Problem formatting CF and SD on D800e

[Alex Ethridge]

In trying to check out a D800e for functions, I am having difficulty formatting the storage, both CF and SD.

I have followed the instructions on page 32 of the manual and nothing happens. It just goes back to the controls screen.

Press and hold Mode and Trash until "For" appears.

Press Mode and Trash again to format.

There is only one card in the camera. It goes back immediately to the control screen -- no indication of a format taking place.

 

[Sagittarius]

In trying to check out a D800e for functions, I am having difficulty formatting the storage, both CF and SD.

I have followed the instructions on page 32 of the manual and nothing happens. It just goes back to the controls screen.

Press and hold Mode and Trash until "For" appears.

Press Mode and Trash again to format.

There is only one card in the camera. It goes back immediately to the control screen -- no indication of a format taking place.

What do you expect to appear? Does control panel and viewfinder show the number of shots that can be recorded? If it shows, that's it, it's done.

 

[Alex Ethridge]

In trying to check out a D800e for functions, I am having difficulty formatting the storage, both CF and SD.

I have followed the instructions on page 32 of the manual and nothing happens. It just goes back to the controls screen.

Press and hold Mode and Trash until "For" appears.

Press Mode and Trash again to format.

There is only one card in the camera. It goes back immediately to the control screen -- no indication of a format taking place.

What do you expect to appear? Does control panel and viewfinder show the number of shots that can be recorded? If it shows, that's it, it's done.

I don't know exactly what to expect; but, I would expect something that indicates something is happening or some indication that something did happen. What I get is nothing, absolutely nothing with no delay, no pause, no blink, no flicker, nothing at all. It just instantly goes from "For" back to the control screen so quickly it is as though pressing Mode and Trash again is canceling the format.

Is that all that is supposed to happen -- no indicator of any kind at all?

 

[A Owens]

In trying to check out a D800e for functions, I am having difficulty formatting the storage, both CF and SD.

I have followed the instructions on page 32 of the manual and nothing happens. It just goes back to the controls screen.

Press and hold Mode and Trash until "For" appears.

Press Mode and Trash again to format.

There is only one card in the camera. It goes back immediately to the control screen -- no indication of a format taking place.

What do you expect to appear? Does control panel and viewfinder show the number of shots that can be recorded? If it shows, that's it, it's done.

I don't know exactly what to expect; but, I would expect something that indicates something is happening or some indication that something did happen. What I get is nothing, absolutely nothing with no delay, no pause, no blink, no flicker, nothing at all. It just instantly goes from "For" back to the control screen so quickly it is as though pressing Mode and Trash again is canceling the format.

Is that all that is supposed to happen -- no indicator of any kind at all?

The red read/write light is illuminated during formatting. If there are no images on the card, formatting takes less than a second and if you are not watching for it you can miss seeing the light illuminate.

To slow things down, take a burst of images and then reformat the card. This should slow the reformat down enough for you to see the light. You can prove that the reformat is successful as the images should be deleted.

 

[Art Jacks]

I use the menu option to format the cards, follow the on screen instructions, select the card, most important to press the OK button and an on screen message will say format complete.

 

[ormdig]

I use the menu option to format the cards, follow the on screen instructions, select the card, most important to press the OK button and an on screen message will say format complete.

Hi Alex, as Art says use the menu. Go to SETUP and the first item is the format option. Follow instructions and make sure you use the OK button in the lower left of the camera, not the multi selector. A lot of people make that mistake. Again, as Art says it will say "format complete",

 

[lickity split]

I use the menu option to format the cards, follow the on screen instructions, select the card, most important to press the OK button and an on screen message will say format complete.

Hi Alex, as Art says use the menu. Go to SETUP and the first item is the format option. Follow instructions and make sure you use the OK button in the lower left of the camera, not the multi selector. A lot of people make that mistake. Again, as Art says it will say "format complete",

--
Pete

There are two ways to format cards in camera and the one on page 32 I don't like at all why don't you try the one in the Set-Up menu (pg. 325 1st item) its much easier to use and you can see exactly what your doing.

^^^ Yup just select which card you wanna format,use the OK button and when your done just hit the image review button and the card should be empty if not you did something wrong.

--
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lickitysplit11111/

 

[Sagittarius]

In trying to check out a D800e for functions, I am having difficulty formatting the storage, both CF and SD.

I have followed the instructions on page 32 of the manual and nothing happens. It just goes back to the controls screen.

Press and hold Mode and Trash until "For" appears.

Press Mode and Trash again to format.

There is only one card in the camera. It goes back immediately to the control screen -- no indication of a format taking place.

What do you expect to appear? Does control panel and viewfinder show the number of shots that can be recorded? If it shows, that's it, it's done.

I don't know exactly what to expect; but, I would expect something that indicates something is happening or some indication that something did happen. What I get is nothing, absolutely nothing with no delay, no pause, no blink, no flicker, nothing at all. It just instantly goes from "For" back to the control screen so quickly it is as though pressing Mode and Trash again is canceling the format.

Is that all that is supposed to happen -- no indicator of any kind at all?

Hi,

The only thing you will see is the number of the images which can be taken will change from what it was to the full number of images that can be taken. Also if you will pres play back button, the camera will tell you that there are no images to display, inless you have images on the second card.

 

[Alex Ethridge]

In trying to check out a D800e for functions, I am having difficulty formatting the storage, both CF and SD.

I have followed the instructions on page 32 of the manual and nothing happens. It just goes back to the controls screen.

Press and hold Mode and Trash until "For" appears.

Press Mode and Trash again to format.

There is only one card in the camera. It goes back immediately to the control screen -- no indication of a format taking place.

What do you expect to appear? Does control panel and viewfinder show the number of shots that can be recorded? If it shows, that's it, it's done.

I don't know exactly what to expect; but, I would expect something that indicates something is happening or some indication that something did happen. What I get is nothing, absolutely nothing with no delay, no pause, no blink, no flicker, nothing at all. It just instantly goes from "For" back to the control screen so quickly it is as though pressing Mode and Trash again is canceling the format.

Is that all that is supposed to happen -- no indicator of any kind at all?

The red read/write light is illuminated during formatting. If there are no images on the card, formatting takes less than a second

There is no "less than a second". The screen change is instant. But I have solved the problem by using the menu option where I can see the "less than a second" take place. Comparing the two methods, I don't think the Mode+Trash option is doing anything at all.

and if you are not watching for it you can miss seeing the light illuminate.

To slow things down, take a burst of images and then reformat the card. This should slow the reformat down enough for you to see the light. You can prove that the reformat is successful as the images should be deleted.

--
Alistair Owens
http://www.alistairowens.net
http://www.500px.com/AlistairOwens
https://plus.google.com/+AlistairOwensgooglePlus/posts

 

[Alex Ethridge]

I use the menu option to format the cards, follow the on screen instructions, select the card, most important to press the OK button and an on screen message will say format complete.

That worked. Thanks.

 

[A Owens]

In trying to check out a D800e for functions, I am having difficulty formatting the storage, both CF and SD.

I have followed the instructions on page 32 of the manual and nothing happens. It just goes back to the controls screen.

Press and hold Mode and Trash until "For" appears.

Press Mode and Trash again to format.

There is only one card in the camera. It goes back immediately to the control screen -- no indication of a format taking place.

What do you expect to appear? Does control panel and viewfinder show the number of shots that can be recorded? If it shows, that's it, it's done.

I don't know exactly what to expect; but, I would expect something that indicates something is happening or some indication that something did happen. What I get is nothing, absolutely nothing with no delay, no pause, no blink, no flicker, nothing at all. It just instantly goes from "For" back to the control screen so quickly it is as though pressing Mode and Trash again is canceling the format.

Is that all that is supposed to happen -- no indicator of any kind at all?

The red read/write light is illuminated during formatting. If there are no images on the card, formatting takes less than a second

There is no "less than a second". The screen change is instant. But I have solved the problem by using the menu option where I can see the "less than a second" take place. Comparing the two methods, I don't think the Mode+Trash option is doing anything at all.

and if you are not watching for it you can miss seeing the light illuminate.

To slow things down, take a burst of images and then reformat the card. This should slow the reformat down enough for you to see the light. You can prove that the reformat is successful as the images should be deleted.

 

[BobWorrell]

In trying to check out a D800e for functions, I am having difficulty formatting the storage, both CF and SD.

I have followed the instructions on page 32 of the manual and nothing happens. It just goes back to the controls screen.

Press and hold Mode and Trash until "For" appears.

Press Mode and Trash again to format.

There is only one card in the camera. It goes back immediately to the control screen -- no indication of a format taking place.

What do you expect to appear? Does control panel and viewfinder show the number of shots that can be recorded? If it shows, that's it, it's done.

I don't know exactly what to expect; but, I would expect something that indicates something is happening or some indication that something did happen. What I get is nothing, absolutely nothing with no delay, no pause, no blink, no flicker, nothing at all. It just instantly goes from "For" back to the control screen so quickly it is as though pressing Mode and Trash again is canceling the format.

Is that all that is supposed to happen -- no indicator of any kind at all?

The red read/write light is illuminated during formatting. If there are no images on the card, formatting takes less than a second

There is no "less than a second". The screen change is instant. But I have solved the problem by using the menu option where I can see the "less than a second" take place. Comparing the two methods, I don't think the Mode+Trash option is doing anything at all.

and if you are not watching for it you can miss seeing the light illuminate.

To slow things down, take a burst of images and then reformat the card. This should slow the reformat down enough for you to see the light. You can prove that the reformat is successful as the images should be deleted.

 

[j_photo]

There is no "less than a second". The screen change is instant. But I have solved the problem by using the menu option where I can see the "less than a second" take place. Comparing the two methods, I don't think the Mode+Trash option is doing anything at all.

It definitely works. You aren't doing it correctly. Note that for the second card slot, you need to turn the back control wheel to switch the formatting from the primary to secondary slots.

Until you figure things out, format with ONLY ONE CARD IN THE CAMERA AT A TIME. It's easy to format just one card and not the other without realizing.

The easy way to tell if formatting is working is take a picture. Preview the picture. Format the card. Try and preview the picture again. If t he card formats, there won't be any pictures to preview.

 

[BobWorrell]

I use the menu option to format the cards, follow the on screen instructions, select the card, most important to press the OK button and an on screen message will say format complete.

That worked. Thanks.

If that worked and the two button doesn't you need to reset your camera.

Bob W.

 

[snellius]

Is the lens properly connected to the camera?

Is there an not original body cap on the camera?

Is the lens release button recently repaired?

 

[Alex Ethridge]

There is no "less than a second". The screen change is instant. But I have solved the problem by using the menu option where I can see the "less than a second" take place. Comparing the two methods, I don't think the Mode+Trash option is doing anything at all.

It definitely works. You aren't doing it correctly. Note that for the second card slot, you need to turn the back control wheel to switch the formatting from the primary to secondary slots.

Until you figure things out, format with ONLY ONE CARD IN THE CAMERA AT A TIME. It's easy to format just one card and not the other without realizing.

The easy way to tell if formatting is working is take a picture. Preview the picture. Format the card. Try and preview the picture again. If t he card formats, there won't be any pictures to preview.

Tried it with one card each and then with both, no change.

 

[Alex Ethridge]

Is the lens properly connected to the camera?

No lens on the camera when I tried it.

Is there an not original body cap on the camera?

Original cap.

Is the lens release button recently repaired?

Unknown, got it used.

 

[Alex Ethridge]

There is no "less than a second". The screen change is instant. But I have solved the problem by using the menu option where I can see the "less than a second" take place. Comparing the two methods, I don't think the Mode+Trash option is doing anything at all.

It definitely works. You aren't doing it correctly.

Impossible.

Note that for the second card slot, you need to turn the back control wheel to switch the formatting from the primary to secondary slots.

Using only one card at a time of each.

Until you figure things out, format with ONLY ONE CARD IN THE CAMERA AT A TIME. It's easy to format just one card and not the other without realizing.

The easy way to tell if formatting is working is take a picture. Preview the picture. Format the card. Try and preview the picture again. If t he card formats, there won't be any pictures to preview.

There is a difference between deleting pictures and formatting. Seeing that the pictures are deleted is not a guarantee that the card was formatted.

 

[snellius]

You can try this. Press the lens release button (without lens on the camera) and let it shoot back of your finger. Repeat several times and then try again or the Format function works.

 

[BobWorrell]

There is no "less than a second". The screen change is instant. But I have solved the problem by using the menu option where I can see the "less than a second" take place. Comparing the two methods, I don't think the Mode+Trash option is doing anything at all.

It definitely works. You aren't doing it correctly.

Impossible.

Note that for the second card slot, you need to turn the back control wheel to switch the formatting from the primary to secondary slots.

Using only one card at a time of each.

Until you figure things out, format with ONLY ONE CARD IN THE CAMERA AT A TIME. It's easy to format just one card and not the other without realizing.

The easy way to tell if formatting is working is take a picture. Preview the picture. Format the card. Try and preview the picture again. If t he card formats, there won't be any pictures to preview.

There is a difference between deleting pictures and formatting. Seeing that the pictures are deleted is not a guarantee that the card was formatted.

Lets try this one more time.

if you take a photo does it go away when you press Trash and Mode at the same time?