Formatting USB attached Sandisk SD w/XP

[kene@pobox.com]

The Problem: I put a 2GB Extreme III in my Pentax S5i and format it. Then I have a 1 Gig card. The camera PRIOR TO THE FORMAT read the 2GB just fine and offered a count of 600 top quality pictures. (My 1GB offers 300). I took a few shots and found the 2GB working fine "at first". MY MISTAKE was to let the camera format the card. It (the camera) created a 1GB partition that it could access fine and an additional 1GB area of "unallocated space".
The "old" solution would have been soooooo simple - just use FDISK to delete both partitions and create a single partition - then format it. But XP aint got FDISK anymore and the ones I found were fer Unix.
What DID NOT work was Symantec's (Power Quest) Partition Magic - that turkey did not even SEE the drive letter - which XP saw - but offered NO tool to combine my 2 partitions back to one big one.
THE SOLUTION - http://www.v-com.com/ - Partition Commander 10 Professional - it costs $50 - I downloaded it from their web (paying via credit card) and had a single 2GB partition 5 minutes later !! Tested in camera it again reported 600 top quality pictures. Note: use "FAT-32 and 16K clusters" - at least for a Pentax S5i/XP as XP did not "see" FAT-16 even though the camera worked fine. As i bought both i called Symantec and demanded and GOT a refund (after agreeing to delete the product) as it did not see a drive letter that XP (even disk administrator) had no problem accessing. Too bad XP does not have the delete/recombine partitions function but that's the way it is. I worked in the past (retired now) doing PC technical support - have tested and installed MANY software packages and the v-com is nifty - BUT USE CAREFULLY AND BE SURE WHAT DRIVE LETTER YOU ARE MESSING WITH - IT'S A POWERFUL TOOL.

[suemccartin]

Most of the time, as you know, the recommendation is to format the card in the device but I've also heard folks say to format it in XP if you're having wierd issues. I've got Acronis disk utilities (does what partition magic does plus a few functions and runs under win 64bit too) and it can see cf cards in the reader. You could have just formatted it to get rid of the partition the camera made. Sandisk gleefully replaces bad cards, you may just have a flukey card, I've got several of those and use them in several different cameras and devices with no problems at all.

[Riley]

format in the camera
reason why ?
the format might be fat12, a type not easily reachable with XP

however, you can find a version of fdisk on this page

http://www.waterwheel.com/Guides/hardrive/hard_drive_partitioning.htm

does the card capacity exceed the intended size for your camera ?

Riley

[suemccartin]

I haven't seen a device yet that won't work with a larger card than was available when the device came out. As long as the card follows the rules established for its type I have not yet seen a bigger card than allowed for not work in an older device. For instance I've got an old HP850 that says 1 gig in the book and I've had two gig sd cards in there no issues. I've got an ancient Epson 650 snap n shoot that I think had no bigger than 512 available when it came out and it works perfectly with a gig card as well.

As for the format......I haven't seen anything in the past few years that
didn't use fat32 but I'm sure that it's correct that they say to format in the device for that reason. Memory cards used to be a little picky just like floppy drives, a few years ago sandisk had a big problem with certain cards made in China not working at all or just not correctly in the Dell Axim X5, that was some kind of a controller problem.....now corrected thank goodness. I just stick with Sandisk and Lexar and have no issues, I found a irresistable deal on a 4gig cf card by ridata ($62.00 lifetime warranty too) so I'm giving one of those a try but normally I stick with Sandisk and Lexar and have no problems at all.