Memory Card Unrecognizable after Formatting in Windows XP
Andrew Watson
July 30, 2009
In Windows, you can format a memory card or memory stick to FAT (also known as FAT16 file system), FAT32 or NTFS file system. Some digital cameras support only a particular file system. Therefore if you use an unsupported file system formatted memory card with the camera, it will not recognize it. To solve such problems, you will need to reformat the memory card to make it compatible with digital camera. You will need to restore lost data from backup. However, in case of any backup concerns, you should use Digital Photo Recovery applications to recover the lost digital data completely.
As an instance, when you insert any of the below removable media device into your digital camera, you might observe it unrecognized:
Multimedia Card (MMC)
Secure Digital (SD) card
Compact Flash card
Memory Stick
ATA Flash card
SmartMedia card
This behavior is specifically observed in Windows XP.
Cause
You have used Windows Explorer in Windows XP to format the removable media device in question. If the volume has been previously formatted to FAT file system and doesn´t contain more than 2 GB of data, the format utility will use FAT32 file system as the default setting. Thus if you format your removable media device or memory card using Windows Explorer in Windows XP, it will be formatted to FAT32 file system. The above behavior is observed if your digital camera doesn´t support FAT32 file system. This problem is mostly observed in earlier models of digital cameras.
Solution
You should consider these steps to fix this problem:
The latest service pack of Windows XP has fixed the issue. If you install this, it compels Windows XP to retain the original file system while reformatting it.
To prevent such issues, you should change the default setting while formatting
To make the memory card recognizable by digital camera, reformat it by using digital camera software. Restore the lost data through the most recent backup available.
In case if no clean backup is available or you don´t have any backup, you should use Photo Recovery Software. Designed with advanced Digital Photo Recovery technology, these tools recover and restore all digital data from any of the removable media device.
Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery is a fully-featured tool that recovers all lost photos, audios and videos from memory cards, memory sticks, hard drives and USB flash drives. It is a read-only Photo Recovery Software that supports almost all digital file formats. The application is available for Windows (Windows Vista, XP, 2003 and 2000) and Mac (Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, 10.4 Tiger and 10.3.9 Panther).
As an instance, when you insert any of the below removable media device into your digital camera, you might observe it unrecognized:
Multimedia Card (MMC)
Secure Digital (SD) card
Compact Flash card
Memory Stick
ATA Flash card
SmartMedia card
This behavior is specifically observed in Windows XP.
Cause
You have used Windows Explorer in Windows XP to format the removable media device in question. If the volume has been previously formatted to FAT file system and doesn´t contain more than 2 GB of data, the format utility will use FAT32 file system as the default setting. Thus if you format your removable media device or memory card using Windows Explorer in Windows XP, it will be formatted to FAT32 file system. The above behavior is observed if your digital camera doesn´t support FAT32 file system. This problem is mostly observed in earlier models of digital cameras.
Solution
You should consider these steps to fix this problem:
The latest service pack of Windows XP has fixed the issue. If you install this, it compels Windows XP to retain the original file system while reformatting it.
To prevent such issues, you should change the default setting while formatting
To make the memory card recognizable by digital camera, reformat it by using digital camera software. Restore the lost data through the most recent backup available.
In case if no clean backup is available or you don´t have any backup, you should use Photo Recovery Software. Designed with advanced Digital Photo Recovery technology, these tools recover and restore all digital data from any of the removable media device.
Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery is a fully-featured tool that recovers all lost photos, audios and videos from memory cards, memory sticks, hard drives and USB flash drives. It is a read-only Photo Recovery Software that supports almost all digital file formats. The application is available for Windows (Windows Vista, XP, 2003 and 2000) and Mac (Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, 10.4 Tiger and 10.3.9 Panther).
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