My Canon Powershot A710 firmware can refuse to recognize an SDHC memory card on which Windows can perform all functions and find no faults. :-( The NO MEMORY CARD phantom strikes again.
How to mess up your card: pull it out of a card reader that is powered on. I cannot guarantee you will get messed up every time, but it has "worked" twice for me. It has always been safe so far to pull the reader out of the USB socket, not the card out of the reader. (I "SAFELY REMOVE" cards from my Macbook, but I don't have time for the idiotic Windows technology.)
What's so interesting? The card you messed up by pulling it out the wrong way will read everywhere, but not in the camera. And of course, the camera still reads other cards.
What's so frustrating? I can reformat the card, check it for errors. It's OK. I can reload the card's original contents saved on a backup. The card works in my external readers (and I won't pull it out again, promise). But the camera always gets NO MEMORY CARD with this particular card. I even bought the USB associations own reformatting software, but nobody can flip the magic bit that Canon's brain-dead file management firmware cannot accept.
I have flipped the card's write-protect tab to PROTECT (towards middle of card) and inserted it, and back to WRITE ENABLED, but I can't shake the camera firmware's conviction that this card is invalid . . . so invalid that it isn't there. Since it isn't there, the camera's own FORMAT menu option is greyed out, and I can't let the camera format the card in whatever screwy layout it uses that no other formatting utility can match.
Where's the patch for this firmware error? Will my next camera keep this little headache, or just add new ones?
Never travel without spare memory cards.
There are many NO MEMORY CARD posts on the Net. Thought I'd add one that nails the manufacturer, not the user. (Yes, I was very naughty, I corrupted my card by pulling it out while a reader was powered on. But I can recover my photos, my formatting, my card . . . except for a magic bit or sector boundary or partition table offset of File Allocation Table length or flag that everyone uses but they will not accept. We -- the Windows operating systems, the USB mfr's association formatting utility -- are on one side and Canon is alone on the other.)
--jerry
How to mess up your card: pull it out of a card reader that is powered on. I cannot guarantee you will get messed up every time, but it has "worked" twice for me. It has always been safe so far to pull the reader out of the USB socket, not the card out of the reader. (I "SAFELY REMOVE" cards from my Macbook, but I don't have time for the idiotic Windows technology.)
What's so interesting? The card you messed up by pulling it out the wrong way will read everywhere, but not in the camera. And of course, the camera still reads other cards.
What's so frustrating? I can reformat the card, check it for errors. It's OK. I can reload the card's original contents saved on a backup. The card works in my external readers (and I won't pull it out again, promise). But the camera always gets NO MEMORY CARD with this particular card. I even bought the USB associations own reformatting software, but nobody can flip the magic bit that Canon's brain-dead file management firmware cannot accept.
I have flipped the card's write-protect tab to PROTECT (towards middle of card) and inserted it, and back to WRITE ENABLED, but I can't shake the camera firmware's conviction that this card is invalid . . . so invalid that it isn't there. Since it isn't there, the camera's own FORMAT menu option is greyed out, and I can't let the camera format the card in whatever screwy layout it uses that no other formatting utility can match.
Where's the patch for this firmware error? Will my next camera keep this little headache, or just add new ones?
Never travel without spare memory cards.
There are many NO MEMORY CARD posts on the Net. Thought I'd add one that nails the manufacturer, not the user. (Yes, I was very naughty, I corrupted my card by pulling it out while a reader was powered on. But I can recover my photos, my formatting, my card . . . except for a magic bit or sector boundary or partition table offset of File Allocation Table length or flag that everyone uses but they will not accept. We -- the Windows operating systems, the USB mfr's association formatting utility -- are on one side and Canon is alone on the other.)
--jerry
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