Hello all!
I have been happy with my little Sony DSC-P72 for a few years,with its simply no frills zoom and shoot,but as we are well into the new season i though i`d purchase a camera with a few more features.
I purchased a Minolta dimage 5 with two 256mb compact flash cards,manual,etc…second hand from flee bay.
Now right from the start i am stumped!
The two cards i have need formatting as they have been used in a different camera.
I have read the manual,but it asumes you have purchased the camera new,with new cards!
Question: what do i need to do?
Do i need to purchase a seperate card reader and software for the p.c. to do this?
Is so any recomendations?
Any help on this or tips with the use for this camera most welcome!
Many Regards,
Ben.
By: malla1962 - 25th June 2006 at 18:20
NEVER format the card in a pc. :dev2:
By: Cambridge Flyer - 20th June 2006 at 18:41
Thanks for the help chaps!
Got hold of a card holder and downloaded a program called swissknife.
I used the swissknife program to re-format the cards to the basic raw fat system(as when the cards were new),as they had previously had been formatted by Windowzzz XP in either the more efficant fat 16/32 or NTFS,none of which were compatable with the camera.
All works fine now! 🙂
I shall now be able to get in some camera practice in time for Waddington.
On the subject of batteries i picked up 4 x 2500 mAh Nickle-Metal Hydride(?)rechargeables and charger yesterday.
These should be good for now,but i`ll pick another 4 up tomorrow!
Regards,
Ben.
By: paulc - 20th June 2006 at 14:35
Ben,
you need to format the cards in the camera rather than a card reader. The manual will tell you how to do this. I had a Dimage 7 and it was just a question of finding the right menu / sub-menu.
You might want to consider spare batteries / rechargeables or even a battery pack. The D7 was quite power hungry and even a set of 4no Lithium/Iron AA rechargeable would only last about 50 shots (power pack was 4 or 5 times that) I eventually had 6 sets of 4 + 2 chargers – a lot to carry if goaing abroad so the power pack was a much better purchase. (around £50 from USA)
By: Cliffair - 20th June 2006 at 14:34
Hi,
Just use the format feature on the camera and all will be well… Honest!
Cliff
By: Cambridge Flyer - 20th June 2006 at 14:27
Thanks william,
there is a feature on the camera to format the compact flash card,but i think this only applys to fresh new cards,needing to be formatted to suit the camera make(?).
I think it is all down to the cards needing to be formatted,as the previous owner erased the content prior to selling via his p.c.,and not the camera.
Does any body know what format these compact flash I & II cards should be formatted to?
Ben.
By: Scouse - 20th June 2006 at 14:12
Ben,
I can’t help with formatting the cards, although I suspect that somewhere buried in the depths of the camera manual should be directions for doing this.
As far as a card reader is concerned, if you’ve got a PC running on Windows XP then you shouldn’t need a driver. If all is hunky dory then the appropriate wizard should kick in the moment you connect the card reader. Failing that you should just be able to drag and drop the images into whatever folder you want. If you’ve got a full set of cables with the camera you can work straight from the camera without a reader anyway, although I must admit I use a reader just to save the camera’s batteries.
I’m pretty sure it’s the same for Windows ME, but you may need a driver if you’re on Windows 98. Macs don’t launch a wizard – or at least the last one I used to download pictures didn’t – but the drag and drop principle still applies.
Hope this helps,
William
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June 20, 2006 at 1:22 pm