Card Format Issues

We have in recent times been coming across quite a few card issues that customers are experiencing. The big issue is the way that the card is formatted and recognized by the camera. Most cameras now come with an option in the menu to format the card while inserted into the camera. This really needs to be done as gone are the days of being able to generically format the card in a computer then put it in the cameras and go. Each camera will name and format the card slightly differently to best suit it for the particular device. It is also a good idea to reformat your card regularly to make sure that there are no corruptions on the card. Some of the errors that you may find with a corrupt or improperly formatted card are things like video files that are corrupt and cannot be played, the camera may refuse to start recording and glitches through the footage. It is recommended by some manufacturers to format the card each use. But be sure to make a back up of all the footage before formatting as it will delete any data on the card.

The GoPro2 often comes up with SD Err on the screen with new cards inserted. These are super easy to format. Simply navigate through the menu settings on the camera until you get to the symbol of the recycling bin. Select it using the top button and then scroll to reformat. The error message will now go away and you are ready to go.

The Contour is a bit more fiddly. You need to power the camera on with the Micro SD card removed from the camera. It will beep 3 times as it powers up. Then re insert the card and using a paper clip to push down the format button located on the back of the camera. Hold this in until you hear a beep. Then turn the camera off and back on, upon which the camera will be ready for action. More can be viewed at http://help.contour.com/customer/portal/articles/251040-how-do-i-format-...

The Drift is the easiest of the cameras to reformat. Simply go into the menu under camera settings which is the 4th option. Then scroll down to format and hit the record button. Once this is done your camera will be ready again.

There are still other things that may prevent a card from working in your camera. Things such as the wrong class or actual damage to the hardware. But thankfully most of the time things can be resolved by a simple format.