PanoramaII compatible with 64GB SD card?

[Ino]

Hey guys,

Just another report about a "work around" getting a 64G Samsung card to work. I've tried *EVERYTHING* - and I mean everything:

1). new firmware (from a 2G card - works perfectly)
2). partition the 64G card so it shows 4G, 16G, 32G
3). primary or extended partitions
4). FAT32, EXTFAT, No format.
5). Wipe the first 5G of the card (via dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/diskX - on OSX) and repartition.
6). HP USB formatter, the above tools, the XDA "work around"
7). Windows format (funnily enough - FAT32/EXTFAT kept failing for partitions larger than 4G!!)
8). OSX format

None of these worked. The 2G card worked fine every time.

In desperation - I popped the card into my Panasonic TV and tried to recognise it there: lo' and behold I got the "I have not idea what *THAT* is"
OK, I said, TV - you format the bastard! (I was half expecting for it to fail formatting it - after all - WinXP kept failing successfully to do a simple task it should perform natively!)
30 seconds later - HEY! Presto! We have liftage! And the recognise function says "Yep, it's a SDXC, 61GB Formatted card"

Pop it into the dash camera: UTTER SUCCESS!!

So, try to format your card in your TV - that might do it! If that fails - format it in your microwave - 2 minutes on high should do just fine!

PS: If I can ever be arsed about it I would look to see what the difference is in format. Precisely - why the TV managed to format it successfully and a blasted WinXP failed (equally successfully). My hunch would be that there's something left on MBR and partition table sectors which doesn't make sense to a simple device like the camera, but which is ignored by the "higher IQ" devices (like PCs and so on.)

PPS: I was using winXP out of a VMWare virtual box on my Mac. This should make absolutely 0 difference. The laptop at work (native Win7) failed equally miserably!

 

[jokiin]

Winxp can't format the card natively, you need a 3rd party program, new SDXC cards are pre formatted and will work straight up in the Panorama (up to 128gb supported in current firmware versions) and can be formatted correctly in the camera

It won't work with other formats or partitions, this is normal

 

[Ino]

Well - the strange thing was that initially a Win7 formatted the card - and that didn't do it any good.

Plus that the camera then could not format it correctly if it could not see it after boot.

I would've expected that at least the formatting of the card would work in the camera - regardless of card's initial status. After all - you're expected to correct these problems without any additional hardware, when you're out and about. I mean, the TV formatted the card correctly even though it could not read it first time it was inserted.

Anyways - lesson learned.

 

[jokiin]

If you change the format to something the camera can't see then it won't be able to format it either, that's normal

 

[FourEyes]

Winxp can't format the card natively

Even with this?

 

[jokiin]

Even with this?

With the appropriate update it could be fine, best is to format with the camera or a 3rd party program though as Windows doesn't adhere to SD card standard

 

[Ino]

If you change the format to something the camera can't see then it won't be able to format it either, that's normal

Look - don't get me wrong, I'm not here to argue and labor the point indefinitely! All I'm saying is that compared to the camera, the TV formatted the card correctly, even though it was unable to read it prior to formatting. It did not care about the previous format, it just went ahead and put in a correct partition and correct FS on it. So I guess my foolish hope was that the camera would be able to do the same: if the format is initiated by user, blow *EVERYTHING* out, and lay in the correct partition, and the correct FS. As I'm typing - I'm starting to think that perhaps what the format does is only lay a new FS to an existing partition. It does not know how to lay down a partition table, and when it encounters one that isn't to it's liking - it throws its little hands up and gives you the finger!

With the appropriate update it could be fine, best is to format with the camera or a 3rd party program though as Windows doesn't adhere to SD card standard

Yeah - I have that patch installed, doesn't make a damn a difference! Gotta love Microsoft - they're following standards just like the caribou are following the salmon migration!

 

[jokiin]

Panasonic are the ones that supply the software that formats the cards correctly in Windows and the inventor of the format, I guess their TV has an edge in that respect, now that you have things back to normal you should be fine just to format in the camera

 

[Ino]

@jokiin : Holy cr@p! why didn't you say that from the beginning?

I just had a quick look at that and boy - it's slightly more complex - but hell - there's a good explanation to all the things I was seeing:

Panasonic download page: http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/
Specialized software to format SD/SDHC/SDXC cards (windows *AND* Mac): https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

I'm doing some tests today and I'll report back - but if these OEM tools work first up (as I expect they will) then, all the stuff in the previous pages becomes so much simpler! (i.e. you need none of that stuff, and as a bonus, you have a tool which works both on Mac and Windows, made by the guys who invented the SD*C standard!)

 

[jokiin]

There's some more reading about memory cards in the link in my signature

 

[niko]

Hey guys,

Just another report about a "work around" getting a 64G Samsung card to work. I've tried *EVERYTHING* - and I mean everything:

1). new firmware (from a 2G card - works perfectly)
2). partition the 64G card so it shows 4G, 16G, 32G
3). primary or extended partitions
4). FAT32, EXTFAT, No format.
5). Wipe the first 5G of the card (via dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/diskX - on OSX) and repartition.
6). HP USB formatter, the above tools, the XDA "work around"
7). Windows format (funnily enough - FAT32/EXTFAT kept failing for partitions larger than 4G!!)
8). OSX format

None of these worked. The 2G card worked fine every time.

In desperation - I popped the card into my Panasonic TV and tried to recognise it there: lo' and behold I got the "I have not idea what *THAT* is"
OK, I said, TV - you format the bastard! (I was half expecting for it to fail formatting it - after all - WinXP kept failing successfully to do a simple task it should perform natively!)
30 seconds later - HEY! Presto! We have liftage! And the recognise function says "Yep, it's a SDXC, 61GB Formatted card"

Pop it into the dash camera: UTTER SUCCESS!!

So, try to format your card in your TV - that might do it! If that fails - format it in your microwave - 2 minutes on high should do just fine!

PS: If I can ever be arsed about it I would look to see what the difference is in format. Precisely - why the TV managed to format it successfully and a blasted WinXP failed (equally successfully). My hunch would be that there's something left on MBR and partition table sectors which doesn't make sense to a simple device like the camera, but which is ignored by the "higher IQ" devices (like PCs and so on.)

PPS: I was using winXP out of a VMWare virtual box on my Mac. This should make absolutely 0 difference. The laptop at work (native Win7) failed equally miserably!

Other, more easy solution worked for me, read HERE

 

[Ino]

>...
> Specialized software to format SD/SDHC/SDXC cards (windows *AND* Mac): https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/
>…

SDformatter works like a charm. It seems to restore a terribly FUBAR-ed partition table back to the SD standard so that any device then can read it correctly.
Best of it all - it has both a Mac version and Windows version! No more VMWare and USB black magic. ( I had just about ran out of black virgin goats for my incantations)

 

[alexsoll]

SanDisk Ultra Micro SDXC 64GB UHS-1 Class10

 

[singlespeed]

@jokiin : Holy cr@p! why didn't you say that from the beginning?

I just had a quick look at that and boy - it's slightly more complex - but hell - there's a good explanation to all the things I was seeing:

Panasonic download page: http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/
Specialized software to format SD/SDHC/SDXC cards (windows *AND* Mac): https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

I'm doing some tests today and I'll report back - but if these OEM tools work first up (as I expect they will) then, all the stuff in the previous pages becomes so much simpler! (i.e. you need none of that stuff, and as a bonus, you have a tool which works both on Mac and Windows, made by the guys who invented the SD*C standard!)

Thanks for sharing. I bought a new Samsung 64GB SDXC, it wouldn't work using the standard formatting in MacOS. I knew the card wasn't broken, it worked fine in the Mac. After using the SD Formatter the card now works fine. Will the camera format a 64GB card using the GUI? Or is there a problem with doing that?

 

[jokiin]

Camera can format the larger cards also

 

[singlespeed]

Camera can format the larger cards also

Thanks. I guess only the initial format needs to be done via the SD Formatter? Because I couldn't get the camera to recognize the Samsung card, and it wouldn't format either. When I tried, it said please insert SDCard. I could test it myself, but I don't want to mess with it since I just got the 64GB to be recognized this morning.

 

[Ino]

…. I could test it myself, but I don't want to mess with it since I just got the 64GB to be recognized this morning.

Don't worry Singlespeed - you can always fix it with the SDFormatter. Unless the card goes hardware-bad (defective, physically dead/zombied) SD Formatter will always try to fix the partitioning and formatting for you.

And I can confirm that once recognised - you can format it inside the camera to your heart's content!

I have had no more problems since I've formatted it first time with SDFormatter/inside my TV.

PS: Also - keep in mind that the native OSX formatting will never be recognised by anything else than another Mac (to keep things simple).

And to complicate things even more, the reason why a base OS tool won't usually do the trick lies in the SDC/SDHC/SDXC standard and what said tool is/isn't supposed to do.

Short version (in a nutshell) of the standard: Just use SDFormatter, and you're laughing!

 

[singlespeed]

MacOS can format SDCard in FAT32, which worked fine with my 32GB cards in the Pano. I think there are issues formatting above 32GB with FAT32 that the SD formatter must do differently.

 

[Curious]

I bought a 64GB Sony SDXC. Not a micro. I used the SmartDisk tool recommended by Niko to format it to Fat32, but the Pano IIS would not recognize the card. I used a digital camera to reformat the card (because I was on the road with no PC access) and the Pano recognized it. I haven't copied data off the card yet but it seems to be working.