Sd Card Hard Format Software
Brittany Bhadd
I try to make sd card with raspbian software, but on my windows PC from work i don't have enough permissions to do it. Unfortunately it formatted into multiple partitions. Now i can see only one in Mac Disk Utility with 300 MB (sd card have 64GB). Somebody has idea how to fix it back to get full space?
* As Ralph Bolton points out in the comments, this doesn't make the data completely unrecoverable; data recovery tools can easily get the erased data back. I just wanted to put a warning at the start that formatting effectively deletes everything, so before formatting, at least make sure you have a backup of any data that you still want. If you don't want the data to be recoverable, then you should set the [Security Options...] slider to something other than "Fastest".
Sometimes window partitions on drives can be tricky and difficult for a Mac to erase, like the windows protected boot partition. Same goes for linux. That being said, if you really want to "Clean and reset" your SD card you could zero it using the dd utility in terminal.
IMPORTANT: disk4 may not be the right disk on your system! Make sure to use the command diskutil list to get the correct identifier for your SD card or you may break your other disks doing this!
That command partitions the SD card located at "disk4" into 2 partitions, with the first being 64GB of Fat32 named "CameraData", and the second partition using up the remainder ("R") of the space and being named "UnusedExtra".
One day I decided to plug it into a cheap camera. The camera said something to the tune of "memory card error" and it reformatted my card to only have 32GB space. (lost everything immediately! I would not recommend using that camera...)
Anyways, I've taken the card out of the camera and want to put it back into my phone, but it is now formatted to have 1 32GB partition and I cannot see any other partitions using the windows 7 disk manager.
The SD Card Association actually does not recommend using just any formatting utility, including the one provided by the OS. Instead they have developed their own software called SD Formatter, which they recommend for the following reason:
The SD Formatter was created specifically for memory cards using the SD/SDHC/SDXC standards. It is strongly recommended to use the SD Formatter instead of formatting utilities provided with operating systems that format various types of storage media. Using generic formatting utilities may result in less than optimal performance for your memory cards.
The SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards have a "Protected Area" on the card for the SD standard's security function. The SD Formatter does not format the "Protected Area". Please use appropriate application software or SD-compatible device that provides SD security function to format the "Protected Area" in the memory card.
I don't know how my card got in such a rut, but putting it into the win7 / win8 computer with various combinations of MicroSD card reader, SD card reader + adaptor, or through my GoPro did not cause the card to appear at all (whereas it was a few days ago). Therefore both of the above answers were not an option (the card did not show up in windows, nor with the SD Formatter utility).
I put it back into my phone to give that another try, and it formatted straight into 59GB of space!I did actually try this a few days ago, but my phone was android version 4.0.4 back then, whereas is it 4.1.0 now, That might have something to do with it.
Sounds like the camera resized the SD card's partition. Windows has a built-in partition editor that you can use to fix this. With the card plugged into your computer, click Start, type partition, and choose "Create and Format Hard Disk Partitions." You should see a list of all the different volumes on your computer. One of them should be the 32GB SD card partition. Right click it, and choose "Extend Volume." There will be an item called "Maximum available space in MB." Type that value into "Select the amount of space in MB." Then follow the wizard to its completion.
Formatting the card removes all the files, whereas deleting files only removes the ones you can see. Directories, files in other than the current directory and any files you may have uploaded to the card remain.
Formatting in the camera does more than formatting in the computer (e.g., using a card reader). The camera adds the directory structure and ancillary files needed by the image processor. These files should be automatically added if insert a computer-formatted card - but it's better to be sure.
Not true, Bob. That's a "full format". The camera performs a "quick format" which essentially removes all files and directories from a master file/directory table on the card that the camera or computer looks at when it wants to know how much free space there is and what files exist. That's why 1) a format takes but a second for a 4GB (4000MB) card, even though the card write speed may be only 10MB/s - writing 4000MB of data would take much longer, and 2) you can use recovery utilities that ignore the file table that got formatted over and go find and recover the files themselves, which are still there if no new data has been written over them.
It is a Really Good Idea, especially on a new card. Aside from that, why not do it? On the D2X anyway, it's a 2-button combo with confirmation; I format in-camera every time I want to re-use the card and it takes about 3 seconds.
The SD card is basically a static memory chip (various capacities). Very generically speaking, the format operation takes all that raw space, and quantifies it by slicing it and dicing it into fixed-size chunks (sometimes called 'clusters' in computer terms). Along the way, an index table is created to record the id & address location of all the clusters that are now available to hold data. The camera's FORMAT operation does all this silently, in a few seconds, to prepare the raw chip for holding your picture files. The concept is very similar to formatting a 3.5" Floppy Disk (remember those??). After formatting, the camera's firmware will know *exactly* how much space is available on that chip, how all the clusters are organized, and the starting memory address for each cluster. Then it can begin the process of saving your picture files, by systematically assigning the picture file data to blocks of individual clusters, slowly filling the chip space as you take more pictures.
FORMATing also serves to wipe out ("wipe the slate clean") on a previously used chip, so that you know (for sure) that all the space on the chip is clean and clear, ready for your new pictures. You may need to know this (for sure) if you are planning a very large shooting session, and don't want to have to worry about running out of space on the chip.
FORMATing also serves to "clear" the firmware's format check "flag" (I'm using very old computer terms here!, showing my age :^) ). In other words, when you load the new card (brand new or previously used), the firmware does not know for sure that you have formatted the card. And that status of uncertainty may cause the camera firmware to issue you a FORMAT WARNING MSG on the LCD screen. Once you have done the FORMAT, and the program completes the run, then firmware has known positive confirmation that the FORMAT has been done, and it will then leave you alone. (No more annoying error msg).
In my opinion, you *should* do a routine camera FORMAT every time you load a *brand new* picture card, using the camera's own menu FORMAT function. With a brand new card, it may or may not be pre-formatted, and more importantly, the formatting that is there might not be exactly compatible with the format scheme used by your camera. When you do the camera FORMAT step yourself, your camera is initializing the memory space (another computer term), and you have complete confidence that the format tables & space allocation scheme are perfectly compatible with your camera. The chip then becomes an integral part of the picture capture system.
You should also do a camera FORMAT on a *previously used* picture card. JUST BE SURE that you have safely copied off any picture files you want to save. The FORMAT operation will completely wipe clean that memory chip, and you will lose any existing files still on the chip. But a successful completion of thr FORMAT operation (w/o any errors or warnings) will assure you that the pre-used chip is still functioning correctly and is ready for files.
If you decide to FORMAT the picture card over on the Computer end, that is, when the card is inserted into a Card Reader, using the Computer's format functions, you MIGHT run into problems when you put it back into the camera. The camera's firmware routines might not like the format scheme used by your computer, and you might see a nasty error msg when the camera tries to access the picture card. However, you should still be able to clear that condition by re-formatting the picture card using the camera's FORMAT function.
In my first computer job, whenever we FORMATed and INITIALIZED the new hard drive volume, we would actually do the FORMAT step (3) times in a row. If we got a good clean FORMAT pass 3 times in a row, w/o any errors, then we had a high degree of confidence that every cluster or "block" (another computer term!) on that drive was good to go. Then we proceded with confidence.
That might not be a bad idea for these new camera picture cards!! :^) Do the camera FORMAT 3 times in a row, and if you dont get any errors, you can procede with picture-taking confidence, knowing the chip is ready.
The inverse was also true in our shop. If we were trying to prep a new drive, and it FAILED to do the FORMAT 3 times in a row, (usually at the same block or cluster), then we had confidence that the drive was BAD and needed to be replaced. So, perhaps the same fuzzy logic could be adapted with your picture cards. If you know you are using the correct type card for your camera, but it fails the camera's FORMAT step 3 times sequentially, then you know you have a bad picture card, and its time to try a new or different one.
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