SDHC issues

[Stephen C]

Elo,

My old man is having problems with his SDHC card, he's just lumped it on me and I can't get into it to format it. It's appearing in windows but when I try to access or format it I get a "please insert disc" message.

It was working before.. not sure what he's done to it.

It's a 32gb Sandisk.

Searching and searching via Google but not having a whole lot of luck!

[jackvdbuk]

have you tried it in linux or off a bootcd? to see if its the card or windows i think would be what id do

[Macphail]

Where did he get it from? Amazon sold a shed load of bad sandisk memory cards a while back.

Other than that just check simple things like, that the lock button on the side hasnt been accidently switched first. Then I'd follow a plan similar to Jack's.

[chief@xrs.net]

hp format tool - does exactly what is says on the tin, cannae remember the full name! lol

[this_is_gav]

hp format tool - does exactly what is says on the tin, cannae remember the full name! lol

"HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool". It slips off the tongue.

HPUSBFW - it's on the right.

I use it to format bootable USB DOS disks, but I don't think it'll work if Windows can't see the drive either.

Without knowing more, I'm inclined to agree with Macphail - it sounds like an all-too-common Del Boy special.

[Stephen C]

Trying the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool, it's just throwing back "There is no media in the specified device".

[Agent]

I'd be booting into the UBCD -> Parted Magic and then clearing all the partitions and data. Then create a new normal partition and test the drive with h2testw to see if it's a fake.

[Stephen C]

Just been to get my camera, to compare the cards.

Definitely a fake :\

[Agent]

Where was it from mate? Ebay?

All might not be lost though - you can often set the cards back to their 'real' capacity at which point they will normally work fine. They are just 'oversold' on their space. They still come from one of the few main places which will make the actual chips.

[Stephen C]

No idea where it came from, my dad got it for his 60th birthday just last week.

[Agent]

If its that new then it's defo worth chasing up from wherever you brought it from