memory cards behaving erratically on M9...?

[mjh]

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Like I said I haven't sat in front of a Mac in years. In those days, what I remember is, the desktop icon did not go away by itself and why should I need to drag it to the trash can.

It’s not just some icon but a representation of a volume and its continued presence should remind you of the fact that it is still mounted and there may be write requests still pending. Prior to to removing a card, external disk drive or whatever, you need to properly unmount it. That’s true under Mac OS (X) just as it is under Windows, and data on the volume might get corrupted if you don’t. Your experience obviously predates Mac OS X as unter the classic Mac OS removable media were indeed dragged to the trash for unmounting (and ejecting, if possible); under Mac OS X the trash is replaced by an eject symbol when dragging a volume. But whatever the OS, physically removing a volume that is still mounted is a big no-no.

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[ceflynn]

Michael,

 

Thanks for the details about which volume sizes get which FAT format.

 

I recall reading in a forum that Snow Leopard fixed the problem with the volume icon disappearing before the volume is unmounted, but cannot find any reference to it in Apple's Knowledge Base. It is mentioned in the Smart Eject section of this TIDBits article:

 

TidBITS Macs & Mac OS X: More Hidden Refinements in Snow Leopard

 

and in this Apple advertising:

 

http://www.apple.com/macosx/refinements/enhancements-refinements.html

[mby]

Good! Red herring. My point exactly. So we can put the "extra hidden files" issue to rest, can't we?

 

 

One question remains:

mby says (post #46) Disk Utility formats his 16GB cards as FAT16;

mjh says (post #50) Disk Utility formats his 16GB cards as FAT32.

 

Why? What did the two of you do differently?

 

Some progress here: apparently my external card reader for the Mac and/or SDHC card was not working properly.

 

Re-tested now w/ Disk Utility on Snow Leopard and another card I get a nice FAT32 format for 16GB SDHC, still M9 can't read it...

[wlaidlaw]

Some progress here: apparently my external card reader for the Mac and/or SDHC card was not working properly.

 

Re-tested now w/ Disk Utility on Snow Leopard and another card I get a nice FAT32 format for 16GB SDHC, still M9 can't read it...

 

 

.....and the M8 will set up another small partition if you try to reformat an SDHC card already formatted in Mac at FAT32 . Still looks like a non-starter to me.

 

Wilson

[ho_co]

Any possibilities here?

 

Take a new card, e.g. 16GB, as formatted by the manufacturer or by another camera or faith healing or however you wish. The important thing is that it be properly formatted and blank to start.

 

(Slide the tab to Lock if you want to avoid letting the Mac write to it.)

 

Insert the card into the card reader. When it mounts, Use Disk Utility to create a disk image of it.

 

Store the disk image for later use.

 

When you want to format another identical card, insert it into the card reader.

 

Now select the stored disk image in Disk Utility and burn it to the card.

 

(Since the newly-formatted card is not write-protected, the Mac will now write its own hidden files to the card, just as it would do the first time you insert it to upload images.)

 

 

Since I have no experience with any of this, it's only a guess. Maybe if various 16GB cards aren't all the same, the process might not work for the deviants, or maybe that wouldn't matter. I doubt that one could use this disk image to format an 8GB or 32GB card, but might that work as well?

[wlaidlaw]

Any possibilities here?

 

Take a new card, e.g. 16GB, as formatted by the manufacturer or by another camera or faith healing or however you wish. The important thing is that it be properly formatted and blank to start.

 

(Slide the tab to Lock if you want to avoid letting the Mac write to it.)

 

Insert the card into the card reader. When it mounts, Use Disk Utility to create a disk image of it.

 

Store the disk image for later use.

 

When you want to format another identical card, insert it into the card reader.

 

Now select the stored disk image in Disk Utility and burn it to the card.

 

(Since the newly-formatted card is not write-protected, the Mac will now write its own hidden files to the card, just as it would do the first time you insert it to upload images.)

 

 

Since I have no experience with any of this, it's only a guess. Maybe if various 16GB cards aren't all the same, the process might not work for the deviants, or maybe that wouldn't matter. I doubt that one could use this disk image to format an 8GB or 32GB card, but might that work as well?

 

Howard,

 

I will give this a go later today and tell you if you have cracked it.

 

Wilson

[pgk]

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I ALWAYS lock my cards before reading them on a computer - a simple precaution which can do no harm and which has potential benefits.

[delander †]

Just to go back to card types (I use a PC)

 

I bought a 4gb Pretec SDHC card for my M9. Dont buy these, they dont work properly, camera locks up and also displays several different error messages, no card, please wait while reading card, also failure to write to the card.

 

For the moment I'm using my Sandisk Ultras (2GB SD only) that I used on the M8. They work extremely fast and no problems, except for the low capacity, but I'm a slow shooter so I can live with it for the moment.

 

Jeff

[vish]

Having read all of this and a couple of other posts, is there an agreed and popular method on initializing SD cards for the first time - I have no prior experience of these cards, and now I have one that is called Leica M9 and one called NO NAME, as mentioned previously. This suggested that they have been formatted or treated differently at the beginning. As with CF cards, I would copy any manufacturer utils off the cards and then format in camera.

 

As an aside, I find the camera format tends to give me a fraction less space than when new from the manufacturer. Fraction as in around 100K. Anecdotal, of course.

[wlaidlaw]

Having read all of this and a couple of other posts, is there an agreed and popular method on initializing SD cards for the first time - I have no prior experience of these cards, and now I have one that is called Leica M9 and one called NO NAME, as mentioned previously. This suggested that they have been formatted or treated differently at the beginning. As with CF cards, I would copy any manufacturer utils off the cards and then format in camera.

 

As an aside, I find the camera format tends to give me a fraction less space than when new from the manufacturer. Fraction as in around 100K. Anecdotal, of course.

 

Vish,

 

The only method I have tried and tested is to format the card in my Ricoh GX200 first but please note this is for an M8 and may NOT work in an M9. I even did a torture test and formatted a 4 GB Extreme III as Mac HFS with a GUID partition and the Ricoh manfully formatted that to FAT32 just fine, when the M8 just went "yerchhhh". . The M8 will reformat a card perfectly from one pre-formatted by a Ricoh.

 

Wilson