I recently bought a 32GB Samsung 280x Compact Flash memory card on ebay which was unformated so i formated it?

Question

in xp but its only come up as 6.06GB? Have i formated it wrong or could it be a fake! plus is there a formating tool specifically for CF cards or samsung CF cards

Answer 1

If you are using this card in a digital camera, format it IN THE CAMERA, not your PC. Then see if there is a difference.

If not, try and get your money back.

Good luck.

ps. Also, If it is for a camera, is your camera capable of taking a 32gb card ???

Answer 2

Be very careful of stuff from Ebay or Amazon Marketplace. A LOT of it is fake/counterfeit. It constantly amazes me the amount of people who don't even realise and give these crooks good feedback and repeat business.

I've had a fake Canon camera battery from an Amazon Marketplace seller.

Fake Sony DJ headphones from Ebay (via China).

If you look at the packaging/build quality it's usually easy to tell if your item is legitimate, though too late if it's not.

Answer 3

Yes.....

If you format it as fat32 and it reads 6.06...then you got FLEECED, bamboozled.....ripped off...whatever you may call it.....

But make sure its fat 32 and not fat or fat16. Fat 16 only supports 4gb. Additionally, with a lot of these fake cards, the counterfeiters tamper with the filesystem to read 32gb. Some time they accidentally corrupt it or a newer operating system sees the discrepancy and marks it as corrupt...requiring reformatting.

There is a program that will test the drive to an extent.....

http://www.download.com/USB-Flash-Drive-...

OEM cards, especially Samsung ones are usually FAKE and especially on ebay.

I would find a program that tests the disk....or write a lot of files to the disk......about 32gb worth...

I would also dispute it on eBay and return the item for "item not as described".

This is what happens when you are cheap, but not clever.....never....ever....buy cheapo memory cards or ram....there are so many fakes on the market....and eBay..that its a joke....

Do not forget to leave him negative feedback to warn other buyers.

Buy a Lexar 8gb Professional 300x which are the best available.....or a Transcend 16gb, which are also respectable. Kingston is good but slow.

The slower transcend runs as fast as the lexar 300x when comparing the the Transcend 16gb version.

Answer 4

This site shows some ways of checking cards.

http://www.overclockers.com.au/wiki/Fake...

Cards of this size use the HC protocol and are not Fat 32, let alone Fat 16. If I remember rightly  6Gb is the maximum that Fat 32 (1 ^ 32) can format a card to. Your PC won't have the protocols to format this card correctly.

Don't format large cards for your camera on the PC, always use the camera to format them, the camera needs files on the card to communicate with it, these are renewed everytime you format within camera, formating on the PC can corrupt the cards root directory. Reformatting in camera should restore them.

Chris