Anyone know a way to format an SD card from MxFFS to FAT? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Dan123456
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 06:06:08 am
content: Hey allI have just been doing a bit of an electronic storage clean up and have come across 3 X 4GB SD cards that I pulled out of some old security cameras and they are all using the MxFFS format (which appears to be a proprietary format from some quick googling).When I plug it into my computer it says they only have a 16MB capacity, and it stays that way even in the format options (AKA I do have the option to format them to FAT through windows, but they would stay as 16MB cards which wouldn’t be great)Do any of you guys know a way to format them to FAT or NTFS and bring them back to their 4GB capacity?I imagine there probably is some software I could use to do this as I have a vague memory of using a program to do something similar many years ago (probably to use a standard USB in gaming consoles or something like that) but figured I’d ask you all for any pointers before I start randomly downloading all kinds of crapNo stress if the answer is just a flat “Nope, can’t be done” as 4GB SD cards aren’t exactly expensive these daysJust figured I’d give it a shot as they could be useful to have around for Arduino projectsThanks so much for your time in advance all

author: retiredfeline
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 06:19:58 am
content: It could be reporting the capacity of the first partition. You should fire up a disk formatter program and examine the partitions on it.

author: Dan123456
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 06:49:33 am
content: Quote from: retiredfeline on November 25, 2023, 06:19:58 amThank youAny recommendations for a good disk formatter program these days?

author: retiredfeline
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 07:00:48 am
content: Any OS should come with its own.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 08:11:06 am
content: Google how to list, remove or add partitions on Windows. AFAIK there are utilities bundled with the OS.On Linux I would know if the cards are in at least semi-working condition and have them formatted to any FS I want in minutes...

author: Dan123456
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 11:29:47 am
content: Yeah na, windows standard one is poo (and I am pretty sure that is why I used a third party one back in the day)I just gave it a go for shits and giggles and I could delete the “hidden” 3.68GB partition but won’t let me extend the other volume so now just have a 16MB partition and 3.86 GB of unallocatable space that I can’t do anything withAll goodI’ll do so googling and try and find a good third part one these daysFigured I’d just ask here first incase you all had any recommendations to save me installing and uninstalling 15 different useless programs or that stupid paid software that doesn’t tell you it’s paid until after you’ve installed it type crap (google is so, so broken when looking for free software these days as always just gives you pages upon pages of sponsored crap)

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 11:41:57 am
content: If you don't need to keep any existing data on the card, you can just do a clean format from scratch. Then you should be able to get the full capacity with any file system you wish (e.g. FAT32). Don't mess around trying to delete or extend existing partitions, just wipe it clean and start over.I'm not sure why the Windows disk management utility can't do it for you?

author: Lindley
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 11:44:09 am
content: Have you tried GParted on a usb stick ?https://gparted.org/

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 11:48:14 am
content: It's an SD card, for heaven's sake. You just format the things. It's not rocket science.

author: retiredfeline
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 11:52:20 am
content: Just wipe all partitions and create a single one. People who extend partitions want to preserve existing data. That's not you.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 12:03:01 pm
content: TheHP USB Disk Storage Format Toolis the simplest tool that completely wipes and re-builds the partition to a single one:https://download.cnet.com/hp-usb-disk-storage-format-tool/3000-2094_4-10974082.htmlA bit more complex isRufus, which also allows writing disk images to it.https://rufus.ie/en/I have been using both a very long time and they work very well.

author: Dan123456
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 12:20:14 pm
content: Awesome thanks so much all!Quote from: IanB on November 25, 2023, 11:48:14 amUsually, I’d absolutely agree with you!However, I remember the windows tool having issues in the past with weird formats which seems to be a similar situation here (although I think that was more partitions windows could not see back then - but this was years ago so can’t remember exactly).I can’t delete or modify the 16MB partition and cannot do anything with the other partition (all the options are greyed out!) and can not see any option to “factory wipe” the card and just start over.That said, I very well could be doing something wrongI just remember needing to use third party software for funky formats / partitions back in the day and am assuming this is one of those casesEdit: oh and oh formatting, if I try it only formats the 16MB partition. It will not let me format the 3.86 partition (even before I deleted it)

author: DavidAlfa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 12:37:11 pm
content: Wipe all partitions and create a new one.In Windows, execute diskpart in a cmd window.list disk, find the SD numbersel disk n, where n is the previous numbercleancreate part priformat fs=FAT32 quickassignDone!

author: Stray Electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 02:08:53 pm
content: Quote from: Dan123456 on November 25, 2023, 11:29:47 amI think the OP's problem here is that he doesn't want to delete his 16Mb DOS/Windows partition and lose his already installed programs. But in order to reformat the card under DOS or Windows, he's going to have to deleteallof the partitions before he can re-partition the card as one big single partition.I don't know of any program that can re-partition a drive without losing the data within a partition. But you might be able to save the data to a 2nd drive using Ghost or something like that and then reinstall it to the new larger partition after re-partitioning. Even Copy or Xcopy or PKzip should be able to do that and preserve the path names and also copy all of the hidden files.You might want to experiment with copying your data to a 2nd drive and then try restoring it to a 3rd scratch drive to see how that works (Before re-partitioning your original drive.)

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 02:36:08 pm
content: Quote from: Dan123456 on November 25, 2023, 11:29:47 amPEBKAC. Why in hell you need to extend any partition? Deleteallpartitions and create a new one taking a whole memory card size. Or use diskpart to delete partition table completely and create new from scratch.

author: DavidAlfa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 02:36:56 pm
content: Windows only uses the first partition of removable drives.So you might partition a 16GB SD/USB stick into two 8GB partitions, windows will only show the first one.Some stupid limitation I can't remember were it came from.I think it only applies to MBR systems, not GPT.Fat partitions can't be extended using Windows, but other programs will do.Unless you want to keep the partition for some reason, just wipe them using the previous instructions.

author: Dan123456
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 02:42:36 pm
content: Quote from: Stray Electron on November 25, 2023, 02:08:53 pmNa, I’m happy to loose any and all data on thereThe Windows tool just doesn’t seem to let me delete the 16MB partition or combine the 2 or allow me to delete everything and start over! The only option that isn’t greyed out is format and that won’t let me format the whole card into one part (selecting it only formats the 16MB partition)!That said, it is always possible I am just doing something wrongIt’s 1:45 am here now but will take some screenshots in the morning to show what I mean and will try some of the options people have suggested tomorrow

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 02:45:47 pm
content: David's suggestion to use diskpart will work (unless the card is fake/bad), but diskpart is deeply unfriendly and you could be one mistyped keystroke away from erasing your system drive, or another fixed drive. If you do choose to use it, after the sel command, dodetail diskand carefully examine the results to confirm the selected disk is actually the SD card!My first choice would be to try the official SD association formatter utility, and only dive into partition utilities if it fails.

author: DavidAlfa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 03:10:44 pm
content: Unless you have other 4GB drives... Just check it out carefully.Once I wiped a 2TB hdd because I accidentally choose the drive showing 1900GB instead 1900MB!

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 04:11:29 pm
content: Quote from: Ian.M on November 25, 2023, 02:45:47 pmThis is a good idea too, if such a thing exists and if it can do what you need it to do.SD cards are specified to work best if the data partition and the user data area of the filesystem (FAT32 for 4GB) are particularly aligned. Standard OS tools are clueless about it (or did they become better recently?), although I must say that I have never had any serious problems due to the use of computer formatted cards. The worst that happened was one Panasonic camera which complained on every power-on that the card "can't be used for recording and should be formatted", but it still worked normally.BTW, are they SD or SDHC cards? Both existed...

author: Peabody
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 04:53:56 pm
content: Well, if you're going to use the cards for Arduino projects, then chances are you have an Arduino or two laying around. If you also have an SD card module, you could use the SdFormatter.ino example in the Arduino SdFat.h library to completely erase and format the cards. I can't guarantee it would look past all the existing partitions and do that, but I suspect it would.That method has the advantage that it leaves almost all the card in the erased state, which means it won't need to be erased before writing to it. I don't think anything running in Windows can do that.It's also possible some other camera would do it. A camera which offers a "low level" format option will also erase the card.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2023, 05:12:30 pm
content: RTS5129, RTS5139, RTS5179, RTS5170 are Realtek USB chips which expose low level SD interface to the host (not USB Mass Storage). There used to be similar PCI chips and I believe some x86 laptop SoCs also have native SD/SDIO controllers. I don't know if their Windows drivers expose trim functionality to the OS, but it works on Linux.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 26, 2023, 01:16:51 am
content: Quote from: rsjsouza on November 25, 2023, 12:03:01 pm+1Very handy utility that I've used a few times when Windows becomes stubborn. Does what it says on the tin.

author: Veteran68
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 26, 2023, 01:52:32 am
content: Quote from: Ian.M on November 25, 2023, 02:45:47 pm^^^ This. It's what I've always used to "recover" stubbornly formatted SD cards.https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/

author: Dan123456
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 26, 2023, 02:47:18 am
content: As promised, here are some screen shots of what I am talking about with the Windows tool not letting me do stuffThe options for the 16MB partition were the same before formatting it tooWill give the options you guys suggested a go nowReally appreciate all your help!

author: Dan123456
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 26, 2023, 03:10:49 am
content: Thank you so much rsjsouza and HalcyonThe HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool works perfectlyI am sure a bunch of the other options that you guys recommended would have worked great tooThat just happened to be the first one I triedThank you all so, so much once again!