low level formatting a CF card

[daveyburt]

Hi All,

I have a PNY CF card that occasionally produces an unreadable image. It started doing this after some use. Sure the card may be garbage but, I'd like to try a low level format of the card to see if that helps.

I need a 'wipe disk' type of thing that will write 0's to the CF storage, hopefully eliminating data held that may be corrupting the occasional file.

Anyone?

Thanks!
-Dave

[daveyburt]

answering my own thread...

I deleted all images from my card and had a look at it with a program called Active Undelete (used for recovering deleted files).....of course, it found some files.

I then performed a 'full format' of the card on my PC.

had another look at it with Active Undelete and it was empty.

I'll format in the camera now and hope for the best.

Googling this topic led to everyone saying that there is no utility to do this for CF.

So, I figured I'd share my 'recipe' to maybe help someone else...if in fact it did work.

PS: Active Undelete is a pretty rockin app.

[RvA944]

Thanks for posting Dave. I just hope I never have to use this on my Sandisks

[Eero Makela]

Here is an added point which I learned from another photographer. Do not delete pictures in camera as this can cause errors when new pictures are stored on it.

SO NEVER DELETE IN CAMERA

Only delete the images after full download on to computer and verify that all copied ok and you have made backup copies (I download after each photo shoot and burn to DVD and also backup to external Hard drives)

[gumper]

I found a couple of links from Digital Pro Talk that go along with what Eero said. I stopped using the Trash Can button on the camera.

13 tips on using memory cards. 13 Tips for Using and Caring for Memory Cards

An interview with Scott Tallyn-Data Recovery Guru. Download the mp3 file to listen to the podcast with David Ziser. It's an hour long audio interview though but has some interesting advise about data recovery. DigitalProTalk's Podcast