Low-Level Format

[Minguy]

When my Bushnell trail cam intermittently stopped recognizing my SD card, support told me (without elaborating) to always do a low-level format and not to use its own format utility. This works, and I dont expect a firmware update to come along, so I can live with it. But I wonder why its necessary and if anyone else had received such a recommendation for photographic (or other) applications. It was sure new to me.

 

[Replytoken]

The advice I was always given was to to do any formatting of cards in the device they would be used and not on a PC. I cannot recall all of the details, but it had to do with the file formatting. When they told you not to use their utility, were they referring to it residing on a computer and not in the device?

--Ken

 

[Minguy]

I've always formatted in-device too, including that trailcam until it stopped seeing the card. It's been ages since anyone has mentioned low-level formatting around me in any context. Bushnell software only gives you a yes/no option for formatting, so support knew I'd have to format in another device, which is a Win10 laptop for me.

 

[tspear]

When my Bushnell trail cam intermittently stopped recognizing my SD card, support told me (without elaborating) to always do a low-level format and not to use its own format utility. This works, and I dont expect a firmware update to come along, so I can live with it. But I wonder why its necessary and if anyone else had received such a recommendation for photographic (or other) applications. It was sure new to me.

A low level format does more than wipe the data. by zeroing out each sector, each sector on the disk is effectively "checked". The result is the sectors which have gone bad are listed in the partition tables and will no longer be used.
A quick format, or high level format, only wipes the partition table.

Be aware, if this starts to happen more often, that means the media is starting to die. The low level format can buy time, and in some rare cases may only be needed to address a manufacturing or environment caused issue. But if you need to do this a couple of times on the same media, it is time to replace the media.

Tim

 

[Minguy]

Thanks both, that's good info.

 

[Linwood Ferguson]

I would also wonder, given that description, if the trail camera has buggy software, they don't want to admit it, and so are getting you to format it elsewhere by insisting on the low level aspect. Yes, I'm a cynic, but many companies are too cheap to fix stuff and too worried about marketing impact to admit problems. Not that this changes what you need to do of course, and Tim's comments on checking for bad blocks is spot on. Though one would expect that to be a one-off need (or at least infrequent) not an every time.

 

[Ken @ Canadian Rockies]

I am curious - what size SD card are you using? And what is the Maximum size allowed for your trail Cam?

 

[Gnits]

Also, model num of camera would be useful.