My old 1 GB Lexar X4 Compact Flash card was working fine in my PDA
providing me with plenty or storage for my iPAQ 4700 since it was
combined with a 1 GB SD card as well. My friend wasn't using his PDA
much and when he handed me his CF card from his PDA to transfer some
data over to my PDA, his card was not readable (his card didn't show
up at all on my PDA) so I gave his CF card back to him and he realized
that it wasn't readable on his either. My CF card was readable on my
PDA at that time. It turned out that he was a little confused and
hadn't actually put the data in question on his card but had put it
somewhere else on his PDA. So we were trying to figure out why his CF
card wasn't showing up on his PDA. We wanted to figure out if it was
the card or the PDA that had a problem. So I said here, my card is
working fine, pop my card into your PDA and see if it recognizes it.
It didn't. So he gives my card back to me and I put it back in my PDA
and my iPAQ suddenly asks me if I want to format my CF card. I say,
"no" but now my CF card is not readable in my PDA. Everytime I put
the card in it asks if I want to format it and I say "no" but then it
doesn't appear in File Explorer as a memory card. I don't have
anything so valuable on the card so I finally answered "yes" hoping
that at least it would format it and it would become usable again. It
didn't. It appears to format it but then it's still not found. Then
I used a card reader on my computer and tried to format this card
using WXP's formatting application and it says that it is formatting
it but then before finishing the process, it just says the disk could
not be formatted or formatting could not be completed. I downloaded
a program called OnBelay which is specifially for recovering data from
Flash media, thinking it would be better able to perform a successful
format than WXP and it supposedly formatted it taking quite a while to
do so. But when I try to access the card from WXP it still says the
drive is not formatted. The PDA still acts the same with it as well.
Of course it's much cheaper now, but when I bought it, this card cost
more than the PDA I was using it with --over $200! Is there any way
to make this card usable again? -Or should I just trash it and figure
it's an education to not be so eager to insert my equipment into
unfamiliar territory? |
