SD memory cards for cameras. Formatting.

[Conan the Librarian]

I just trawled this off the Dell Axim users group (I am awating delivery of one) and found this. Might be of particular interest to Cornish Jack.


"Note about defragmenting: Defragmentation refers to the process of reorganizing data on a hard drive in order to maximize speed and performance of the system. It is not possible to defragment your Axim’s main memory but a few commercial programs such as Flash Format, StorageTools for Pocket PC and Pocket Mechanic will allow you to defragment, scan and reformat your storage cards. You can also reformat your cards through your desktop PC using a card reader. It should be noted, however, that storage cards (not including microdrives) work differently from hard drives and do not benefit either in speed nor performance from defragmentation. If you are having trouble with flash memory, try reformatting the card. If that doesn't work, it could be the memory card itself that is the problem. Many Axim users have found Sandisk brand Secure Digital cards to be problematic, and have experienced serious card failure that could not be resolved without losing data.

I also seem to remember an issue with SanDisk CF cards a few months back on a camera forum. Don't use them myself so have no views. For camera use, I would still NEVER format through other than the camera though.

Conan