_Always_ format CF cards in-camera

Rune Moberg · May 27, 2003

...atleast as far as the D60 is concerned.

I recently damaged one of my Microdrives (did someone just say "welcome to the club"?

) and lost part of an image (not an important one -- phew).

Windows marked a cluster as bad, but after formatting in the camera, I got this:

1 075 347 456 bytes total disk space.
65 536 bytes in 2 folders.
1 075 281 920 bytes available on disk.

I then formatted the card from Windows, and now it says:

1 075 347 456 bytes total disk space.
32 768 bytes in bad sectors.
1 075 314 688 bytes available on disk.

As I've long suspected, the in-camera formatting merely deletes the allocation table, recreates the root directory and creates the DCIM folder. No verification of the disk surface is performed, be it on known bad sectors or assumed good ones.

Needless to say I won't be taking important pictures with this Microdrive, but even so I'm not going to avoid marking the bad cluster as bad, seeing as that is a sure way to loose a picture.

(WinXP and Mac users need to make sure to use the FAT16 file system when formatting. This is the default in Win2k and what the D60 expects)

--
Rune, http://runesbike.com/

Rune Moberg · May 27, 2003

Hehe, I managed to get it wrong in the subject. "Always format the CF card off-camera" is what I meant to say. Time for bed.

--
Rune, http://runesbike.com/

Ira Blumberg · May 27, 2003

Rune Moberg said:
Hehe, I managed to get it wrong in the subject. "Always format the
CF card off-camera" is what I meant to say. Time for bed.

--
Rune, http://runesbike.com/

veliphotos · May 27, 2003

How do you know that the damage is due to the formating!? maybe it's a deffective microdrive. Ormore likely you could have damaged it somehow....I read that the microdrives are much more vulnearable than the cf cards, because they have more moving parts. It should be protected against any concusion! Well, just a thought.

Rune Moberg · May 27, 2003

Veliphotos said:
How do you know that the damage is due to the formating!? maybe

I sincerely doubt the formatting is to blame. If you look away from my misleading subject (sorry!), you'll notice that I'm advocating formatting the card using the computer.

That way any defects will be detected.

The warning (that I intended to sound) is this: Formatting in-camera will destroy the bad sector markers. I.e. known bad sectors are assumed to be working again. Hence the camera will attempt to store stuff on a flaky part of the device. This can't be desirable.

If you on the other hand format the device on the computer, the bad sector will be marked as such and the camera should skip this sector when writing stuff to the device. This is preferable IMO... (of course, ideally no bad sectors should be present, but this isn't a perfect world)

veliphotos said:
it's a deffective microdrive. Ormore likely you could have damaged
it somehow....I read that the microdrives are much more vulnearable

As for what or who damaged my drive it's anyone's guess. I've tried treating it nicely, but it has been with me all over the world (America, Asia, Europe) so it has always been a question of 'when' not 'if'. I knew this when I bought the MD, so I'm not blaming anyone. Hopefully the price of regular CF cards have decreased since I bought my MD and hopefully CF cards live up to their promise of reliability (and I hope that includes sub-zero temperatures).

--
Rune, http://runesbike.com/

veliphotos · May 28, 2003

Well, for me I think I 've made a mistake buying two microdrives,not understanding the difference with the cf cards...

Rune Moberg · May 28, 2003

Veliphotos said:
Well, for me I think I 've made a mistake buying two
microdrives,not understanding the difference with the cf cards...

For what it's worth: I've got two microdrives too.

Except for that one picture that went awry on me two days ago, I haven't lost anything for a year now. As long as you treat it carefully (i.e. don't step on the MD, sit on it and/or drop it on the floor), you should be fine.

I suspect you'll find that many people use the MD without any issues at all. (but it's still a hard disk all the same, expect and be prepared for failure as time passes, just like the drive in your PC)

BTW: http://www.hgst.com/hdd/micro/overvw.htm contains a picture (drawing?) of the upcoming 4GB Microdrive. Hopefully they're close to a launch.

--
Rune, http://runesbike.com/

DavidP #28649 · May 28, 2003

I had three 1GB microdrives. Never had an issue with them.

When CF became almost as cheap, I sold them, and got me four 1GB CF cards.

However, CF has been known to fail, too. Once again, it's a matter of "when", not "if".

Rune Moberg said:
Veliphotos said:

Well, for me I think I 've made a mistake buying two
microdrives,not understanding the difference with the cf cards...

Click to expand...

For what it's worth: I've got two microdrives too.

Except for that one picture that went awry on me two days ago, I
haven't lost anything for a year now. As long as you treat it
carefully (i.e. don't step on the MD, sit on it and/or drop it on
the floor), you should be fine.

I suspect you'll find that many people use the MD without any
issues at all. (but it's still a hard disk all the same, expect and
be prepared for failure as time passes, just like the drive in your
PC)

BTW: http://www.hgst.com/hdd/micro/overvw.htm contains a picture
(drawing?) of the upcoming 4GB Microdrive. Hopefully they're close
to a launch.

--
The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise

veliphotos · May 28, 2003

Well,Rune, what you said is a relieve

Mike Curtis · May 28, 2003

How come camera makers advocate formatting card in camera? All the digital cameras I have used recommend formatting in camera. Just a question?

Mike

Darren Krakowski · May 28, 2003

Camera manufacturers also recommend their brand of mem cards, their brand of batteries, etc. I bought a Sony portable CD player once that said they only recommended SOny batteries (which it came with). Haven't seen a Sony battery since.

If they don't give a reason for why to do it, you might be a bit skeptical. From a support point of view, maybe they consider it easier to trouble shoot if they know how you've done something.

Mike Curtis said:
How come camera makers advocate formatting card in camera? All the
digital cameras I have used recommend formatting in camera. Just a
question?

Mike

--

Regards,
Darren

Rune Moberg · May 28, 2003

Mike Curtis said:
How come camera makers advocate formatting card in camera? All the

Spending pages on pages in the manual explaining how to properly format a card using a Windows PC, perhaps even a Mac, is more of a chore than to write two sentences on how to do it with the camera...

I don't remember seing this recommendation in the D60 manual though. (but I could be wrong -- it's been a while since I thumbed through it)

--
Rune, http://runesbike.com/

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_Always_ format CF cards in-camera

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