[bpcarlson]

Every time I take the memory card of the 1st card slot and load photos into my computer, then put the card back in, the card cannot be read and I get the message requiring me to format the card. This never happened in my old K-x or my K-3. Is anyone else having this problem? I'm using a Kingston USB-3 card reader.

[Adam]

Are you "ejecting" the card before you remove it from the card reader? Right click on the drive icon on your computer, then select eject.

[bpcarlson]

I haven't don't an "eject" step from from explorer but have gone to the right hand side of Windows 10 and ejected the card from there, and getting the message saying it was safe to remove the card.

[gaweidert]

Load card in computer. if it flags an error and asks you if you want to repair it click yes, That should do it. Happens to me quite a bit too.

[pschlute]

Are you deleting photos from the card using the computer?

[stevebrot]

Every time I take the memory card of the 1st card slot and load photos into my computer, then put the card back in, the card cannot be read and I get the message requiring me to format the card. This never happened in my old K-x or my K-3. Is anyone else having this problem? I'm using a Kingston USB-3 card reader.

As noted above, the most likely cause is that the card was not cleanly "unmounted" from the computer before being removed.

Do not format using your computer's format utility. Instead download the format utility from the SD Card Association Web site. That tool will do a standard-compliant format of your card.

SD Card Formatter - SD Association

Use the "Full (Overwrite)" option and follow-up with an in-camera format.


Steve

[sys3175]

Also, I've found that it's a good idea to lock the card using the slider switch before inserting it into a card reader, because this protects your original copies from all the strange things that operating systems try to do to SD cards and also stupidnesses one might commit.

[amoringello]

Deleting files from your computer and formatting an SD card on your computer does not, and can not, harm your SD cards. The standards are quite stable and if there was a problem it would be repeatable, consistent and extremely evident every time over many connected devices for every person using such devices!
Lets just say, if that was truly a problem, most of the civilized world would pretty much halt and burn to the ground.

BUT... the OS "format" tools take shortcuts and never really hits every bit on the device (In fact it is quite difficult to do so on an SD device with standard tools.
FYI, the camera's format does the same thing, so formatting in camera puts you in no better position. Neither method is a good method for ensuring the a SD device is in good shape.

The SD formatter above (or similar Linux tool F3Read/F3Write) can explicitly force every bit of an SD to be written (not an easy thing to do with SD cards, SD hard drives, etc...) and will better exercise the card and help it mark any few bad blocks or flush out if something is truly bad and the card should be thrown away.

- Switch cards between slots. Does the problem still occur only with Slot1?
- Be sure to wait until the red read/write light on the back of the camera is truly out after turning the camera off.
- What size SD card is this (i.e. 64GB or larger, perhaps??) and,
- What OS are you using?

[bpcarlson]

I appreciate all the replies and suggestions.

It's a 64GB Lexar SDXC 633x. It showed format needed in both slots. I did download the format program, and it didn't make a difference.

I'm using Windows 10.

What I should perhaps try are the cards from my K-3, or if the K-1 says it needs formatting, to put it in the K-3 and see if I get the same message.

Bob

[amoringello]

I would have assumed Windows 10 could handle SDXC, but from what I've read, SDXC seems to give some trouble on Windows. Be sure you have the latest driver for the USB reader if the manufacturer has any available and that Windows is fully updated.
I stopped using Windows for my photo work before Win7, so unfortunately I won't be much help beyond that.

[funktionsfrei]

Is that card reader specified as SDXC compatible? If not - get another card reader.

There are three different SD card standards that need compatible card readers - and that is not a windows device driver issue, at least not with card readers attached via an USB connection.

Original SD cards are up to 2 GByte in size.
Everything larger and up to 32 GByte is an SDHC card. Everything still larger is an SDXC card.

Depending on the card standard a different file system is used (and thats mandatory by the SD card standard). FAT16 for SD cards, FAT32 for SDHC cards and exFAT for SDXC cards.

Though it is possible to format SD cards with whatever file system you wish to, it then automatically ceases to be a standard-conformant SD card.

[JensE]

For the rare cases that something messed up my card file systems, using the camera to format the cards for the best match to the camera's expectations always worked reliably.

[stevebrot]

I would have assumed Windows 10 could handle SDXC, but from what I've read, SDXC seems to give some trouble on Windows.

One would think, particularly since exFAT is a Microsoft product.

Is that card reader specified as SDXC compatible? If not - get another card reader.

That is the other part of the equation. I had to replace my card reader when I moved up to SDXC cards.

For the rare cases that something messed up my card file systems, using the camera to format the cards for the best match to the camera's expectations always worked reliably.

Yep, though in cases like the OP's, the card has been rejected by the camera and an in-camera format is not possible. That is why options like the SD Association's formatter are nice to have.


Steve

[JensE]

... and an in-camera format is not possible.

Haven't come across this with any card. Bob didn't state that he even tried to format in-camera, therefore my post. And thanks for pointing out the formatting tool, I hadn't ever heard about it and it sounds great for a thorough check.

[stevebrot]

Haven't come across this with any card. Bob didn't state that he even tried to format in-camera, therefore my post.

I figured you probably were unfamiliar with the issue. We get one or two posts a month where the user inserts the card and the camera says that it either can't read the card or the card is not formatted. The crimp is that the camera will not move past the message to allow access to the menu system for an in-camera format. There may be a workaround with the two-card body with the bad card inserted in the secondary slot. I will have to test that out some day when I am really bored.


Steve