Corrupted CF Card

[hubell]

I was in Maine last week taking photographs and one of the CF cards I was using, a Sandisk Extreme IV 8 Gig card, with 138 files on it would not download to my Macbook or the Hyperdrive Colorspace I had with me. The card would not even mount with the card reader and the Hyperdrive showed zero files in the card. Short story is that I went on LL and read about a little recovery program called PhotoRescue. I did not reformat the card and when I returned home I downloaded PhotoRescue and held my breath. It worked perfectly. All 138 raw files were recovered. My question is this. Is there any reason NOT to format the card at this point and continue to use it, or was this failure  a warning sign and I should ditch the card? TIA.
BTW, I later tried Sandisk's own recovery program, DataRecovery(?), that ships with its Extreme IV cards. It also recovered all of the files but only as TIFs, not the Hasselblad 3FR raws that PhotoRescue recovered.

[The View]

I wouldn't use a CF card again that failed me once.

[teddillard]

I was in Maine last week taking photographs and one of the CF cards I was using, a Sandisk Extreme IV 8 Gig card, with 138 files on it would not download to my Macbook or the Hyperdrive Colorspace I had with me. The card would not even mount with the card reader and the Hyperdrive showed zero files in the card. Short story is that I went on LL and read about a little recovery program called PhotoRescue. I did not reformat the card and when I returned home I downloaded PhotoRescue and held my breath. It worked perfectly. All 138 raw files were recovered. My question is this. Is there any reason NOT to format the card at this point and continue to use it, or was this failure  a warning sign and I should ditch the card? TIA.
BTW, I later tried Sandisk's own recovery program, DataRecovery(?), that ships with its Extreme IV cards. It also recovered all of the files but only as TIFs, not the Hasselblad 3FR raws that PhotoRescue recovered.

First, cards are cheap, right?  I'd certainly keep it as a spare, but why not retire it...  

You can test it, obviously, but I wouldn't bother doing anything with it until you give it a secure "wipe".  There are some programs out there, WipeDrive is one: http://www.whitecanyon.com/wipedrive-erase...CFQOIFQodCzw-zQ

If you don't feel like spending the $40 at the very least do a secure erase with the Disk Utility.  

The card failed because of a directory flaw, which can be caused by any number if issues (compatabilty with your camera is one...) and a wipe will eliminate any fragments that may "confuse" it again...

[hubell]

First, cards are cheap, right?  I'd certainly keep it as a spare, but why not retire it...  

You can test it, obviously, but I wouldn't bother doing anything with it until you give it a secure "wipe".  There are some programs out there, WipeDrive is one: http://www.whitecanyon.com/wipedrive-erase...CFQOIFQodCzw-zQ

If you don't feel like spending the $40 at the very least do a secure erase with the Disk Utility.  

The card failed because of a directory flaw, which can be caused by any number if issues (compatabilty with your camera is one...) and a wipe will eliminate any fragments that may "confuse" it again...

Thanks, I think I will just retire it. The price of 8 gig cards has come down dramatically since the last time I checked.