Reusing reformatted SD cards from M9 in M10?

[Chazphoto]

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Hi,

I've just made the leap to the M10 after many happy years with the M9.  I don't wish to be a cheapskate, but would like to know if I can reuse my Samsung SD cards in the M10, after reformatting them in the M10, of course.  They have been very reliable in the M9 anf they are 32GB SDHC, UHS I cards, so well within M10 tolerances.  Asking the question because I can't find a specific reference to doing this, as opposed to lots of good advice on card use and choice generally.

Thanks.  (Also, should I reformat in SD Formatter first?)

Chazphoto

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[a.noctilux]

Hello,

I use "old" SD cards on my M10, some Samsung Evo + 32 cards.

They are fine.

Good idea is to format in computer before putting the card in your M10.

I use Exfat but SDformatter must be fine.

[Gobert]

Why? The M10 can format it. Which I do all the time. Never have card problems.

[a.noctilux]

Why ?

In my experience, when changing body (for example M9 to M10), with some old SD cards, the last camera does not recognise the card.

So now, in doubt, when "reuse SD from another digital M" , I format in computer for safe use.

A couple of seconds for peace of mind.

Edited January 26, 2020 by a.noctilux

[Tom Johnston]

I seem to recall questions about formatting in reader or in camera a few years ago...and if memory serves me well, it was general consensus that formatting in camera was recommended. I've been doing it that way since and, knock on wood, never had a problem.

I too just transitioned from the M9 to the M10...though at the moment still have my M9 and haven't moved the 9 cards to the 10. I did splurge and buy a larger card for the 10.

Edited January 26, 2020 by Tom Johnston
additional info

[Chazphoto]

Wow, amazingly prompt and helpful responses, thanks.  I was thinking of formatting on the PC just to do a "deep" reformat of the card.  I have followed the format in camera method with the M9, using that to wipe the old images after downloading to the computer, and it has been a reliable process.  

I think that I will splurge on an upgraded and new card for the M10, but wanted to get started straight away!  I see that Samsung has stopped producing standard sized SD cards, so I guess it will be SanDisk instead (since I have a bias towards those that make their own chips).

 

Chazwalla

[dickgillberg]

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I've used all kinds of cards, both sd and cf in about 20 years. Not a single one have broke down and I used them from camera to camera. Maybe I are the lucky one, but that's tru. Not a single problem, I use to buy recognized brands, like Lexar , Sandisk. I actually dropped one in salt water, but managed to recover my pics.

[ldhrads]

I swap cards from my M9 to MM to M10 without issues.  Just format! Then enjoy!

 

[Chazphoto]

Curious thing.   My newly formatted in the M10 cards cannot be formatted in the M9. I put the Samsung SD cards through an overwrite in SD Formatter and then formatted them both in the M10.   That left me without an M9 formatted card and I wanted to take a comparison photo just for fun.   When I pop either of the Samsung cards back into to M9 the Format Card menu is greyed out and can’t be operated.  
 

Chazphoto

[jaapv]

Just run them through SDformatter and they will be as new. Formatting in the camera is a very limited - but necessary- operation.

 

On 1/26/2020 at 8:26 PM, Gobert said:

Why? The M10 can format it. Which I do all the time. Never have card problems.

The M10 can format it - up to a point. It just writes the appropriate structure. Use SDformatter to get the job done all the way.

[Chazphoto]

For the sake of completeness, I reformatted the old Samsung cards using SD formatter and they could then be formatted and written to in the M9-P.  

In reading around re cards, I realised that my Samsung Pros were the mid-range card from years ago with a 48 Mb/s read and write speed.   Never really noticed a problem with speed, but also not someone that burns the buffer. 

Have purchased two new SanDisk 64 Gb UHS I cards which have the upgraded read speed of 170 Mb/s (write is still 95), so that the faster read speed of my laptop and PC can take advantage.  
 

cheers

 

Chaz

[MikeMyers]

I never heard of "SDFormatter" until I read the above.  I got curious, and found their webpage:   https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/

I didn't realize any of that.  I'm not sure how or why the cards are different, but this page shows they are:

------

The SD Memory Card Formatter formats SD Memory Card, SDHC Memory Card and SDXC Memory Card (respectively SD/SDHC/SDXC Cards) complying with the SD File System Specification created by the SD Association (SDA).

It is strongly recommended to use the SD Memory Card Formatter to format SD/SDHC/SDXC Cards rather than using formatting tools provided with individual operating systems. In general, formatting tools provided with operating systems can format various storage media including SD/SDHC/SDXC Cards, but it may not be optimized for SD/SDHC/SDXC Cards and it may result in lower performance.

SD/SDHC/SDXC Cards have a “Protected Area” for SD Card security purposes. The SD Memory Card Formatter does not format the protected area in the SD/SDHC/SDXC Cards. The protected area shall be formatted by an appropriate PC application or SD host devices that provide SD security function.

The SD Memory Card Formatter doesn't support SD/SDHC/SDXC Card encrypted by the “BitLocker To Go" functionality of Windows. Please format the SD/SDHC/SDXC Card after it has been unlocked.

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For those of you using SDFormatter, does it automatically somehow determine what card you are formatting, or do you need to enter that information manually?  I'll download and install it tomorrow.  From what I read up above, the. procedure would be to format a card in SDFormatter, then re-format it in the camera.

 

[adan]

Possibly too late a warning. But in migrating from M8 to M9 to M10, I have discovered that a new camera may pick up the old numbering sequence from an older camera (this is specific to using the same general numbering sequencing, e.g. all three of those cameras started at L1000001.dng and counted up from there.)

For example I might take an M8 card and move it to a brand-new M9. Coming out of the M8, the highest picture number on it might be, say, 1019672. And once formatted in the M9 - the M9 would start producing pictures beginning with 1019673 (even if new from the factory).

I therefore either used new cards with new cameras, or house-cleaned the cards by deleting all the pictures in a computer (drag-and-drop to the trash) - renaming the default "Leica" folder to "LEICA 100" - and only then formatting the card in the new camera, to pick up it's existing number sequence without a gap.

In the case of having two M10s - the silver one gets the 8MB cards, and the black one gets 16MB cards, and that way the cameras never confuse their numbering.

To minimize possible duplicate numbers, I also manually rename folders when they pass 9999 pictures - e.g. one camera will have odd folder numbers L101, L103, L105, while the other will have even folder numbers L100, L102, L104. Although strangely the M10 no longer matches picture numbers to the folder number (the M8/9 did).