Formatting SD cards

[Matthew Currie]

I recently came across the web site of the SD Card Association, and it includes a formatting program.  I had a nice 32 gigabyte Sandisk Extreme that packed up completely a couple of years ago,  refusing even to be reformatted by camera or computer, but when I ran this program it came back to life.  Supposedly it might also speed up older cards that have bogged down after many uses.  Might be worth a try if you have a card or cards that no longer work well.

I've been putting the rejuvenated card through its paces for a couple of days, and so far so good.

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

[David H. Hartman]

I read about this SD Association utility a few years back. I format my SD cards with this utility and then format them again in my cameras. The SD utility has various features and formats to SD Association standards. I believe the camera only erases the file list and adds a few items the camera wants to see. I only use the SD utility ocationally or if I think the card has been corrupted. 

Maybe another way of saying this is the SD utility does a "real format" while the camera does a "quick format." I use the SD Association utility in preference to Windows' and MAC's built-in utilities.

Dave

[MFloyd]

I only use the format feature provided by the camera body. I don't really see the advantage of proceeding differently; this gives you also a chance to recover images from an erroneously formatted memory card.

[Matthew Currie]

I have generally only used the camera's format feature as well, but the SD utility seems able to get a little deeper into a card that has gone wrong.  I wouldn't bother if the card is not causing problems, but it seems like a good resource to have around.  Of course with cards so relatively cheap these days, I don't think I'd put important images on any card that caused problems, but so far this one seems useable.

[MFloyd]

Matthew, sorry, I completely overlooked the point that the card was already in trouble 😏