Re formatting CF cards?

msr

I was just talking to a fellow photographer and he was astonished that I don’t re format my CF cards at the start of each job. I had never heard of this. Does any one else do this?

DavidTO

msr wrote:

I was just talking to a fellow photographer and he was astonished that I don’t re format my CF cards at the start of each job. I had never heard of this. Does any one else do this?

Yep, I do. Every time.

Also, I took out your color formatting on your font. It's really not necessary, and it can get in the way of some views.

LuckyBob

Since it's the quickest way to empty my card in-camera, I do it all the time.

gus

I format every single time i remove photos.

pathfinder

Format the card in the camera you are going to be shooting with.

Do NOT format in your computer.

msr

pathfinder wrote:

Format the card in the camera you are going to be shooting with.

Do NOT format in your computer.

Correct.

Pupator

Interesting. But none of you have stated the purpose or the merits of why formating the card each time matters.

Anyone care to take a stab at this?

DavidTO

Pupator wrote:

Interesting. But none of you have stated the purpose or the merits of why formating the card each time matters.

Anyone care to take a stab at this?

Sure we have. It's faster. I also feel better about the integrity of the card. If it'll format I feel better about the card. Might not be a realistic expectation, but it's the voodoo that I do.

msr

I assume this will eliminate the possibility of using data recovery software if needed?

DavidTO

msr wrote:

I assume this will eliminate the possibility of using data recovery software if needed?

No. I've recovered photos I thought were long gone on a card I had formatted at least several times.

Pupator

DavidTO wrote:

Sure we have. It's faster.

I guess you're referring to what LuckyBob said. It is the fastest way to delete images off the card in camera, sure. But I just drag the pictures from my sD card to my computer's hard drive, so I don't need a fast way to empty it.

I can see what you're saying about formating just to make sure the card is working, but taking a picture and reviewing it is actually a better way to accomplish that. A format simply empties a table on the card - taking a picture actually writes to it, and viewing the picture reads from it.

I assume this will eliminate the possibility of using data recovery software if needed?

Not necessarily. It depends on what it's doing in the format. If it's only deleting the table (which is usually the case), it doesn't ruin your chances at recovery. If it actually writes blank bits to every space of the card (which would take a while and I don't think most cameras do this) then you'd be out of luck.

ziggy53

Pupator wrote:

Interesting. But none of you have stated the purpose or the merits of why formating the card each time matters.

Anyone care to take a stab at this?

It has to do with the way formatting occurs on the card. The camera formatting can be subtly different from the computer formatting, and you have to assume that the camera knows best how to format for itself.

The benefit that formatting every time provides is in simplifying the FAT (File Allocation Table), which is the index the camera uses to store each file. Basically, it's a pointer address system, and the pointers are numbers indicating the starting and ending points for each file. The FAT is extremely sensitive information, and, if disturbed or damaged, can result in file overlap or file overwrite, either of which can be devastating.

Formatting wipes all previous pointers away, and provides the simplest structure for writing new file pointers.

The biggest problem occurs when a card has been "maxed out", and all available space used, something I try to avoid. Other problems can occur when you delete files, leaving "holes" in the FAT. The camera may try to "fill" the holes, resulting in file fragmentation.

ziggy53

colourbox

Pupator wrote:

Interesting. But none of you have stated the purpose or the merits of why formating the card each time matters.

I format only after the photos on the card have been offloaded and backed up to at least two copies.

As far as why it is important, there have been horror stories handed down from the ancients. For example, how a card got corrupted after many uses without formatting. Another class of horror stories is about how the same supposedly FAT32 card formatted with a PC has problems that didn't happen when formatted in camera, and if formatted as FAT32 with a Mac, it has even more problems than when formatted with the PC or the camera, even though they are all supposedly writing to the same "standard"! After enough of these horror stories circulated, everybody realized that the most reliable thing to do was format a card only in the camera it's used on, and to do it pretty regularly.

pathfinder

Yup!!

LuckyBob

Pupator wrote:

I guess you're referring to what LuckyBob said. It is the fastest way to delete images off the card in camera, sure. But I just drag the pictures from my sD card to my computer's hard drive, so I don't need a fast way to empty it.

It's faster to use a copy operation to transfer the images since a "move" operation modifies the FAT table after each image is copied, subsequently erasing that image.

Also, there's one *major* reason I do it that way - you never know if your computer will lock up or have some sort of issue, and copying the card to the computer (and formatting afterwards in-camera) ensures that if your PC *does* freeze, you won't have any corrupt images, or possibly worse, a corrupt FAT table on the card.

Scott_Quier

As indicated above, formatting re-writes the FAT, resetting the memory card (or disk) index to indicate that there is no data on the media.

The reason why data recovery software can recover files/photos from a formatted media is because the data is not actually wiped from the media (unless you do a "long" format or actually over-write the media).

Fragmentation occurs, not in the FAT, but on the media. This occurs when a file has been deleted and the operating system (OS) decides to try to write a new file to the media. The OS attempts to writes the new file in the first hole it finds. If the file is larger than the hole that was left when the first file was deleted, a portion of the new file is written to that hole and then the rest of the file/photo is written into the next hole on the media. This can happen many times for any given file, depending on how many holes there are in the data written on the media. The more places into which the file is written, the slower is the read access to that file and the higher is the effort to manage the file structure data.

But, all of this is goverened by the data in the FAT. When the FAT is re-written, there are no holes on the media and reads and, most importantly for us, writes to the media happen as quickly as possible.

A final point about the fragmentation. Fragmentation causes the OS (the camera does have an OS do more work to manage the data on the media. One false step and you loose some of that data. The more management work that needs to be done, the greater the chances that you will loose data. This is/was one of the major problems with the file management system used by MS-DOS and why one needed to perform a disk check (dskchk) function on a more or less regular but unpredictable basis and why a lot of people lost a lot of files when running MS-DOS. As an aside, the data structure used by most cameras is just a clone of that used by MS-DOS.

Manfr3d

msr wrote:

Correct.

But if you're using Microdrives you should
scandisk or checkdisk your Cards with a
computer from time to time to discover
lost or bad sectors. If you camera hangs
on a card or you discover that some pictures
are not getting saved properly you know
you should do it.

Art Scott

IN camera formatting is also highly recommended by the card manufacturers also.....and i reformat my cards even if I have only taken 1 photo and downloaded it to my pc.....'tis just a habit with me....

wxwax

ziggy53 wrote:

Other problems can occur when you delete files, leaving "holes" in the FAT. The camera may try to "fill" the holes, resulting in file fragmentation.

ziggy53

After experiencing this, I no longer delete individual shots from a card.

wxwax

Art Scott wrote:

IN camera formatting is also highly recommended by the card manufacturers also.....and i reformat my cards even if I have only taken 1 photo and downloaded it to my pc.....'tis just a habit with me....

Ditto.

claudermilk

I reformat in-camera every time. In small part due to all those old horror stories, but really more for the speed & expedience. I also use a portable drive (PD70X) & much of my shooting is quick, high-intensity sessions where I am cycling cards between camera & drive, so I'll sometimes shoot a card full, immediately swap it to the drive to D/L & a fresh card into the camera, then repeat the cycle within 3-5 minutes. Formatting takes a couple seconds which allows me to get on with shooting ASAP.

jwear

Pupator wrote:

Interesting. But none of you have stated the purpose or the merits of why formating the card each time matters.

Anyone care to take a stab at this?

it works and if you shot more than one camera you give your self a better chance at keeping all your shots .it cleans the card and sets it up for the camera you are shooting .computer formats doo not work alll the time

rdegro

I format in the camera that I'm using the card in as I interchange between two different camera brands. I also format my 4 gig microdrive in the computer when I'm using it as a "flash drive", it's reformatted in the camera though before I use it there. Why do I do this(?), I just feel more comfortable with formatting in the device I'm using.