2009/7/18 Bob W <[email protected]>: > I suspect there are 2 reasons. > > First, to eliminate fragmentation on the disk. This makes sure you can use > as much of the disk's capacity as possible.
To some extent, yes. When you delete files in camera. However when uploading to computer and deleting the files from the cards, there's nothing left to fragment(ate?), is there? :-) > Second, because different software writers may interpret parts of the > specification differently, or write different bugs, you run the risk that > cards written to by different cameras may not be entirely consistent. Very interesting point. Personally, I have never, ever formatted a card. They have all run with the format assigned to them by the card manufacturer. I've never had any problems as far as I can recall. OTOH, all my cameras are Pentax. Assuming that this is a camera mfg. issue, I may not have been exposed to it. Jostein > I had a problem with this earlier this year. I had taken some photos in > Paris with my M8, which were all fine and dandy so I deleted all the > pictures from the card, without reformatting it. When I was back here I put > the camera in for some cleaning and repair. They returned it having upgraded > the firmware. I re-used the card and found that some of the supposedly > deleted pictures had corrupted some of the newer ones - I posted an example > at the time. Here it is again: > http://www.web-options.com/fsahg.jpg > > In this instance it didn't matter because the newer pictures were > unimportant. But it could have mattered. So I now make a point of formatting > the card each time. > > Fortunately I don't need to share the cards between camera brands because my > Olympoi use CF and XD whereas the Leicae use SD and SDHC. If I had to share > them I'd try not to interchange without formatting. > > Your question "why there's any need to format cards in the first place?" is > a good one, though. I don't see any benefit at all in having 2 functions > that are effectively the same - Delete All, and Format. There is no benefit > to having the Delete All function, so it should either be dropped or just > treated as a synonym of Format. > > Bob -- http://www.alunfoto.no/galleri/ http://alunfoto.blogspot.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
