Question about a Sony Memory stick.

[Steve_BB2]

Hi there,
When I flick the cover to turn on my Sony DSC-M2 I see a thin black bar across the screen with "No Memory Stick" written inside the black bar.
This would be acceptable if I wasn't 100% certain that there WAS a Sony 8gb Memory stick Pro Duo inside the camera. This same card has been used by me in this same camera over the past 6 months or so with no problems. I have tried removing the card and cleaning the terminals with a dry, lint free cloth but with no success.
It seems that the only way to get it working is to keep switching the camera on and off, removing and replacing the memory card (it is the only memory card that I have) and then, out of the blue and for no obvious reason, it starts working perfectly.

Any advice would be very much appreciated.
Cheers,
Steve

[OldClicker]

I would get another card and, if it works, dump this one. If not, it's worse - the camera. - TF

[Anbesol]

I assume you've already tried reformatting it?

[Steve_BB2]

OldClicker ..... I have ordered another new card and I am now hoping for the best.

Anbesol ...... Can I ask you to expand on that? I'm not a genuis at either digital cameras or computers. I got the idea that formatting a card was done on the camera because it had to be done in a certain way which only the camera could do. Not being able to get the camera to recognise the card (not at all now no matter how many times I have tried it) makes that a bit tricky. On the other hand, formatting the card on the PC won't do any harm if it isn't working anyway so I'll give that a try later when I am at my own PC.
Thanks for the replies.
Steve

[Anbesol]

You can format the card on PC, cameras are made to recognize FAT file systems, which can be done via PC. Just be sure to not set the format to NTFS.

[Steve_BB2]

Update .....

Hi again,
I fully understand that this is a boring topic by any kind of standard you might want to put on it but maybe somebody else out there is having the same problem and a record of what happened may help them to figure out their own issue.
OK, one of the problems that I have is that this memory card (8gb Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo) has about 4 gb of stuff on it. It isn't all images, though they are important to me in their own right, there are also PC programmes that were downloaded and lots of other stuff. Without being able to see what they are, I can't judge if I really need them or not. Anyway, I bit the bullet and decided to format the memory card on the PC. I found that I had 2 options to do this. I could do a "right click" on the memory card's icon and then choose "Format" or, even easier, do a left click on the card's icon and a message popped up saying something along the lines of, "This memory card is not formatted. Would you like to format it now?" Then there are YES and NO buttons to pick from.
Making either choice brings up another message "The disk in drive "F" cannot be formatted".
So it looks like I'm snookered until the new memory card that I ordered turns up.
Stand by for the next exciting episode

[Anbesol]

Sounds like it might be a mounting issue? Running format through command line usually offers the option to mount a volume, whereas windows ui utilities doesnt. Why, I dont know. Anyway, hit start, or the windows button, and under the search line enter CMD. A DOS command prompt pops up, type in Format K: (or, whichever letter your memory stick is assigned to). If it is an issue with mounting volume, then DOS will format accordingly. I remember having a flash drive of Sonys that had this problem.

[Steve_BB2]

That didn't work.
I tried typing CMD in the "Search" area to no avail so I then tried it with "RUN".
Got the DOS command line stuff up and typed in .... Format F:

This got me a line saying, .... Insert new disk for drive F

I hit the ENTER button and got the following message ... Error in IOCTL call.

I have no idea what that means but I shall let Google be my friend.

ps ... no sign of the new card in the post today.

[Steve_BB2]

Update Mk 2 ....

The new 4gb memory card that I ordered arrived this morning. I put it straight into the camera and it was "found" instantly.
Looks like the problem was with the 8gb card itself. I'd kick up a stink if I had bought it seperately but I got it with the camera on eBay.
At least, now that I know that the camera is fine, I can buy some more memory cards for it.
Thanks for all the help, guys.

Happy Snapping.