SD card doesn't mount

[Laurent]

Hi people!

My friend, my camera's SD card, is dead...
It has done a great job, more than 4000 fotographs are taken with help of that little thingy.

When I put it in my camera, my camera says things like: "Memory card error, please check the card"
And my computer says things like: "Unable to mount, device does not respond"
So I thought, why not just format that thing again?
But when I connect it with the Windows-computer, nothing happens, I can not even find it.
Back to Linux, I figured out that /dev/sdc is the device, and /dev/sdc1 is the partition.
A little bit strange, but mkfs.vfat can not be found.
But when I make it ext2, the Windows-computer will be able to find it and format it back to FAT.
So far the theory.

Code:

# mke2fs -FF /dev/sdc1
mke2fs 1.41.3 (12-Oct-2008)
mke2fs: Apparaat of adres bestaat niet tijdens bepalen van grootte van bestandssysteem

So even if I force it to ext2, it won't do it...
Device or adres does not exist while determining the size of the filesystem

It drives me nuts 

[Dadster]

   4000 photos, that's a lot of picture taking.  I would say you got your moneys worth out of that card.  How many pictures were lost on the card?  I hope not too many.

  Dadster

[Laurent]

None.
The fact is, I gave my card to a friend who putted all the photo's on his website.
But a shortwhile after he did that, he lost my card for almost half a year, now, I have it back, but it doesn't work anymore 
All the photo's are still on his website, so there is no problem.
Well, there still is a problem, but is doesn't have to do with that card: all my other photo's are lost.
The same time I lost my card, I made of my computer another nice Linux (I try a lot of distros) and I used my iPod as copy, it's just a great hard disk, but then it crashed, it just crashed, it didn't do anything anymore.
The hard disk was not recognised anymore and the only solution was formatting...
Yes, it's very ironical 
There still is a way to get them back, but that costs a lot of money. They scan the hard disk bit by bit en try to compose the images again.

[Ramchu]

        Hi Laurent,
      I have a friend that has software that will recover files from a dead HD, and he said it is not to difficult to run.
  I will check with him and see if we can get you a copy.

    In the mean time you may want to check out this site ( http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287 ) they have HD diagnostic tools - fix and recovery items that you can use.

   Also you may want to go to( http://www.bleepingcomputer.com ) there are some very good people there, that are very computer savy and they may be able to give you some recovery help.

[Paul LeBlanc]

 If the card was lost for that period of time... could have been the environment it was lost in. Dust, moisture or any number of things could have been a factor.The tiny contacts could be dirty... just as used to happen back with gameboy game cartriges
 Here is a google search page to hunt around... I think the issue might be more related to dirty contacts, unless your friend did any formatting as well.

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS281&=&q=cleaning+sd+card+contacts&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f

[conholster]

There still is a way to get them back, but that costs a lot of money. They scan the hard disk bit by bit en try to compose the images again.

It's easier to retrive files from dead memory cards than dead harddrives, but for either one I'd use http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

Photorec hasnt failed me once, it retrives a bunch of diffrent file types. Just remember when youre retrivinig images it'll find every picture that was ever displayed on your screen. Which can get a little awkward, just make sure you're alone when going through the images. I once had a very awkward situation with a client, a few gigs of awkward to be exact...

[Laurent]

Thanks 

I think I just have to deal with it and buy a new card, but wait, I allready have bought a new card because my friend lost my old one. 
I do have tried to undust the contacts. 

@Conholster: Thanks! I didn't hear of it before, I'll give it a try.
And yes, my iPod is one of the previous generations, it has a harddrive ;-)
If TestDisk can not recover anything, it will cost my about €200. 
For so far I have hope, nothing is overwritten or so.
By the way, thanks for the imagewatchtip ;-)