Compact flash working on PC but not on Camera

Hello everyone,

This is a problem that I originally posted on: uk.comp.homebuilt on
21/10/05, with the same subject. Unfortunately, no one has been able to
resolve the problem, despite their best efforts.

I'm hoping someone here can shed some light or offer some guidance.

Jenoptik Digital Camera JD3300Z3 3.3MegaPix, 3x Optical Zoon
Kingston 512Mb Compact Flash Card

The camera still works perfectly with the 32Mb Compact Flash it came with.
The 512Mb Compact Flash works in so far as it can be accessed and written
using Windows / Linux through a USB card reader.

Basically, despite working perfectly previously, the camera no longer
recognises the 512Mb card and refuses to start up with it inserted,
eliminating the possibility of formatting using the camera, as this can only
be done using the menus. No start up, no menus. The camera just locks up
after switch on. Only way to power down is to remove the batteries.

The problem occurred after formatting the card in Windows XP. It simply no
longer functions in the camera.

In an effort to resolve this, I have tried the following without success:

Using Windows Me, formatting with FAT filing system.
Using Windows Me, formatting with FAT filing system, and adding the folders
usually present on the card.
Using Windows XP, formatting with FAT filing system.
Using Windows XP, formatting with FAT filing system, and adding the folders
usually present on the card.
Using Windows XP, formatting with FAT32 filing system.
Using Windows XP, formatting with FAT32 filing system, and adding the
folders usually present on the card.

Using Linux, erasing the card from root shell using: dd if=/dev/zero
of=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=1048576
(sdb is the compact flash card) and attempting to format in the camera.
Camera would not start up, so unable to access formatting option in the
menu!

I'd appreciate any constructive help anyone can offer on this matter. Thanks
in advance.

On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 10:01:00 +0100, Need a little help please wrote:

The problem occurred after formatting the card in Windows XP. It
simply no longer functions in the camera.

In an effort to resolve this, I have tried the following without success:

Using Windows Me, formatting with FAT filing system.
Using Windows Me, formatting with FAT filing system, and adding the
folders usually present on the card.
Using Windows XP, formatting with FAT filing system.
. . .

As a guess, all of those FAT formats the you performed using the
computer were FAT32, and the Jenoptik camera only recognizes FAT16.
You should be able to reformat the card with a FAT16 file system,
and if that works, it's best from that point on to never use
anything other than a camera to format the cards it uses.

"ASAAR" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 10:01:00 +0100, Need a little help please wrote:

The problem occurred after formatting the card in Windows XP. It
simply no longer functions in the camera.

In an effort to resolve this, I have tried the following without success:

Using Windows Me, formatting with FAT filing system.
Using Windows Me, formatting with FAT filing system, and adding the
folders usually present on the card.
Using Windows XP, formatting with FAT filing system.
. . .

As a guess, all of those FAT formats the you performed using the
computer were FAT32, and the Jenoptik camera only recognizes FAT16.
You should be able to reformat the card with a FAT16 file system,
and if that works, it's best from that point on to never use
anything other than a camera to format the cards it uses.

Hi ASAAR, thanks for the reply.

Windows XP gives the option of FAT & FAT32 to format. I tried both.
How do you format with FAT16?

Need a little help please wrote:
Hello everyone,

This is a problem that I originally posted on: uk.comp.homebuilt on
21/10/05, with the same subject. Unfortunately, no one has been able
to resolve the problem, despite their best efforts.

I'm hoping someone here can shed some light or offer some guidance.

Jenoptik Digital Camera JD3300Z3 3.3MegaPix, 3x Optical Zoon
Kingston 512Mb Compact Flash Card

The camera still works perfectly with the 32Mb Compact Flash it came
with. The 512Mb Compact Flash works in so far as it can be accessed
and written using Windows / Linux through a USB card reader.

Basically, despite working perfectly previously, the camera no longer
recognises the 512Mb card and refuses to start up with it inserted,
eliminating the possibility of formatting using the camera, as this
can only be done using the menus. No start up, no menus. The camera
just locks up after switch on. Only way to power down is to remove
the batteries.
The problem occurred after formatting the card in Windows XP. It
simply no longer functions in the camera.

In an effort to resolve this, I have tried the following without
success:
Using Windows Me, formatting with FAT filing system.
Using Windows Me, formatting with FAT filing system, and adding the
folders usually present on the card.
Using Windows XP, formatting with FAT filing system.
Using Windows XP, formatting with FAT filing system, and adding the
folders usually present on the card.
Using Windows XP, formatting with FAT32 filing system.
Using Windows XP, formatting with FAT32 filing system, and adding the
folders usually present on the card.

Using Linux, erasing the card from root shell using: dd if=/dev/zero
of=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=1048576
(sdb is the compact flash card) and attempting to format in the
camera. Camera would not start up, so unable to access formatting
option in the menu!

I'd appreciate any constructive help anyone can offer on this matter.
Thanks in advance.

As suggested, use the camera to format the card not the computer. That
will usually take car of any problems. Sorry to hear it gave you problems
formatting in the camera. Is this just one card? It may be defective. You
also may want to check the camera manual to determine if it requires some
sort of special format. I would guess the camera came with software, does
that software offer a format option? Have you tried another card reader?
Maybe a friends card reader?

--
Joseph Meehan

Dia duit

On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 11:24:08 +0100, Need a little help please wrote:

Windows XP gives the option of FAT & FAT32 to format. I tried both.
How do you format with FAT16?

FAT should be FAT16. If that was unsuccessful I don't know what
else would work, but you could see if you're running into a limit to
the size of the disk volume that your camera recognizes. See if the
camera's manual mentions the largest card size it recognizes, as
that may be a guide. It may also have a phone number or email
address to use for product support.

You could try using less than the card's maximum amount of space
by formatting a 100MB disk volume. If that works you could either
try again by formatting a 200MB volume or quit while you're ahead
and try to have the camera reformat the card. If even that doesn't
work, I'd then try to locate a disk utility program that removes the
card's partition table (which contains the descriptors of the
formatted volumes) and see if the camera then is able to recognize
the card. My guess is that if the problem is not size related, when
you initially used XP to format the card, it redefined the format to
a type not recognized by the camera. There are primary partitions
that contain a single formatted disk volume and extended partitions
that can contain many logical disk volumes. If you can temporarily
get the use of another brand of camera that also uses CF cards (from
a friend or a camera dealer) you could try using that to reformat
the card. As a last resort, there are disk utilities that are used
to clone disk drives. The only problem is that if you use it to
produce a cloned copy of your 32MB CF card onto the 512MB card and
it allows the camera to recognize the card, you may be stuck with a
512MB card that even after being reformatted by the camera, is
limited to 32MB. Then you might go one step further and use a disk
utility to expand the size of the disk volume. "Partition Magic" is
one of several commercial disk utilities. But using it is best done
by someone that has some experience doing that sort of thing.

"Joseph Meehan" wrote in message
.. .
Need a little help please wrote:
Hello everyone, Snip original post

As suggested, use the camera to format the card not the computer. That
will usually take car of any problems. Sorry to hear it gave you problems
formatting in the camera. Is this just one card? It may be defective.
You also may want to check the camera manual to determine if it requires
some sort of special format. I would guess the camera came with software,
does that software offer a format option? Have you tried another card
reader? Maybe a friends card reader?

--
Joseph Meehan

Dia duit

Thank you Joseph for the reply,

I would love to use the camera to format the card, but as I stated
originally I cannot do this:

"despite working perfectly previously, the camera no longer
recognises the 512Mb card and refuses to start up with it inserted,
eliminating the possibility of formatting using the camera, as this
can only be done using the menus. No start up, no menus. The camera
just locks up after switch on. Only way to power down is to remove
the batteries"

The manual reveals no information on special formatting.
The software supplied offers no facility to format the card, only retrieve
images.

Whilst the card may well be faulty, but it is difficult to understand why it
works perfectly when connected to the PC via a USB card reader, which also
works perfectly.

The camera may be faulty, but again its difficult to understand why it works
perfectly with the original 32Mb card.

The problem is making the camera and card work together happily again.

[]
Windows XP gives the option of FAT & FAT32 to format. I tried both.
How do you format with FAT16?


Type format /? for all the options.

C:\ FORMAT volume /FS:FAT

where volume is the drive letter of your card. It would be N: on my
system.

What happens if you run a CHKDSK on the card after formatting? What are
the results?

David

I had 2 1GB microdrives fail the same way. Nikon basically said the
tolerances on the camera were tighter than the PC CF reader. Multiple
formats likely won't help. I was able to go to the Hitachi site and
find that I was still in warranty. You should check Kingston to see if
you can track it there. My opinion is that if you can't replace it
under warranty then it is toast. I went through similar exercises with
formatting as well. Didn't help

"Need a little help please" wrote in message
...
Hello everyone,

The problem occurred after formatting the card in Windows XP. It simply no
longer functions in the camera.

This is where you went wrong. Do all formatting in the camera.
Jim