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Older EOS Rebel T1i

AlaskaBev
Apprentice

I gave put a brand new card in camera and get error message saying card cannot be accessed Reinsert or format card with camera why

18 REPLIES 18

"If the camera formats the card, then you can be assured that the card is formatted in a way that the camera will like."

 

You are right. I should have qualified my statement that I only have done it on Windows machines.  Mac's are weird and funcky so who knows if it will be OK?  If you are on a Mac, I too, suggest you format with the camera.

From Windows I see no difference.  Which I suspose you can say I am just lucky but I must be awfully lucky!

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!

“You know I used to claim and say the same thing.  I guess because it is what I've always heard.  Since I have tried using my computer to format CF cards I have not seen any adverse or noticeable difference.  If it makes you feel better use your camera but I doubt you will see a difference.”

 

The only harm in using a computer to format an SD card is the computer does not set up default folders that the camera wants to see.  But, the camera seems smart enough to create a default folder structure if one does not exist.

 

[Low Level] Formatting sets up all of the “pigeon holes” where data will be stored.  “Blocks” of [these] storage locations are also initialized.  Blocks can vary in size.  It is the block size that can vary, which can cause one device to not be able to read data formatted by another device.

 

BTW, due to their nature, CF cards are not exactly [low level] formatted.  A CF card is more akin to a memory chip, which has an internal physical layout.  In other words, the “block size” of a CF card is fixed.  “Formatting” a CF card simply erases some of the data, and sets up new default folders.

 

[EDIT]

--------------------------------------------------------
"The right mouse button is your friend."


@Waddizzle wrote:

“You know I used to claim and say the same thing.  I guess because it is what I've always heard.  Since I have tried using my computer to format CF cards I have not seen any adverse or noticeable difference.  If it makes you feel better use your camera but I doubt you will see a difference.”

 

The only harm in using a computer to format an SD card is the computer does not set up default folders that the camera wants to see.  But, the camera seems smart enough to create a default folder structure if one does not exist.

 

[Low Level] Formatting sets up all of the “pigeon holes” where data will be stored.  “Blocks” of [these] storage locations are also initialized.  Blocks can vary in size.  It is the block size that can vary, which can cause one device to not be able to read data formatted by another device.

 

BTW, due to their nature, CF cards are not exactly [low level] formatted.  A CF card is more akin to a memory chip, which has an internal physical layout.  In other words, the “block size” of a CF card is fixed.  “Formatting” a CF card simply erases some of the data, and sets up new default folders.

 

[EDIT]


In any case, a low-level format isn't a panacea. As a card (or almost any modern file storage device) is used, the operating system identifies unreliable areas and warps them out of the file system. What a low-level format does is wipe out that accumulated wisdom and replace it with a new, but not necessarily more accurate, assessment. So the system may perform a little more slowly at first, while it re-identifies bad areas that it may actually have known about before. That's not to say that there are never benefits to doing a low-level format - just that the benefits may not tell the whole story.

Bob
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA

"In any case, a low-level format isn't a panacea."

 

Correct, and it is probably only needed once on any SD card.

I know you see all the stories on the ole inner web about how you have to do this or that. You can't do this or that. So I basically decided to try some things for myself.  That's what got me going on lenses.  Lot's of BS out there about lenses so it isn't too hard to find it on CF and SD cards, too.

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!


@RobertTheFat wrote:

@Waddizzle

In any case, a low-level format isn't a panacea. As a card (or almost any modern file storage device) is used, the operating system identifies unreliable areas and warps them out of the file system. What a low-level format does is wipe out that accumulated wisdom and replace it with a new, but not necessarily more accurate, assessment. So the system may perform a little more slowly at first, while it re-identifies bad areas that it may actually have known about before. That's not to say that there are never benefits to doing a low-level format - just that the benefits may not tell the whole story.


This now occurs at a level below the filesystem level.  

 

In a traditional mechanical hard drive, the drive is organized into "sectors" (pizza-shaped wedges) and "tracks" (concentric rings).  The intersection of a "sector" and "track" is what they'd call a "block".  When a "block" is unreliable, the filesystem could mark it as "bad" and avoid using the block.

 

Operating systems take advantage of the physical layout to choose how they will fill the device... (e.g. start on the outside and work inward, or start at the inside and work outward... or start in the middle, etc.)  These strategies resulted in some parts of the disk being used more often than others.

 

This created a problem for solid state devices... becuase it meant that some memory "blocks" were used heavily ... while some were hardly used at all.  The process of writing to a memory card is technically physically destructive (just a tiny bit) and after the same block is written too many times, it's damaged to the point where it can no longer reliable record data.  This caused solid state storage to fail prematurely.

 

To counter this... the card manufacturers use something called "wear-leveling" technology.  The idea is the card itself has a notion of blocks... below the filesystems notion of a block.  

 

In a gross over-simplification... let's say the memory card uses letters to name it's blocks (it doesn't but it'll help avoid confusion) and the filesystem uses numbers.  

 

If you write a file to "block 1 & 2" in the filesystem... that might get recorded to "block a & b" on the card.   But if you delete the file (so now we're back to an empty card) and write to "block 1 & 2" in the filesystem again... that would get recorded to "block c & d" on the card.  It wont record to the SAME physical block at the low level.  

 

This is the cards "wear leveling" technology which tries to make sure all the physical blocks get used evenly.  The "block" at a filesystem level no longer has any real relationship to a true block on the solid state device.  

 

This means when a real physical block is wearing and not reliable, the card itself has to map the block as bad and avoid using it... and not the filesystem (because each time you write to that SAME block in the filesystem, it actually goes to a different block on the physical device each time you use it.)

 

Doing "wear leveling" massively improved the lifespan of memory cards from the earlier days.  

 

Tim Campbell
5D III, 5D IV, 60Da

SD cards use their own weird protocol.  CF cards use the IDE protocol like a HD.  CFast is based on the SATA protocol.

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!

AlaskaBev
Apprentice
You all are above my capacity for understanding ‘this . All I wanted to know is WHY I’m all of a sudden getting this reading on my camera. “ can’t read pleas format “ all I wanted to put a clean card in but it said it wouldn’t / couldn’t read so I put the old one ( mini sim) that I had erased and still works fine


@AlaskaBev wrote:
You all are above my capacity for understanding ‘this . All I wanted to know is WHY I’m all of a sudden getting this reading on my camera. “ can’t read pleas format “ all I wanted to put a clean card in but it said it wouldn’t / couldn’t read so I put the old one ( mini sim) that I had erased and still works fine

As Albert Einstein is supposed to have once said, "Everything should be made as simple as possible - but not simpler."

Bob
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA

" I put the old one ( mini sim) that I had erased and still works fine"

 

Use what works.  Who knows why, it shouldn't be that way.

The real only thing you can do is buy another top quality SD card, not a mini, from a top retailer and give it a go.  If that does not fix it call Canon support 1 (800) 652-2666.  Although they won't repair a T1i they might be able to answer your dilemma.

 

If you buy a cheap SD card or even a top quality one that is a counterfeit who knows how it will work?  You can't spot counterfeit SD cards you just have to trust your retail store.  Places like B&H, Adorama, Roberts, and local stores like Best Buy, Mrcro Center, etc are good choices.

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!
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