Formatting CF Type I Card in Reader

AlexV124269 · Nov 25, 2002

Hi,

I have purchased my first DC: Canon S230. It's been on backorder, and is comiing hopefully this Wednesday. Meanwhile, I have also bought an extra CF card -- 128 MB SimpleTech, and a Firewire CF card reader by Lexar.

So my question is if I format the card in the reader will it be readable in the camera, or I must format the card in the camera? In general, how are the cameras treating the content on the card that was not put there by them?

Thanks,

-- Alex.

Ferenc MOGOR · Nov 25, 2002

Hi AlexV,

Please don't format the CF card in the card reader, coz I did it and regretted it very much. From that time my Minolta DiMAGE5 didn't recognize the CF card!

Not being a computer expert, I don't really know what happened inside, but I think there is something called FAT 16, used by CF cards and FAT 32, used by PCs!? (I have WinME)

Needed to take the CF card to a fiend who is using Win98 and pc to camera formatting recovered the card. sigh

So, I promised myself to use the card reader as its name says: to read the CF card, exclusively. Meantime, format only in your camera, please!

Cheers, Ferenc

Bill42690 · Nov 25, 2002

You can format the card with your computer without problem - just be sure to select FAT16. I do it quite often. Of course, it's almost as easy to do it in the camera. However, your new cards should come to you already formatted - at least, mine have.

Ferenc MOGOR · Nov 25, 2002

Bill,

I see you are much experienced in PCs than I am.

Can you tell me how to select FAT16 on Win ME? I suppose FAT 32 is the default setting.

Thanks in advance.

Ferenc

http://www.pbase.com/mogorf

AlexV124269 · Nov 26, 2002

Bill,

thanks for the answer, you're right the card is formatted, and the filesystem there is FAT (saw in the properties). I gather FAT means FAT16 since I checked one of my other (non-removable) drives, and it says FAT32.

-- Alex.

Bill said:
You can format the card with your computer without problem - just
be sure to select FAT16. I do it quite often. Of course, it's
almost as easy to do it in the camera. However, your new cards
should come to you already formatted - at least, mine have.

AlexV124269 · Nov 26, 2002

Ferenc,

Unfortunately I'm not running WinME, I have Win2K, but for what it's worth here is what I would do on Win2K.

Right click on your drive in Windows Explorer, and select "Format..."
In format dialog box make sure that the dropdown for "File System" says "FAT", the other choices I have there are "FAT32" and "NTFS". On WinME you won't have "NTFS" available.

Hope this helps,

-- Alex.

Ferenc MOGOR said:
Bill,

I see you are much experienced in PCs than I am.

Can you tell me how to select FAT16 on Win ME? I suppose FAT 32 is
the default setting.

Thanks in advance.

Ferenc

http://www.pbase.com/mogorf

Bill42690 · Nov 26, 2002

I made the switch to WinXP from WinME a year ago, so I don't remember exactly what the options are - but I think it is pretty much as Alex described. Remember, if for some reason it does go wrong (and I can't imagine why) it's very easy to put the card into the camera and format it there.

AlexV said:
Unfortunately I'm not running WinME, I have Win2K, but for what
it's worth here is what I would do on Win2K.

Right click on your drive in Windows Explorer, and select

"Format..."

In format dialog box make sure that the dropdown for "File

System" says "FAT", the other choices I have there are "FAT32" and
"NTFS". On WinME you won't have "NTFS" available.

Hope this helps,

-- Alex.

Ferenc MOGOR said:

Bill,

I see you are much experienced in PCs than I am.

Can you tell me how to select FAT16 on Win ME? I suppose FAT 32 is
the default setting.

Thanks in advance.

Ferenc

http://www.pbase.com/mogorf

Click to expand...

GaryM · Nov 26, 2002

Alex: This topic was "beat to death" in the Nikon forum...the reason
for formatting on the PC there was to increase the block size or
"allocation unit" for better write performance. My Nikon CoolPix 5700
formats the card using 8K blocks, whereas if I format on the PC using
say 32K or 64K blocks, I get slightly better write performance. To change
block size/allocation Unit size:

format d: FS:FAT A:32K

from the command prompt, where d: is the drive letter of your card.
in this case, 32K blocks are created. With some cameras, you need to
recreate any file structure place on the card by an in-camera format.
Mine does this automatically when I first write to it.
Good Luck
GaryM
=====================================

AlexV said:
thanks for the answer, you're right the card is formatted, and the
filesystem there is FAT (saw in the properties). I gather FAT means
FAT16 since I checked one of my other (non-removable) drives, and
it says FAT32.

-- Alex.

Bill said:

You can format the card with your computer without problem - just
be sure to select FAT16. I do it quite often. Of course, it's
almost as easy to do it in the camera. However, your new cards
should come to you already formatted - at least, mine have.

Click to expand...

Moss Josephs · Nov 27, 2002

GaryM said:
format d: FS:FAT A:32K

from the command prompt, where d: is the drive letter of your card.
in this case, 32K blocks are created. With some cameras, you need to
recreate any file structure place on the card by an in-camera format.
Mine does this automatically when I first write to it.
Good Luck
GaryM
=====================================

AlexV said:

thanks for the answer, you're right the card is formatted, and the
filesystem there is FAT (saw in the properties). I gather FAT means
FAT16 since I checked one of my other (non-removable) drives, and
it says FAT32.

-- Alex.

Bill said:

You can format the card with your computer without problem - just
be sure to select FAT16. I do it quite often. Of course, it's
almost as easy to do it in the camera. However, your new cards
should come to you already formatted - at least, mine have.

When you format a CF card in ME, as the card is FAT (or FAT16), ME will format in FAT again. Digital cameras only "understand" FAT16 so a FAT32 formatted card (64MB up in XP is FAT32) cannot be used by the camera. As said above you can reformat in FAT. By the way, you can reformat in a card reader as many times as you wish, will not hurt the card. After downloading images to PC, don't just delete the images off the card, REFORMAT it to be sure. Most card "crashes" are from battery failure during image writing and not formatting correctly.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

fanandie · Nov 27, 2002

Hi

does anybody can kind enough tell me how to maximize the size of the CF cards since I did oftenly format it within camera, now I find the size of the card reduce by 5% like 128mb - read as 122mb in Windows. Or it is only the caluculation of windows different from the specification of card manufacturer?
thanks

AlexV124269 · Nov 27, 2002

fanandie,

it's the difference of how MB are computed. In computer terms:

1 KB = 1,024 B
1 MB = 1,024 B x 1,024 B = 1,048,576 B

What storage manufacturers consider 1 MB to be is:

1 MB = 1,000 B x 1,000 B = 1,000,000 B

Therefore, your 128 MB CF card physically has 128,000,000 B. So now when Windows is assessing the size of your disk/CF card, it does this:

128,000,000 B / 1,048,576 B = 122.

So it reports about 122 MB, which it should if it's a freshly formatted card.

It's just another marketing plot

-- Alex.

fanandie said:
Hi
does anybody can kind enough tell me how to maximize the size of
the CF cards since I did oftenly format it within camera, now I
find the size of the card reduce by 5% like 128mb - read as 122mb
in Windows. Or it is only the caluculation of windows different
from the specification of card manufacturer?
thanks

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