2009/7/18 Bob W wrote: > 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.
While I never tested it myself, I suspect if you "protect" some photos (such a option is available on *ist DS) they won't be deleted with "Delete All", but will be deleted if you were to format the card. What I've tried, however, is when I have other, non-Pentax files on the card, *ist DS deletes them if I do "Delete All". I format the card every time, even though I suspect it is a superstition. Once with a DS, once with an old point-n-shoot Kodak, I had strange situations when a single file had problem being read after I was writing files to the card (SD and CF, respectively) on a computer, via card reader. I wrote to a card many times after without a problem, but that was enough for me to have formatting as a part of the routine. P. J. Alling wrote: > I believe that all cameras will reformat cards that they see as > unformatted automatically. I say this because I've put brand new cards > into the K20D, *ist-D, and Ds and the minute that they are accessed the > card has the proper directory structure. The K20 *ist-D and *ist-Ds all > upon having brand new cards inserted, created the DCMI and 100Pentx sub > directories. If the card wasn't formated it would have done be at that > time. I've never had to do an initial format on any SD or CF card. Don't mix two things: formatting the card (which erases FAT information) and initializing the card for the camera needs (which creates camera-specific directories on the card). When you tell camera to "Format", both things happen. When you get a brand-new card, it is already formatted. The camera just creates its directories. (AFAIK, this happens when it records the first image, not when you just pop it in, - at least in the cameras I've used.) While I've never tried it, - I suspect if you format card in your computer to any other file system, say NTFS, - and pop it into the camera, and try to shoot, - it won't reformat the card by itself. Igor -- 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.
