Elliott Design Loc: West Tennessee

Friends and associates, since the first time I fried a USB thumbdrive several years ago with a static discharge I've made it a habit to ground myself before touching a computer with a memory card or drive in my hand. Many of the problems people post here about corrupted cards are likely being caused by static electrical charges being transfered from their body to the metal case of their computer "through" the memory card in their hand.

Even though I have a static mat under my chair at my work desk, I discharge any possible static by first touching my grounded metal desk before placing a drive or card into a computer slot. If your desk is not grounded no problem, go ahead and touch any metal part of the computer case — just not with the hand holding the card.

Digital memory devices are pretty hardy little pieces and can withstand quite a bit of normal physical abuse but 20K volts of static charge that can make your hair stand on end or make a painful sting if you're not expecting it can surely destroy the file structures of memory devices. That is why people who work in computer repair wear grounding straps, they know that even a small discharge can ruin a motherboard, hard drive, video card or more.

And for those who are afraid to take their cards out of the camera and use the USB tether cable to download files should also ground themselves before connecting. Static charges don't care how they discharge, if you're charged and holding the cable in one hand and the camera in the other hand you can do just as much harm, PLUS you can damage the camera too.

Cold dry winter days are the worst for creating static, especially on some types of carpet, but summer can be bad too, all it takes is a small amount to ruin a card or corrupt a few of the pictures.

So, a little pre-grounding next time you prepare to stick a card in the reader or connect your cables might save those once in a lifetime shots from getting destroyed.

Acountry330 Loc: Dothan,Ala USA

Thanks for the great advice.

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

Elliot, good to know. Also some just naturally have much more magnetic personalities than others!!

n3eg Loc: West coast USA

:thumbup: from a service technician.

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

I live in Maine, where the humidity is pretty high and the static almost non-existent. Running a humidifier, especially in the winter when furnaces are running, is one of the best ways to reduce static, and for sure - grounding yourself before touching any electronics is always a good idea.

Elliott Design Loc: West Tennessee

Thanks to you all for replying! After reading so many post from people that tell stories of lost photos because of corrupted cards I thought it would be good advice for anyone unaware of how easy it is to trash out a card, memory stick or even a camera with a static charge.

To Acountry, hope it prevents you or someone else from having a bad experience with losing some some shots.

Sharpshooter, you seem to have the magnetic personality and I see you share a lot of advice on the UHH.

n3eg, thanks for the thumbs up from a tech, I suppose you have been "grounded" much of your life.

sb, down here in TN we have a large variety of weather and temps,some days in the winter I dread swapping thumbdrives from one PC to the other across the room, ZAAAAPPPP! to take it out and ZAAAAPPP! again to put it in, keeps me alert anyway.