Camera Repair

I am back-dating this post so that it doesn't headline on the front of my blog (written 9/1/08), but I'm hoping that this will get picked up by a search engine to help out some people who may have the same problem. I had an error message "There is a problem with the CF card" on my camera, a Canon Rebel Xti. Frustrating because I just took a bunch of pics. Apparently I left the camera on, but in its standby mode for a couple of days. I read online and didnt find much resolution short of formatting the CF card. One post I found said that they blew into the camera "old-school nintendo style" and it worked. I did the same thing: took out the card, blew into the camera, blew into the card, put it back in and it worked. I quickly loaded my pics and will not format the card for extra measure. It makes no sense, I've never taken the card out for any reason so its not like it got dusty or worn away. But it worked. So if you ever find this error message, give that a shot

The error came back after I downloaded the pictures, but I'm glad I was able to get the pictures off first. I took one photo and the message is now gone. I called Canon tech-support and the one thing they were able to tell me was that they recommend formatting the memory card on a regular basis. I have never heard that, and have probably not formatted a memory card more than once on every camera I've ever owned. He recommended formatting it after each download. I'll start doing that.