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alert5 · 02-08-03, 06:37 PM

I think I was the somebody and yes, my problems with a 128 SD Card mirror the observations above. In order to get some control over this, I downloaded and installed the Wintersoft utility, StorageTools (http://www.wintersoft.com/storagetool.html). I'm not advocating this particular tool and have no association with that company.

With the tool I was able to see that the SD Card was configured as a FAT16 device. Wow! This is a flashback to the early 80s, because if the same DOS rules apply to this storage medium, then the following is true:

- FAT 16 can have at most 512 files in the root directory and any folder on the root can contain an unlimited number of files up to the capacity of the device.
- The default for cluster sizes are:

0-32 MB, 512 bytes
33-64 MB, 1 KB
65-128 MB, 2 KB
129-256 MB, 4 KB
257-511 MB, 8 KB
512-1023 MB, 16 KB
1024-2047 MB, 32 KB
2048-4095 MB, 64 KB

- From 512 MB to 4095 MB you could use FAT32 starting with Windows 98 and use a 4 KB cluster size to save slack space. I don't know if WindowsCE supports FAT 32. If I had a 512 MB or larger disk, I certainly would try it.

At any rate, I formatted my 128 MB card as FAT16 with 2KB cluster size and StorageTools indicates 16% slack. I formatted it again with 4KB cluster and it reported 12% slack. I haven't had any problems for a day at least. A little too early to tell, but if this format, analysis and defrag tool works out, then I would have to suspect the built-in format utility of the Axim OS is shaky at best.

Don't give up on all those SD Cards yet.

I'm really irritated that SanDisk provides no user help that I can find on this subject.

02-08-03, 06:37 PM	#9 (permalink)
alert5 Aximsite Rookie DAP Freshman Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Brockton, MA Posts: 61 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	I think I was the somebody and yes, my problems with a 128 SD Card mirror the observations above. In order to get some control over this, I downloaded and installed the Wintersoft utility, StorageTools (http://www.wintersoft.com/storagetool.html). I'm not advocating this particular tool and have no association with that company. With the tool I was able to see that the SD Card was configured as a FAT16 device. Wow! This is a flashback to the early 80s, because if the same DOS rules apply to this storage medium, then the following is true: - FAT 16 can have at most 512 files in the root directory and any folder on the root can contain an unlimited number of files up to the capacity of the device. - The default for cluster sizes are: 0-32 MB, 512 bytes 33-64 MB, 1 KB 65-128 MB, 2 KB 129-256 MB, 4 KB 257-511 MB, 8 KB 512-1023 MB, 16 KB 1024-2047 MB, 32 KB 2048-4095 MB, 64 KB - From 512 MB to 4095 MB you could use FAT32 starting with Windows 98 and use a 4 KB cluster size to save slack space. I don't know if WindowsCE supports FAT 32. If I had a 512 MB or larger disk, I certainly would try it. At any rate, I formatted my 128 MB card as FAT16 with 2KB cluster size and StorageTools indicates 16% slack. I formatted it again with 4KB cluster and it reported 12% slack. I haven't had any problems for a day at least. A little too early to tell, but if this format, analysis and defrag tool works out, then I would have to suspect the built-in format utility of the Axim OS is shaky at best. Don't give up on all those SD Cards yet. I'm really irritated that SanDisk provides no user help that I can find on this subject.