USB card reader question

I just got a Dazzle (Radio Shack) card reader for my SmartMedia memory
cards. So far it's not working.

1. I'm not sure which side of the card goes up, in the card reader.

2. When I plug the card reader into my USB port, the pc opens drives G and
H. Is this normal? I guess there's a drive designation for each of the
two card slots in the Dazzle.

3. When I attempt to view card content, I get an error message telling me
the card needs formatting. Doubtful, since these two cards had pictures on
them from my digi cam.

4. I decided to go ahead and remformat. When selecting that option, I got
another error message telling me the cards couldn't be formatted.

5. I know the camera uses FAT 16. My WinXP uses either FAT 32 or NTFS.
Is there a format compatability problem nibbling on me here since the cards
are tossing FAT 16 into the mix?

rb wrote:

> I just got a Dazzle (Radio Shack) card reader for my SmartMedia memory
> cards. So far it's not working.
>
> 1. I'm not sure which side of the card goes up, in the card reader.
>
> 2. When I plug the card reader into my USB port, the pc opens drives G and
> H. Is this normal? I guess there's a drive designation for each of the
> two card slots in the Dazzle.
>
> 3. When I attempt to view card content, I get an error message telling me
> the card needs formatting. Doubtful, since these two cards had pictures on
> them from my digi cam.
>
> 4. I decided to go ahead and remformat. When selecting that option, I got
> another error message telling me the cards couldn't be formatted.
>
> 5. I know the camera uses FAT 16. My WinXP uses either FAT 32 or NTFS.
> Is there a format compatability problem nibbling on me here since the cards
> are tossing FAT 16 into the mix?
>
>

WinXP handles NTFS, FAT32, FAT16 (a/k/a FAT), and FAT12 just fine; and, in
any mixture. That is not your problem.

It could be that you inserted the card upside down; I don't know if that is
possible for a smart card, but maybe. If so, you probably haven't lost any files.

To be safe, always format in the camera; cameras do not always format volumes
(i.e., cards) that same way that WinXP does -- formatting is kind of a one-way
process in that WinXP should be able to read from a card that a camera has
formatted, but the camera may not be able to read from a card that WinXP has
formatted.

Don't worry about RAW - that is an attribute of a file, not of a filesystem.
Your card is formatted for FAT16, and will hold files which may be RAW or JPEG
(or, in theory, any of many other types of files).
--
Cheers, Bob