Guest d6d8 Posted June 13, 2004 Report Posted June 13, 2004 It seems to me that the answer lies the the 'cluster size' when you format your memory card. Using a card reader, I formatted my SD card to FAT format using 16K as the cluster size. At the command prompt, type "format X: /fs:fat /a:16k" ;where X: is the drive letter of your memcard. I've tried 32K as the cluster size and it worked too. However, values below 16K would cause the bug to come up again. Type "help format" at command prompt for more options. Apparently, every card has a preferred format. This probably explain why my card worked like a charm when I first bought it new initially but keep 'disappearing' after a casual format in Windows. Hope this info would help others who has suffered like me. Cheers.
Guest Vector Posted June 13, 2004 Report Posted June 13, 2004 I used a program called flash format on my pocket pc, and it has the recommended cluster size for your card, it told me to format to FAT cluster size 4k, and since then my card hasn't gone to sleep, or the phone hasn't forgotten about it at all :D
Guest d6d8 Posted June 13, 2004 Report Posted June 13, 2004 Looks like flash format is able to recommend the best settings for your card. However, I do not own a PPC, just a good-old DOS format. 8)
Guest awarner [MVP] Posted June 13, 2004 Report Posted June 13, 2004 Interesting find :D interesting to see if this works for everyone.
Guest NikLP Posted June 14, 2004 Report Posted June 14, 2004 I don't know of any way to format the card using the phone itself (E200) other than using Binarys Task Manager - anyone have any details or ideas, or is there a way to do it using something in Power Toys or whatever? I don't have a card reader so I'm a bit stuck here and the SD now-you-see-me-now-you-don't thing is killing me (almost as much as the footy)
Guest awarner [MVP] Posted June 14, 2004 Report Posted June 14, 2004 apart from Task Manager it's best to get a card reader anyway for when you want to move large files. The readers can be picked up for around £6 so they will not break the bank :D
Guest NikLP Posted June 15, 2004 Report Posted June 15, 2004 I take it then that we can (sadly) discard Paul[MVP]s information that formatting with Task Manager will overcome the problem? It certainly didn't work for me. Are we certain that different cluster sizes will give difference results with different cards or is it likely that there is a common cluster size which will work fine with all cards?
Guest d6d8 Posted June 15, 2004 Report Posted June 15, 2004 I've tried SP Task Manager and it certainly did not accomplish the job for me. What it does is that it formats your memory card to FAT32 format with 512 bytes as the cluster size. Probably Paul's SD card optimum format settings was just that and it coincidently worked for him? It has also work for others too. What I can conclude from my own experiments and reports from others is that different cards have different preferences. Maybe it is beneficial for the community that we compile a list of SD card and their recommended format settings? In this way, we can find out whether the problem truely lies the cluster size when formatting. Take note that the larger the value of the cluster size, the better the performance; smaller the cluster size on the other hand would give you better file management ( = more free space). I am using Lexar's SD card 256MB. Recommended format settings: FAT. 16K or 32K cluster size.
Guest awarner [MVP] Posted June 15, 2004 Report Posted June 15, 2004 Good idea if we can get a few going here I will create a sticky post for the list :D
Guest NikLP Posted June 17, 2004 Report Posted June 17, 2004 Politely requesting settings for a Verbatim 128 if anyone has them? TIA
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now