Last night I had something strange going on with my DRebel (300D). I was shooting my nephews baseball game, and the camera would "freeze" up, and then it would turn off, then back on again. Kind of like rebooting a computer. It was taking forever to write the photo to the card, and it would take forever to view the image when I hit the play back button. I have never had this happen before. I took the batteries out, took the card out, and replaced them (same card), but it didn't seem to help. I was using an 8gb A-data 120x Turbo CF card that I bought used. I used this card without a problem all day the day before, but I didn't format it. After about an inning of acting like this, everything started working fine again. It still seemed like it took a long time to write the photo to the card, and to play the image back, but the camera stopped rebooting.

When I got home, I downloaded the cards onto my computer which also seemed to go slower than normal. Once that was done, I reformatted the card, and took a few test shots. Those test shots seemed to write much faster to the card, and they played back much faster also. I'm crossing my fingers that it's nothing major as I don't have time to get it looked at before going on vacation.

You say you used the card the day before? How much of it did you use the day before: 1GB, 2 GB or more?

I'd venture to say that the card was very fragmented and probably still is. A memory card is just a really small hard drive and repeated use without defragging (or formating in this case) can cause a decrease in efficency.

I read somewhere that for best performance you should reformat your card everytime you complete your download process. I sometimes forget but generally do this.

That's kind of what I was thinking too. I think I had around 300 RAW files on it from the day before (around 2 - 2.5gb). I do generally reformat my cards befor using them, but didn't think of it last night, until after I had started shooting the game. I'll know better next time. Thanks for your thoughts Mark.

I read somewhere that for best performance you should reformat your card everytime you complete your download process. I sometimes forget but generally do this.

I've heard this as well. Not sure how true it is, but I can tell you that reformatting my card is a LOT faster than having the camera delete some 250-300 images.

- Joe U.

As an adjunct to this question, I'll mention that I use a SanDisk Ultra 2gig card in my Canon 350d. I really didn't like the software that came with the camera so I bought a Compact Flash card reader. I plug it into a USB port, use Windoze Explorer to cut the images from the card, then paste them into a folder on one of my hard drives. Then I delete all the empty "intermediate" folders that get created on the card.

To me, this seems to be the same thing as formatting, since it results in a totally (I hope) empty card. Am I fooling myself? I haven't had any speed issues with it unless I have a couple of hundred images on the card and want to use the thumbnail review feature...and I can understand that taking a second or two.

I guess the bottom line is, "do I still need to format the card even though I've removed all files and folders?"

Thanks,
CA

As an adjunct to this question, I'll mention that I use a SanDisk Ultra 2gig card in my Canon 350d. I really didn't like the software that came with the camera so I bought a Compact Flash card reader. I plug it into a USB port, use Windoze Explorer to cut the images from the card, then paste them into a folder on one of my hard drives. Then I delete all the empty "intermediate" folders that get created on the card.

To me, this seems to be the same thing as formatting, since it results in a totally (I hope) empty card. Am I fooling myself? I haven't had any speed issues with it unless I have a couple of hundred images on the card and want to use the thumbnail review feature...and I can understand that taking a second or two.

I guess the bottom line is, "do I still need to format the card even though I've removed all files and folders?"

Thanks,
CA


Deleting the files from your CF card with the computer doesn't clean everything off of the card. There will still be some artifacts, and other things on the card and your camera will write your new photos over the top of the stuff that's still on the card. This could cause some corrupt files. If you format the card in the camera, it will wipe out everything, and you are less likely to have issues.

I never delete files with the computer and always format my card when I want to clean it off.

Interesting, Michael. I selected format from the camera menu. It said that there was 1.8gb available and 64kb in files on the card. I figured that would be the space taken up by the directory structure. So I told it to go ahead and format. It did and then showed that it had 1.8gb available and 64kb in files...same as before. I suppose that prior to formatting the directory structure could have been fragmented and formatting would correct that.

Then I slapped the card into the reader on a computer running XP. I ran Disk Defragmenter Analyze on it. It reported a 32kb cluster size and 2 clusters used. Again, I figure this is the directory structure. Then I told it to go ahead and do the defragment even though it returned the ubiquitous message that it didn't need to be defragged. Well, I guess it really didn't but I did it anyway. Afterward, it showed the same thing: 2 clusters used, 1.9gb free.

I guess I'll have to try the defragmenter after I remove a buncha files from it to see what's really there.

Thanks for the insight,

CA

Interesting, Michael. I selected format from the camera menu. It said that there was 1.8gb available and 64kb in files on the card. I figured that would be the space taken up by the directory structure. So I told it to go ahead and format. It did and then showed that it had 1.8gb available and 64kb in files...same as before. I suppose that prior to formatting the directory structure could have been fragmented and formatting would correct that.

Then I slapped the card into the reader on a computer running XP. I ran Disk Defragmenter Analyze on it. It reported a 32kb cluster size and 2 clusters used. Again, I figure this is the directory structure. Then I told it to go ahead and do the defragment even though it returned the ubiquitous message that it didn't need to be defragged. Well, I guess it really didn't but I did it anyway. Afterward, it showed the same thing: 2 clusters used, 1.9gb free.

I guess I'll have to try the defragmenter after I remove a buncha files from it to see what's really there.

Thanks for the insight,

CA

You should use the camera to format the card and not use any PC tools on it.

The reason being is that the Camera will position things on the card for optimum storage of pictures and it will expect things to be in the right location to speed things up.

I have had a card fail after formatting in a PC and then using in a Fuji camera without formatting. I stored 2 photos and then the camera complained the card was useless. Reformatted using the camera and it worked okay and still working okay 3 years later.

Roger

So it's not good to use memory cards as storage devices?

So it's not good to use memory cards as storage devices?
If it's been used on a PC for storage, it's likely not to work well in a camera.
Just reformat them in the camera before you use them.

Or buy more cards so you don't need to make them dual-use.
I find cheap (therefore slow) cards are fine for storage devices.
$13 for 2G isn't a bad price (£5.99)