Digital Camera: How to Fix Compact Flash Memory Cards Not Formatted Error

Need Help That CF Card Says Not Formatted Error

"I meet a problem and I don’t know how to deal with it. It is an interest that I prefer to use a CF card rather than other types of memory cards. So you can find many CF cards at my home. Ok, let’s say the problem. I have taken hundreds of pictures during the last week with my Nikon camera. Those pictures have been stored to a 32GB CF card. However, a strange problem occurred on my card this morning. When I turned on my camera, it said memory card needs to be formatted. It is ridiculous, so I took out the card and plugged it to my computer. It still said memory card is not formatted. Can anyone tell me the method to fix the CF card not formatted error without data loss?"

Recovering Data and Fixing CF Card Error

Not formatted error is a typical system error on CF card. No matter you meet CF card error on a digital camera or a computer, it most likely that the data inside the CF card is prone to lost. So you will need to recover data and fix the CF card error. It is quite easy to restore data from a card which has not formatted error, but it is a little difficult to fix the error.

First CF Card Recovery Freeware(Recommend)

Free Download Second CF Card Recovery Software

Recovering data from CF card which shows error, it is very important to choose a reliable and good data recovery tool. You can use CF card recovery software to free recover any file from the card. It supports all brands and types of CF card including SanDisk, Toshiba, Samsung, PNY, and more.

Select Either of the Software Based on Your Needs

If you want to use the first partition recovery freeware to get back files, you can refer to best data recovery software for step by step guide.	If you want to use the second partition recovery freeware to retrieve data, you can visit second recommended data recovery to learn detailed steps.

How to Fix Your CF Card?

Since CF card says it needs to be formatted, you can reformat memory card to fix the error after recovering data from it. However, it doesn’t always work by formatting since you may find that you are unable to format the card. Therefore, the method to fix your CF card depends on the causes for CF card not formatted error.

CF card not formatted error caused by virus - In this case, the first thing you need to do is to remove the virus from the card by using anti-virus software. Then you can format the card.

Error caused by bad sectors – If there are bad sectors on CF card, it may lead the memory card corruption, so you need to fix the bad sector on the card first by connecting the card to a computer and running Windows built-in error-fixing tool.

Error caused by other reasons – If CF card shows not formatted error due to other unknown reasons; you can try to format the card. If you are not allowed to format the card or the CF card still shows errors after formatting, your card might be physically damaged.

Tips

Data is recoverable from a CF card that has not formatted error, but if you meet any of following situation, it is most likely that you have lost the best chance for data recovery.

1. CF card is physically damaged due to water, fire or other reasons.

2. CF card has been overwritten due to new added data or reformatting.

References

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