photoman022 Loc: Manchester CT USA

I haven't lost anything -- yet. Most of my sd cards are five and six years old.

Tecant Loc: Wisconsin USA

Never lost any photos on my SD cards due to card failure ... but

I have lost photos because this idiot (me) got mixed up on which pair of cards was to go into my D7000 next. By mistake I put in the pair I had ... just ... removed and resumed shooting. A few minutes later I realized my mistake but too late, the photos were gone with the reformatting.

When I got home I searched on the internet and found a recovery program (from softtote.com). The trial version enabled me to recover some JPGs and that was good enough; the pay version would have let me recover RAW files. I'm an amateur shooting for fun, not a pro making a living through photography.

My regular practice is fill the two SD cards in camera (set A) take them out, copy to my iMac, set A goes into camera bag without being reformatted. Set B goes into camera, get reformatted and I shoot until B is full. Point is, the set in the bag do not get reformatted until I put them in camera to use them, just in case this idiot screws up again. To avoid confusing set A and B, one is Sandisk, the other is Lexar.

Electronics eventually fail but human error is more likely. My avatar is one of the recovered photos.

jimmya Loc: Phoenix

I shot quite a few video clips yesterday. When I put the card in the computer it showed "folder empty". So by fail I mean a chip went bad, the memory failed to record... what? I'm not sure about these cards.

I did a photo recovery on the card and the only thing it found was video I'd shot last April??? Go figure. I've always been told that formatting a card cleans it - apparently not so.

I do remember yesterday that my card suddenly showed, in red, a 0:00. I thought the card was full so I changed it.
I now believe that the card failed right then.

TomballLegend Loc: Tomball, Texas

I have a Lexar SD purchased with 4 year old Pentax which lies as a spare to my regularly used 8Gig Sandisk over the past 4 years. In answer to your question---never lost a thing!!!!!!

wingincamera Loc: Spanaway, Washington

I have never lost anything on a memory card. But just the same I usually only use 8 GB cards, sometimes a 16 GB, so if something does happen all my photos are not in one place. My raw files are only about 20 mb's each and I shoot very little video (use a actual video camera for that).

Joecosentino Loc: Whitesboro, New York

I use transcend 16 and 32 GB cards I have never lost an image, it's funny how the cards people talk about failing the most are lexar cards followed by San disk, that may be because there are more of those cards out there

mossgate Loc: Phoenix, AZ

Does losing batches of images while the SD card was still in the camera count? Was a new camera so maybe it was operator error.

Lost about 100 images while in Rome a few years back. Interestingly they were at two specific locations in the city. All other images were fine. Never could figure out how that happened.

Haven't had anything like that happen since.

bgtmd Loc: San Angelo, TX

none

j.collinst

Just to clarify what I posted earlier... I also have taken all the precautions mentioned and re-format with every download (in-camera) No matter - The wedding photos I lost disappeared in transfer to my hard drive.

Occasional losses must be a problem, because the new replacement SD cards include reclamation SW.

If you've not lost anything, be thankful. Those losses can be catastrophic.

BTW, At least the Nikon manuals say to insert the card into a reader, rather than downloading directly from the camera, as I used to do.

achammar Loc: Idaho

Wow, I was not expecting this to go this far (I'm glad though.. lot's of info here). There is no possible way I can quote any particular reply here. There are so many that I like. I guess I probably did ask this question wrong. I should have worded it a little different, but I'm glad those of you that posted about losing stuff did post, even though that's not what I exactly asked. I'm glad to know about every one. I guess what I meant by "Never losing a file", was "Never losing a file due to it being entirely the card's fault, and only the card's fault".
I see a lot of you have used cards for years and never lost anything. I'm glad about that. I also see that some of you have lost files..(not many of you though, but that might be because of the poor way I asked this question)... and a few of you have had experiences with lots of customers that have lost files, but we have no idea how they treated their cards, or if they knew the best way to take care of a card, or any other circumstances. That's not to say they didn't do everything the way they should of, but I'm sure some of them didn't. There are a lot of opinions on what the best way is to use a card whether it be over and over, or a new card every time, format, or just delete... in camera, or on the computer... too many scenarios, but of course my way is the best way... LOL :-) I just wanted to keep it simple and wrap up everyone's results into a general averaged group (people from this site that have a higher probability of being careful and having more experience) without going into detail and see how many of you have never had a problem with a card with the fault being entirely on the card. If files are lost due to other things, even involving the card, then that's not the card's fault. I'm glad that the ones that have lost files posted your experiences, in any way, and the different ways you UHH's have recovered them. It's all good info.
I feel for all of you that have lost stuff, I know it happens. As others have posted, and lost images, I shoot weddings, and it would just be a catastrophe for me to lose a card of data. I feel fairly good from the ratio of non losses to losses though (again may not be a good hypothesis because of the way I asked, but a lot of others that have lost files have joined in.. Thank you.) Sorry to those of you that have lost important stuff. That would be awful.
Thank you for all of your posts! This was very interesting for me...

morrisb Loc: adelaide south australia

Never for me. Yet!

Hal81 Loc: Bucks County, Pa.

Never.

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

I'm glad you clarified your question. I almost answered differently, but now I know that my answer satisfies your criteria and I have never lost a file due entirely to the care's fault. I have a Nikon P&S that had a habit of catching the lock on an SD card and, if the lock did not have a strong detent, the edge of the slot would turn the card off. But that was the camera's fault, and, after trying to shoot a couple of times with a locked card, I found the problem. Ten seconds with a Swedish file removed a sharp edge of plastic and solved the problem permanently. I did learn, however, that SD cards with loose sliding locks need to be retired - or used very carefully.

StormSeeker

I've never lost anything on an SD card in the 5-years I've been using them. Had some that didn't work right, though.

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

I bought a six-pack of SD's at Fry's; I was SO shocked when none worked. Imagine, defective products at Fry's! LOL