered device.