"The disk in drive f is not formatted..."?

Question

Hi, I have an Acer netbook (Win XP) with an internal SD memory card reader. For some reason it's decided to play up recently - I have 2 SD cards for my camera and whenever I insert one of them I get the message "the disk in drive f is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?" and I can't access my files.

I've trawled through the interntet and tried lots of things. I have run TestDisk and EASUS DataRecovery, and another one (can't remember name I'm afraid!), and none of them work. They don't seem to recognise that there are files on the card, andtherefore tell me there is nothing to recover. This seems to be reitterated by my disk manager which says my free space is the same as my capacity (just shy of 2 or 4 gb depending on what card I'm using). However, I KNOW my pics are still on there as when I put them back in my camera, I can flick through and see them, and it's the same when I put them in tothe memory card reader of my printer.

I don't have any wires to connect my camera to my pc and do it the old fashioned way (I think it's stored in a box somewhere several hundred miles away because I figured I would never need it!)

Does anyone have any more suggestions of why it's doing this and what I can do to fix it? Obviously I don't want to format it as I don't want to lose my pictures. I would be very grateful for an Answers for Dummies style reply if at all possible as I'm not exactly an expert!
Thank you!

Answer 1

the problem is most likely that Windows does not recognise the file type or format used by the Camera. See if there is an option in the camera settings on what format to use.

You will need to get the pictures off of the card before reformatting (should be a USB cable option). You should try to format in the computer first and see if the camera is happy with that format, then take a picture and load the card into the computer to ensure it reads the file format (should be jpg or jpeg) and after that it should be OK as long as you don't format the card in the camera.

Answer 2

There should be a technique working interior the historic past it incredibly is attempting to get entry to a record on your DVD burner. certainly, if thechronic is empty, no record would be stumbled on and an blunders would be stated. that's now and back an illustration of a viral an infection, in spite of the reality that this is a few thing as benign as choosing the wrongchronic whilst installation a scheduled activity. What i might do is this: acquire a replica of SysInternals (now Microsoft, i've got self assurance) technique Explorer. Have it working and then see which technique seems / disappears once you learn or close out of the interface message you pronounced. interior the homes for that technique, you would be waiting to work out the command-line that became carried out (e.g. the area of the record being run and/or the record attempting to run) and this provide you a clue to whether this is an outbreak or no longer. you may then use that filename or that technique string to seek the internet for a connection with a ordinary virus form, if it exists. in spite of everything, i might advise you run an outbreak test interior the period in-between, just to work out what's detected and if this solves the priority.

Answer 3

On some cameras that use SD cards, they use a proprietary filesystem, which can only be read by the camera itself. If you haven't tried the SD card in another computer, then you may be locked into using the USB cable.

If all else fails, format the card on Windows and see if your camera will use it with the computer-friendly filesystem.