Format a mem card -- Fat16 or 32?

[gai-jin]

Due to recent trouble with my SD card/slot, I've hard reset my device and am reformatting my SD card. When formatting a memory card for your PPC, using a card reader connected to a windows XP machine, what format do you use? Fat 16, or fat 32?

And Why?

Gai-jin

[Dave Beauvais]

I use FAT32 for any meda larger than 128 MB. FAT32 makes the most space available for data, though admittedly, it's not a huge difference with today's relatively small storage cards.

As an aside, when flash media eventually breaks the 2 GB barrier, this question will be moot since FAT16 doesn't support volumes larger than 2 GB.

[toxostoma]

Hey, does anyone know of a good (perhaps free?) program for the PPC that can format storage cards?

I think I'm having trouble with a SanDisk 512 MB card. It's not corrupted or anything, but apps like PocketBible and TextMaker keep crashing when I run them for a long time and then try to go back into the app. They can't read from the storage card. I've got a 32MB Lexar and it appears to be working without these problems... It's still a little too earlier for me to be sure that the problems exist only for the SanDisk.

Anyone else noticed these problems, and would formatting the storage card help at all?

[PetiteFlower]

If you have a card reader you can use Windows to format it as you would any other disc or drive. You can also scandisk and defrag it.

[Ed Hansberry]

No clue. Whatever it comes with. FAT32/16 differences is pretty much irrelevant for what I use the card for. My 512 MB SD card has 344 files and is 97% full. Any slack space differences for that small amount of files is irrelevant.

[tanalasta]

I formatted my 128MB card in FAT 16 as this was the way that the card originally shipped in, preformatted. I did try to reformat it to FAT 32 but the blasted thing corrupted with lost chains within half an hour and i then had to spend the next 5 hours reinstalling all my data (sandisk/hagiwara cards are so damn slow). I returned it to FAT 16 and haven't had any major problems since! :) If it screws up again, i'm sending it back and upgrading to a more reliable brand (and an excuse to get a 256MB of course!)