Formatting SD card

[Ken G.]

I have a 2gb SD card which I put into a digital camera. I didn't realize the
camera would only reference a 1gb card and it has reformatted it to 1gb. Now
I can't get windows (XP SP3) to format it back to 2gb. Is there way to get my
extra gig back?

 

[Uwe Sieber]

I have a 2gb SD card which I put into a digital camera. I didn't realize the
camera would only reference a 1gb card and it has reformatted it to 1gb. Now
I can't get windows (XP SP3) to format it back to 2gb. Is there way to get my
extra gig back?

Probably the cam has written a partition table with a 1 GB
partition. XP is not able to delete partitions on 'removable'
drives.

http://www.uwe-sieber.de/files/diskerase.zip

With this tool you can erase the whole disk. You can
cancel the operation after a second, the partition
table is already erased then.

Reinstert the card and format it. It should now
have 2 GB. But XP formats it without a partition
table, as 'superfloppy'. Digicams do not like this,
so, if you want to use the card in a cam, format
it in this camara.


Uwe

 

[Anteaus]

I have met this problem of Windows not being able to format USB-connected
media correctly once the bootsector has been corrupted by another device. One
solution is to boot into realmode DOS with the card connected, and format it
there. To do this you need a DOS CD (or floppy) of course, and a computer
with a BIOS that supports USB drives natively.

 

[Anteaus]

Thinking about this a bit more, it may not be corrupted, it may simply be
that the partition is undersize.

Run compmgmt.msc and take a look in the Disk Management section. If the
partition only half-fills the space, you need to remove the partition and
create a new one. This is a separate issue from formatting. You will then
need to format your new partition, in which case use FAT32 for best
compatibility with cameras, etc.

Obviously, make absolutely sure you get the right disk!

 

[Ken G.]

Thanks. Its showing 2 partitions of 973mb with the second one shown as
"unallocated" The option to remove the partition is greyed out. Where to from
here?

 

[Ken G.]

Thanks Uwe. I now have my 2gb card back. It didn't kill the partition after a
few seconds so I let it erase the whole card then re-formatted it.

 

[Paul]

It probably needs to be formatted.

Control panel / admin tools / computer management / disk management.
Highlight it / right mouse / format