SDHC Formatting Problems

[ms51ves3]

I have an 8gb Micro SDHC card. The problem I have is I can not format it to anything other than 3gb.

It was originally 3.6gb, I hoped when my camera came it would be as simple as popping the card in and formatting it, I was wrong. It lost .6gb when I formatted it in some software and now I can't even get that .6gb back when formatting it though Windows Explorer. It's really beginning to annoy me.

Any suggestions of what to do?

[Phil.]

What file system are you formatting it with?

[ms51ves3]

[Pedd]

yup he means fat32 / ntfs etc etc
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[Pernig]

Have you put partitions on the card before? Or possibly someone who has used it before you? If so, a possibility is that there are partitions on the card which Windows cannot recognise.

I have been having a problem with a microSDHC card myself as it happens. I found in Windows, this tool allows you to format to an NTFS format, which was what I was after. Also it seems to categorise by physical device rather than logical partition so this might get your missing space back. (Bear in mind that your camera will probably not be able to read the card with NTFS.)

Also another thing that crossed my mind; is your card reader/camera you are using capable of reading SDHC cards? If not, it could explain why you have space missing, although I would expect it not to read the card at all if this were the case. Just hazarding a guess there, though it may be worth popping the card in a different reader to check.
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[ms51ves3]

The camera is a copy of an MD80. On the advert it says it takes up to an 8gb Micro SD card and they only come in HC.

I've already looked into using that HP tool, but when the card was in it was going to format it at 2.6gb in both FAT32 and NTFS, and I'm not losing any more space as I can never seem to get it back once I've formatted the card to a smaller size.

I just think it's really weird, as it had 3.6gb and could format it to 3.6gb in Windows explorer, but then after I formatted it to 3gb in a Panasonic formatter, Windows explorer would then only let me format the card to 3gb.

I've not put any partitions on the card. I wouldn't even know how to. The card was brand new off eBay. Recommended by N30 in the MD80 thread on General Bike Chat.

Here's a picture of the formatters:

https://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a376/ms51ves3/Format.png

I can change the middle one to NTFS but that's it. Nothing else changes. Changing the options on the Panasonic formatter does nothing.

[Pernig]

The only thing I can think of is to try banging this onto a CD, booting it and taking a look. Or if you don't fancy that, I always used to use Partition Magic which is a good tool for partitioning on XP. Vista has decent tools built in.

If it's not a screwed up partition table, the only other thing I can think of is that someone has sold you a dodgy card. If you can't get it working, I would send it back.
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[Phil.]

Very strange it not showing the full amount in NTFS.

I doubt this will give you any more information about the card than you already know but, worth a shot:

Go to control panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disc Management

Sounds as though there may be something up with the card though. There's no felt tip making up that 8 that really should be a 3 is there?

[ms51ves3]

I just did a full format using the Panasonic formatter, and it was showing 5.7 million something (I assumed it was kilobytes) so I let it carry on, when it was finished it said it had formatted the card to 2.49gb

I got it back to 3gb by then formatting it again in Windows Explorer, but now, in every single formatter it comes up with 2.5gb and that's the only format option I have.

[teampots]

Always possible its a dodgy card, has it ever formatted to 8GB ?
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[ms51ves3]

[Kickstart]

Hi

Some of the cheap knock off cards are smallr cards but fudged to report a higher capacity. Is the card one from a known make and have you checked it is a genuine one?

All the best

Keith
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[ms51ves3]

[tsmith]

i bought a 16gb stick off ebay and it was a fake. managed to get it working perfectly at 4gb after doing a low level format using the usb controller software.

if you want to get the max capacity out of the stick, you will need to format it back to its correct size. You will need to find out the controller chip and memory chip specs first.

full instructions are available here
https://fixfakeflash.wordpress.com/

[ms51ves3]

Looks complicated Tom. My dad is going to try and format it at work on some better computer (I'm not convinced it will work). If it doesn't work I'll be sending it back.

[Phoenix]

There's no point continuing to try different methods of formatting it, the card is a fake, they're everywhere.

Run a program called Flash Memory Toolkit, it has a scan function and you will find it will scan fine upto about 2.5 or 3gb and then it will just start hitting errors which is because there is no more space on the card but the card has been hacked to indicate there is.

There is a problem even when buying from a seller who sells genuine stuff. I bought 2 new 8gb MicroSD cards off the same seller in the same auction, he had massive good feedback and no negatives about fake cards. I got them and was using them in a dual pro-duo adaptor (uses 2x microsd's inside a produo housing to give me a 16gb pro duo).
All was fine until I hit 12gb and everything after would corrupt. I got these cards months ago but only actually tested both recently due to this problem, one is genuine 8gb and one is fake at only 4gb, both cards from the same seller, good stock is being mixed with bad either intentionally or unintentionally.

[ms51ves3]

I tried that program Phoenix and it only scanned up to 2.5gb. It didn't show any errors.

I'll contact the seller and send it back