Formatting the drive may delete all data, but unless you have a good reason to do it i wouldn't do it. Especially as it is not clear what filesystem you should format it as. If you just want to delete all the files the simplest way may be to connect it to your computer and delete them from there. You can connect it to you computer via the usb cable that came with it. If not you can use a USB data cable, USB to micro USB.
I have one of these things. Just connect it to a computer with a USB cable and turn it on. In Windows it will appear as a drive letter. On a Mac it will show on the desktop as a volume. Then format the drive with either FAT or FAT32 (Mac: MS-DOS format) If you accidentally format it with anything else the SmartDisk will show an error message in which case you can just reformat it correctly. It is recommended to reformat the drive regularly and also check for errors - you would not want to dump your precious photo memories onto a potentially faulty disk drive. Anthony Maw, Vancouver, CanadaI have one of these things. Just connect it to a computer with a USB cable and turn it on. In Windows it will appear as a drive letter. On a Mac it will show on the desktop as a volume. Then format the drive with either FAT or FAT32 (Mac: MS-DOS format) If you accidentally format it with anything else the SmartDisk will show an error message in which case you can just reformat it correctly. It is recommended to reformat the drive regularly and also check for errors - you would not want to dump your precious photo memories onto a potentially faulty disk drive. Anthony Maw, Vancouver, Canada
I don't like to use format, unless at setup of the disk, or if it is the only way to solve a problem. It can remove all style="display:none;">I don't like to use format, unless at setup of the disk, or if it is the only way to solve a problem. It can remove all data, even that necessary stuff that may be hidden on a normal display. I agree that checking your media regularly is not a bad idea For hard drives there are utilities that can do this continually. I use Hard Disk Sentinel, but there are others, that can give advance warning of drive failure. Flash memory could fail after a check, so I don't usually check it as often, if at all. For Flash memory, I would use CHKDSK, run from the command prompt in windows. For XP To open a command prompt, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt. Enter chdsk #: where # is the drive letter of the device you want to check. Storage is so cheap these days that if i have any data I don't want to lose, i have it backed up in several different places.
Just connect your drive to a computer using the USB cable. It will mount as a drive letter in Windows or a volume on the desktop on a Mac. After you have copied out or imported all the photos, just reformat it as FAT or FAT32. If you accidentally format with any other system it will show an error message on the LCD display - just reformat it correctly. It is recommended to reformat and check the drive for errors regularly to ensure that your precious photos aren't lost because of a failing disk drive.
it's perfectly fine to just format the SmartDisk and I do it all the time. There are no hidden files. The device operating system is embedded on an IC chip on the main circuit board. You can swap out the hard drive for a bigger one - i did that and my SmartDisk is now 160GB. This is a great upgrade because you can dump video files onto it from the new cameras that shoot HD video. One of the hazards of FAT file system is that it can become corrupted over time but you won't know it until you try to read back your pictures and then it's too late so reformatting regularly is the only way to ensure file system stability. Also good to know is that it uses a standard Nokia compatible 5V cell phone charger. To determine if the hard disk is in danger of imminent failure you would need to run S.M.A.R.T. utilities to read the pre-failure parameters. The chkdsk alone doesn't do the job. The S.M.A.R.T. diagnostic utilities are usually published for free by the disk drive manufacturers.it's perfectly fine to just format the SmartDisk and I do it all the time. There are no hidden files. The device operating system is embedded on an IC chip on the main circuit board. You can swap out the hard drive for a bigger one - i did that and my SmartDisk is now 160GB. This is a great upgrade because you can dump video files onto it from the new cameras that shoot HD video. One of the hazards of FAT file system is that it can become corrupted over time but you won't know it until you try to read back your pictures and then it's too late so reformatting regularly is the only way to ensure file system stability. Also good to know is that it uses a standard Nokia compatible 5V cell phone charger. To determine if the hard disk is in danger of imminent failure you would need to run S.M.A.R.T. utilities to read the pre-failure parameters. The chkdsk alone doesn't do the job. The S.M.A.R.T. diagnostic utilities are usually published for free by the disk drive manufacturers.
Answers & Comments
Formatting the drive may delete all data, but unless you have a good reason to do it i wouldn't do it.
Especially as it is not clear what filesystem you should format it as.
If you just want to delete all the files the simplest way may be to connect it to your computer and delete them from there.
You can connect it to you computer via the usb cable that came with it.
If not you can use a USB data cable, USB to micro USB.
I have one of these things. Just connect it to a computer with a USB cable and turn it on. In Windows it will appear as a drive letter. On a Mac it will show on the desktop as a volume. Then format the drive with either FAT or FAT32 (Mac: MS-DOS format) If you accidentally format it with anything else the SmartDisk will show an error message in which case you can just reformat it correctly. It is recommended to reformat the drive regularly and also check for errors - you would not want to dump your precious photo memories onto a potentially faulty disk drive. Anthony Maw, Vancouver, Canada
I don't like to use format, unless at setup of the disk, or if it is the only way to solve a problem.
It can remove all style="display:none;">I don't like to use format, unless at setup of the disk, or if it is the only way to solve a problem. It can remove all data, even that necessary stuff that may be hidden on a normal display. I agree that checking your media regularly is not a bad idea For hard drives there are utilities that can do this continually. I use Hard Disk Sentinel, but there are others, that can give advance warning of drive failure. Flash memory could fail after a check, so I don't usually check it as often, if at all. For Flash memory, I would use CHKDSK, run from the command prompt in windows. For XP To open a command prompt, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt. Enter chdsk #: where # is the drive letter of the device you want to check. Storage is so cheap these days that if i have any data I don't want to lose, i have it backed up in several different places.
Just connect your drive to a computer using the USB cable. It will mount as a drive letter in Windows or a volume on the desktop on a Mac. After you have copied out or imported all the photos, just reformat it as FAT or FAT32. If you accidentally format with any other system it will show an error message on the LCD display - just reformat it correctly. It is recommended to reformat and check the drive for errors regularly to ensure that your precious photos aren't lost because of a failing disk drive.
it's perfectly fine to just format the SmartDisk and I do it all the time. There are no hidden files. The device operating system is embedded on an IC chip on the main circuit board. You can swap out the hard drive for a bigger one - i did that and my SmartDisk is now 160GB. This is a great upgrade because you can dump video files onto it from the new cameras that shoot HD video. One of the hazards of FAT file system is that it can become corrupted over time but you won't know it until you try to read back your pictures and then it's too late so reformatting regularly is the only way to ensure file system stability. Also good to know is that it uses a standard Nokia compatible 5V cell phone charger. To determine if the hard disk is in danger of imminent failure you would need to run S.M.A.R.T. utilities to read the pre-failure parameters. The chkdsk alone doesn't do the job. The S.M.A.R.T. diagnostic utilities are usually published for free by the disk drive manufacturers.