Newb question on CF Card

[MGP]

I have a 128mb CF card that I just put into my new Dell Axim X5 Advanced PDA. The card seems to only register for about 121 MB...is this normal? In addition, as I got the card (used) for free from someone, I think it might have data still on it as the PocketPC says it has 0.68MB used storage...if so, how do I get at this data and delete it so that I can put MP3s on the card? Thanks in advance for input!

[Itanium]

121 is norm. The advertised space is always raw unformatted space and is a convention used evrywhere (Whats your desktop HD capacity? try to measure that too ).

As for the 0.68MB used, I reckon that is also some used by file tables or things like that. If you can't see any listing using explorer, it is fine. Still if you want to be sure, you can format the card and then you will have maximum space available.

[MGP]

Thanks for your help! I had a feeling that the situation was similar to PC HD's, so thanks for clarification...I'm a total newb in pda's... ^_^

Anyways, how would I format a CF storage card? I don't believe the Dell doc addresses this?

[Duckman]

A while back, there was a thread that discussed formatting CF and SD cards that for their first use.

Here is a link.

Hope this helps you out!

[gvanjr]

Originally posted by MGP@Oct 20 2003, 09:07 PM
Thanks for your help! I had a feeling that the situation was similar to PC HD's, so thanks for clarification...I'm a total newb in pda's... ^_^

Anyways, how would I format a CF storage card? I don't believe the Dell doc addresses this?

There's an app available at handango.com called Storage Tools that will format, defrag memory cards.

[Itanium]

StorageTools is a nice application. Other options are FlashFormat or Resco Explorer. Later is a very nice file explorer too.