# Solved: SD Card formatting problem: how to nuke?



## zapp22 (Nov 26, 2004)

friends I have a sandisk 8gb sd card that works fine for copying/writing/reading, and in the past worked fine as a boot device. since then, I believe my nemesis was a Linux program I used to makeboot a Mint distro. since that time, though I can reformat it [apparently] using win 7 disk management, the windows iso makeboot utility [ http://download.cnet.com/Windows-7-USB-DVD-Download-Tool/3000-18513_4-10972600.html ] cannot put down any data on the drive. I'm assuming that even though I cannot see any data using the normal tools, there is something there at the boot zero position that is inhibiting it being formatted correctly. the utility manages discs just dandy

can someone point me to an answer? is a camera any better at nuking old/odd data than is a pc tool?
also, does it make a diff what sort of reader I use? in the past that has not seemed to be an issue, but I'm wondering.

thanks for your advice
z


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## iKarnt (Jun 17, 2012)

yep, linux was the reason. see what you got is a "partitioned" flash card, something only linux can do, windows can only play with 1 partition on your card. formatting the "Data" section over and over will never affect the linux distro on there. 
What you need to do is go, right click ma computer, "Manage" then click "Disk management" from the pane on left on the windows manager, find your victim.. err I mean card. and you should see the partitions. Right click kill, delete etc and then once its all RAW then your green to re-format to NTFS or FAT etc.. 
Luck.


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

HP USB Disk Format Tool
SD Format Tool (Formats all types of SD cards, including 
the new SDXC cards with sizes up to 2 TB. The SDXC cards can be formatted in a standard reader, but you may need 
the driver that is also available on that page.)


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## zapp22 (Nov 26, 2004)

is there some dark meaning to this: does not support the erase function? see image pls [this was from the SD Formatter]

also, just for fun I dl'd the >32GB driver, and got error saying "system not supported".... why do they hate AMD ..
this is a thinkpad x120e running x64 win7


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

Does the card work now?

The card does not support that erase function.


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## zapp22 (Nov 26, 2004)

yep. that sd formatter tool seems to have done it. at least it lets the win7 tool do its thing. whether or not it boots is going to be a "it depends" answer based on which device i stick it in, the reader, the bios, the drivers.... you know that drill.
main issue is SOLVED. 
thx


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