lostandconfused wrote:

please help as soon as possible

Faster help is always available at a cost. My charge rate is $350/hr.

Try this. Boot up in Xandros. Figure out what the device name of the SDHC is (probably sdc) using

sudo fdisk -l

now you're going to repartition it.

sudo umount /dev/sdc1
sudo fdisk /dev/sdc

Where you use the device name for your SDHC (should be sdx where x is some letter).

Now in fdisk, new partition table:

o (enter)

Create a new partition
n (enter)

Pick primary (p), number 1, and press enter for the begin and end points (as long as the end is the last cycle of the drive; if it isn't, then make it that number).

Make it bootable

a (enter)

Write it

w (enter)

Remove it from the computer and reinsert it. Now format it.

mkfs.ext3 -b 4096 -L sd

You can replace sd with another label name.

The resulting disk should mount as a single partition of the full disk size.

Pick primary (p), number 1, and press enter for the begin and end points (as long as the end is the last cycle of the drive; if it isn't, then make it that number


how do i find out the last cycle?

its an 8GB SDHC card

It's listed right there:

Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-486, default 1):
Using default value 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-486, default 486):

In the last parentheses, see how mine says 1-486? 486 is the last one in my case. Make sure you set it for whatever the last one in is in your case....

E.G. 745 in your post above is the end or LAST cylinder. The first should be 1.

That's odd... try

sudo mkfs.ext3 -b 4096 -L sd

or try

sudo mkfs.ext2 -b 4096 -L sd

But at this point, having repartitioned it, you should not be seeing any files on it.

You could also reformat it as FAT if you want, but you need to go back into fdisk and do that again. After you make the partition with p, you would have to do t to change its type, and change it to e.g. FAT16 (option 6 on the list). The rest would be the same. To format in FAT, you would use

sudo mkfs.vfat -F 16 -n sd

Is the size as expected?

what is the easiest way to reformat this card? without having to use command line since this isnt working..

is it possible to reformat using a digital camera?

I don't think the SDHC is broken... although I could be wrong. I think you're doing something really wrong, that might be obvious if someone outside looked at  it, but that you're missing because you've tried this so many times. It doesn't make sense for the formatting to "almost finish" and then also leave all the files on the SD at the same time.

Take it to a computer store and ask them for help, perhaps.

Guys, I'm having the exact problem, but worse.
I have too a SDHC 8GB card turned into 3.75GB card. Nice
I was copying files into it when suddently windows crashed. After that the SD was unaccessible, unformatted etc.
Googling around I found a neat program (TestDisk) which gave me the opportunity to understand the problem. The card itself seems completely safe, no writing errors, no physical damage (and it is brand new), but I cannot successfully format it, but the thing that might seem "broken" is the MBR (master boot record), so also the partition table is. The geometry of the volume is incorrect. It should be 1024 cylinders, 256 heads, and 63 sectors that, multiplied by 512 gives 8GB (1024*256*63*512 bytes).
Testdisk says that the actual number of cylinders is 487 (which gives 3.75GB), but unfortunately if I try to change the geometry from the program and set it how it should be, nothing happens, and when i plug the card back in it gives me the exact same size as before.
I booted my pc into linux and tried to modify the MBR with fdisk, same result, no change, damn SDHC card.

Now I'm trying to format it with a tool by panasonic (link http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/s … atter.html )(which should also format the flash memory chip I hope). Weird thing is that it also states the 3.75GB size.

Any help is welcome!


P.S. it is a PEAK SDHC 8GB class 6 card with akward useless functions such as Error Correcting Code (ECC) (??) and In System Programming (ISP) function to load the firmware (????).

Last edited by bak16 (2008-03-19 7:23:00 am)

My memory card has started playing up - sometimes when i boot up my eee the memory card is seen, sometimes its not.

I dont know what to do.