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OffTopic > Anyone know a tool to format Compact Flashwhen windows cant?

#163937 - Darkflame - Wed Oct 15, 2008 10:47 pm

I got a 4GB Compact flash card I use for DS homebrew.
It works fine in the DS still, as far as I can tell everything runs.

However, windows cant recognise it. Cant read it, cant write, and explore crashs if I go "right click>>propertys".
No attempts to format with windows built-in abilitys work.
(Command.com cant get to its drive letter either).

So I wondered if anyone knew any tools for reforming flash cards?

I used a program called "PC Inspector File Recovery", and that actualy managed to get my files off ok. So I know its possible to access with the hardware.

But I cant reformat it to remove the error :-/

Any ideas? Recomended tools?
Unfortuntely I dont have a linux installation to try it at the moment, gota wait till I get more hard drive space, so it will need to be windows tools.
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#163956 - sonny_jim - Thu Oct 16, 2008 5:38 pm

Have you tried formatting it on another computer apart from yours? I could probably whip something up using DSLinux but you'd need some kind of memory expansion.

#163958 - Dwedit - Thu Oct 16, 2008 6:29 pm

Does the disk drive show up in a Disk Hex Editor like HXD? If the disk drive can be opened RAW, then it can be formatted. Otherwise, it's dead.
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#163959 - elhobbs - Thu Oct 16, 2008 6:31 pm

is it possible that the partition table is corrupt or otherwise unreadable?

#163960 - Dwedit - Thu Oct 16, 2008 6:41 pm

A corrupt partition table on a CF card just means that windows tries to format it without one.
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