hawkyey1 wrote:Hi prinothcat
No I have never done a base level format. Don't have a card slot on my PC and only transfer photos from camera to PC via USB cable. I'll go buy a CF card slot (which I have wanted to do for a while any way), but for this base level formatting - do I need any particular software?
Cheers
Have you formatted the card in your camera or do you "Erase" the photos after downloading? If you don't format them with your camera I strongly suggest you do. It's much easier to erase all the photos that way and gets rid of folders that the camera makes to store files in. A Nikon can only store 999 files in a folder, so when it reaches that point it starts a new folder. And erasing the photos doesn't clear the number for the folder, so it keeps adding up.
Also, over time sectors of a cards directory system can become corrupted, formatting the card clears that all out.
I wouldn't recommend formatting a card on the computer. In theory it should be fine, but I've heard several people who created problems for themselves doing that. SO just format in camera and you should be fine. If you format the card and it still won't hold as many as it used to I'd suggest you have a card with some damaged memory sectors on it. When the card is formatted it marks those sections as bad and won't allow write to that area, so it reports less capacity.