Reformatting is suggested

[brianpgreen]

One of the suggestions I received from the fellas at support when dealing with the firmware update fiasco was to reformat my sd card using exFat. Dude was very confident that was going to solve my problem. I was skeptical but did it anyway. Needless to say, it had nothing to do with the Firmware problem but has resulted in a new problem. I'm getting a message in the app saying "Reformatting is suggested" the app doesn't show how much room is on the card, and the option to reformat the card in the app is not available anymore. I tried reformatting it back to Fat32 but that didn't help. I can still record video and take pictures but I have no way to know when the card is full.

Any suggestions? I'd call support buy my confidence in those guys is low right now.

 

[huppe]

One of the suggestions I received from the fellas at support when dealing with the firmware update fiasco was to reformat my sd card using exFat. Dude was very confident that was going to solve my problem. I was skeptical but did it anyway. Needless to say, it had nothing to do with the Firmware problem but has resulted in a new problem. I'm getting a message in the app saying "Reformatting is suggested" the app doesn't show how much room is on the card, and the option to reformat the card in the app is not available anymore. I tried reformatting it back to Fat32 but that didn't help. I can still record video and take pictures but I have no way to know when the card is full.

Any suggestions? I'd call support buy my confidence in those guys is low right now.

First did you try another memorycard?

 

[The Editor]

One of the suggestions I received from the fellas at support when dealing with the firmware update fiasco was to reformat my sd card using exFat. Dude was very confident that was going to solve my problem. I was skeptical but did it anyway. Needless to say, it had nothing to do with the Firmware problem but has resulted in a new problem. I'm getting a message in the app saying "Reformatting is suggested" the app doesn't show how much room is on the card, and the option to reformat the card in the app is not available anymore. I tried reformatting it back to Fat32 but that didn't help. I can still record video and take pictures but I have no way to know when the card is full.

Any suggestions? I'd call support buy my confidence in those guys is low right now.

Do a low level format on the card on your PC in Fat32. That should solve it.

 

[brianpgreen]

I put a new card in a few minutes ago. Oddly enough it didn't have the message about reformatting being suggested but it did cause the app to tell me that my camera needs an update, which it doesn't. Weird.

I already tried reformatting to Fat32 but I'll give it another shot.

 

[InterMurph]

Always format your memory card in the Inspire. This way the Inspire chooses the file system that it prefers, and ignores the often-contradictory preferences of various DJI support personnel.

This is a well-known practice in all of digital photography: always format the card in the camera that will write to it. Never use a card formatted in a different camera, or on a computer.

 

[The Editor]

Always format your memory card in the Inspire. This way the Inspire chooses the file system that it prefers, and ignores the often-contradictory preferences of various DJI support personnel.

This is a well-known practice in all of digital photography: always format the card in the camera that will write to it. Never use a card formatted in a different camera, or on a computer.

You're absolutely right - I was suggesting the OP formatted on the PC doing a Full (low level) format to Fat32 just to get the Inspire to recognise the card again. Then that should be followed by a format in camera.

 

[InterMurph]

I think formatting it in the Inspire will solve his problem.

I have grown both weary and wary of the "format it" school of computer diagnostics and repair. Whenever you search for help with a Windows problem, you find people saying, "Just reformat your disk and reinstall Windows." I have now heard both "format it with ExFAT" and "format it with FAT32" from DJI support engineers.

Formatting is almost never the solution to a computer problem, other than an improperly-formatted disk. When somebody tells you to format, be very skeptical.

 

[The Editor]

I think formatting it in the Inspire will solve his problem.

I have grown both weary and wary of the "format it" school of computer diagnostics and repair. Whenever you search for help with a Windows problem, you find people saying, "Just reformat your disk and reinstall Windows." I have now heard both "format it with ExFAT" and "format it with FAT32" from DJI support engineers.

Formatting is almost never the solution to a computer problem, other than an improperly-formatted disk. When somebody tells you to format, be very skeptical.

You're right again but.......if you look at the OP's original post you will see he lost the ability to format the card in the camera after writing ExFat allocation tables to the media.

 

[InterMurph]

I see that now. I also see:

I can still record video and take pictures but I have no way to know when the card is full.

Which doesn't make a bit of sense.

Hopefully your recommendation will work. I was going to recommend the Disk Management utility in Windows, which would let you remove a volume and partition from a disk. But I just tried it on my MicroSD card, and it won't let you do that; the only option is Format.

 

[Fink]

I would recommend performing the "clean all" command on the SD card via Command Prompt in Windows.

Open Command Prompt as Administrator
Type diskpart
Type list disk
Select the SD card (you may need to look at drive sizes in order to determine which is the SD card)
Type clean all (the space is required)
Type exit

Once back at Windows, you can try reinserting the SD card back into the Inspire to see if it realizes there is no partition table on the card and allows you to reformat, or you can simply try reformatting through Windows. When reformatting through Windows, be absolutely sure the only option you select is "exFAT". Outside of that, I recommend choosing the options that say "Default" in them - "Default allocation size", for example.

Good luck!

 

[InterMurph]

Isn't exFAT what got him into this situation in the first place?

 

[Fink]

Isn't exFAT what got him into this situation in the first place?

I don't believe exFAT is the issue, as that's the file system the Inspire itself uses. I'm hopeful that a full cleaning of the partition table will allow the Inspire to format it itself.

 

[brianpgreen]

Thanks guys. I appreciate all the ideas. I'll try reformatting again but I think I may get myself a bigger card, which I was going to do anyway, and just not sweat it.

 

[Fink]

Thanks guys. I appreciate all the ideas. I'll try reformatting again but I think I may get myself a bigger card, which I was going to do anyway, and just not sweat it.

These situations always make for great excuses to upgrade!

 

[ARF]

What has worked for me is.

1. format card via PC
2. format card in Inspire
3. Then copy bin and complete firmware updates.

If it still doesn't work I've found using a different PC card reader/writer can fix the problem. I've had problems when bin has been transferred to the card via an external USB adapter but then it worked fine when the file was copied using a different computer and USB port. For some reason the process of copying of the bin file to the card is very sensitive.

 

[Fink]

What has worked for me is.

1. format card via PC
2. format card in Inspire
3. Then copy bin and complete firmware updates.

If it still doesn't work I've found using a different PC card reader/writer can fix the problem. I've had problems when bin has been transferred to the card via an external USB adapter but then it worked fine when the file was copied using a different computer and USB port. For some reason the process of copying of the bin file to the card is very sensitive.

The problem OP was having was that after he formatted using his PC, the Inspire was having trouble formatting internally. Weird either way, though.

 

[Cyclops]

Unfortunately this whole software / firmware mashup has resulted in my 64GB Sandisk Extreme Plus card becoming unreadable and unreformattable.

It will not re-format in the X5 and I can't get it to re-format on my Mac using Disc Utility. I even tried Disk Warrior and re-formatting in other devices such as a Go-Pro.