Formatting cards?

[Hamster]

yes I am, and yes they have. I know of several occasions where card have failed outside the statutory warranty period and Sandisk have said just that. Three different people, all with cards over 3 years old.

I was talking about cards cited as having a lifetime warranty (sorry, I thought the conversation was about this type of warranty).
As far as the example above. I'm not sure what you mean by "statutory warranty", there isn't really such a thing, as far as I'm aware, because according to Australian statutory rights the period of time it is reasonable to expect an item to last varies greatly from item to item (or even for similar items).
Consumer law provides protection and can often make a manufacturers warranty irrelevant, especially their extended warranties.
So in your example above I assume there must have been a fixed manufacturers warranty less than 3 years?? And when a card failed outside of this Sandisk said tough? In this case, if the card didn't last a reasonable time then they would have a claim via their statutory rights (but I don't know the situation). Or maybe over 3 years was a reasonable length of time??
If you're saying the card had a lifetime warranty and Sandisk said on your bike then I'm surprised as I have had friends claim new cards in this situation from Sandisk with no problem. If your friends had problems then they should have contacted the ACCC.

[Mark L]

Thanks everyone for the various views and info.

IF the card has been properly formatted(that is full format) .. no data will exist any longer. A full format zeros out the 0 and 1 data bits all back to zero.
The recovery software will not find any files to recover.

That may be a reason not to format the card on the computer until everything is backed up.
May also be a reason to format the card on the computer if you're taking suspect photos. Now how do I get those suss photos out of the memory banks of the computer.

[arthurking83]

....


That may be a reason not to format the card on the computer until everything is backed up.....

Nope!
Remember, (using Windows) if you right click the card entry in the My Computer list and select Format .. it only does a quick format, that's the 'safe type'.

Unless you deliberately enable the full format option, formatting via a Windows PC (at least) is fairly safe to do. Don't know how it all works on a Mac tho.


ps: and if you're taking suss photos... no amount of deletion, formatting, secure erasing, or strong magnetic interference of those archives(implicated in the containment of suss photos) is safe from laughing eyes.
The level of embarrassment inflicted on the photographer is emphasised even more so, upon their eventual discovery by some elite hdd haxor type. You'll know when they have been recovered too tho .. you'll hear the laughter from here all the way to Mudgee(and back).

Nope!.... all memory spaces containing cruddy images is completely safe from eventual annihilation of any kind. It's the law of photography(and life in general).
If it's crappy, chances are it will linger on forever, and it can't be undone.

But!! when you have created that ripper .. that once in a lifetime, fantasmagorical production that will make you a gazillionaire .. it will become corrupted on that U-bute, super high quality 'branded' memory card.
To cap it off, if you do recover it back at the computer, the software will obviously recover the file to the most insecure and corrupted memory space on your HDD.
All those evil forces of (not only)the future, but the past and present as well, will combine to ensure that this image you trying to secure won't make it past tomorrow.

[jim]

The SD Card Association provide an app called the SD Card Formatter, which is claimed to do an optimum job of formatting SD cards. Here:https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

By the way, Nikon claim that cards for their cameras can not be formatted on a Mac, only on Windows, presumably because they use FAT. But as Arthur implied, if the camera accepts exFAT, that should work.

[ameerat42]

It's best to ask the salesperson at the time what "lifetime warranty" is supposed to mean (at the time, for it may change later).
Nail down a meaning, at least. In practice, the meaning may not translate to much.
Am.