Solved Formating WHOLE 8GB SD CARD?? how?

[zapp22]

gang this should be easy as cake but none of the links I've found and Utils I've tried work. Simple good 8GB Kingston SD card [fullsize]. long past was formatted FAT32 half the space, yielding one good 3.something GB partition, the other 4gb is orphaned.
Cannot delete the partition, merge freespace, reformat to take maximum.

how??

 

[Faceofjoe421]

Click Start Menu, right click on My Computer, and select Manage.

Under Storage, click Disk Management and it should be there.

Then Right Click on your Device and select Format

 

[zapp22]

nope.
disc management only gives me either/or options regarding the existing 4gb partition OR the free 4gb unpartitioned. It does NOT provide an option for exterminating the existing partition, and does not provide an option to delete partition.

Click Start Menu, right click on My Computer, and select Manage.

Under Storage, click Disk Management and it should be there.

Then Right Click on your Device and select Format

 

[kegobeer]

Have you tried using diskpart?

 

[jumanji]

Try HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool. Download from here .

Report if successful.

 

[noobvious]

gang this should be easy as cake but none of the links I've found and Utils I've tried work. Simple good 8GB Kingston SD card [fullsize]. long past was formatted FAT32 half the space, yielding one good 3.something GB partition, the other 4gb is orphaned.
Cannot delete the partition, merge freespace, reformat to take maximum.

how??

What you need is right here....SD Formatter 2.0 | Download | SD Memory Card | Digital AV | Consumer Products | Support | Panasonic Global
It's much more effective on SD and microsd cards than the Windows built-in formatter.

 

[zapp22]

the sd formatter fails. same as disk management it only assumes dealing with an existing partition to redo the existing.
Easeus worked. so I know have a clean 8GB partition.

jumangi I'm there - thought of that this a.m. but doesn't it default a <4gb Fat 32? how do I get the win7 iso on there with it such that it boots, executes?? anyway I'll give it a shot now and report back

 

[kegobeer]

Have you used diskpart? It's not disk management, it's a command line utility.

 

[zapp22]

Done! now what?
the HP formatter did the trick, all 79@### bytes...

so... do I just simply copy the iso on there and give it a shot? guess so -

 

[kegobeer]

No, you don't just copy it. You have to use diskpart. Here's a tutorial.

How to Create a Windows Bootable Install SD Card or USB Flash Drive

Your motherboard also needs to support booting from SD.

 

[jumanji]

Done! now what?
the HP formatter did the trick, all 79@### bytes...

so... do I just simply copy the iso on there and give it a shot? guess so -

I simulated your conditions on my 8GB pendrive - one 4 GB NTFS and the rest orphaned - and tried HP formatter and it formatted the whole 8GB. So I knew that it should work with the SD card too. Thanks for confirming. ( I was just getting my stuff ready to do it on a 8GB SD card and by that time you confirmed.)

Regarding putting the Win7 ISO, well, I have not tried it on an SD card. I had actually used the Microsoft tool and the pendrive and not sure whether it will recognise the SD card and write it on to it. You have to try.

I know that one can also use the Universal Installer http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/ can write the ISO to a pendrive but on an SD, well, again you have to try.

But I presume that it should do it on the SD card too.(Past midnight here. hitting the sack.)

 

[jumanji]

The first thing in the morning, I tried writing the Windows 7 Installation ISO on to the 8GB SD card using Windows 7 USB DVD download tool Microsoft Store Online and it was successful. I also booted into it.





You may mark this thread as solved unless you have further queries.

 

[zapp22]

excellent and instructive!
so, the end of it was thusly:
- ran the HP util and it did as you say, reformatting the whole 8gb SD card [which was sitting in a Targus USB mount]
- copied the .iso to the drive
- attempted to force the x120e to boot frm that device
- failed. it tried gamely, but failed, returning to the "gimme a valid bootable" menu
- after previous fails, I thought... maybe the hp thingy did some good in other ways, and tried one last shot at the Microsoft utility for making things bootable/installable for Win7. This time: SUCCESS! - took a really long time but redid everything with the .iso file to make the drive do its job
- reboot, pointed to the device, and successful install.

Activated and now doing 4 million win7 updates.... sheeesh.

for the record, to help future searchers: a friend tells me that there IS a way to boot from the included SD slot on the thinkpad x120e - I tried and failed, punted to USB instead, but he succeeded. My guess is that a later BIOS flash enabled that to work properly.

not a bad little notebook, by the way. I bought 6 months old, still under warranty, for 300 bucks and in good condition otherwise.

Done! now what?
the HP formatter did the trick, all 79@### bytes...

so... do I just simply copy the iso on there and give it a shot? guess so -

I simulated your conditions on my 8GB pendrive - one 4 GB NTFS and the rest orphaned - and tried HP formatter and it formatted the whole 8GB. So I knew that it should work with the SD card too. Thanks for confirming. ( I was just getting my stuff ready to do it on a 8GB SD card and by that time you confirmed.)

Regarding putting the Win7 ISO, well, I have not tried it on an SD card. I had actually used the Microsoft tool and the pendrive and not sure whether it will recognise the SD card and write it on to it. You have to try.

I know that one can also use the Universal Installer Universal USB Installer – Easy as 1 2 3 | USB Pen Drive Linux can write the ISO to a pendrive but on an SD, well, again you have to try.

But I presume that it should do it on the SD card too.(Past midnight here. hitting the sack.)

 

[Britton30]

Zapp22 you can't just copy an ISO to media and make it work. It needs to be from a tool like the Windows 7 USB DVD download tool or Magic iso, etc. there is a boot file written and the iso is unpacked, it's like a compressed, zip, file. Glad to see it can be done with an SD card.

 

[pincushion]

One reason why I am loathe to see the end of my XP system is having Partition Magic on it which can cope with most of the partitioning I ever required and on the system itself - never had it fail on me personally. Often still use it when W7 will not do what is required and I do have EASUS Partition Master free edition on the W7 system.

 

[Corazon]

EASEUS Partition Master is a great product, very similar to Partition Wizard actually. As for Partition Magic that's outdated and doesn't support Windows 7 properly, I believe...might want to think about just getting rid of it. Besides, I can't imagine PMagic doing anything that PWizard can't...

 

[pincushion]

EASEUS Partition Master is a great product, very similar to Partition Wizard actually. As for Partition Magic that's outdated and doesn't support Windows 7 properly, I believe...might want to think about just getting rid of it. Besides, I can't imagine PMagic doing anything that PWizard can't...

Partition Magic is on my XP system and I've never tried to install it on this system. Since I paid for it I can't see getting rid of it will soothe my slight annoyance - not the only program I have had to rethink for solutions since moving to W7.

 

[rraod]

Be careful with that HP formatter for USB drives. Once I burned my fingers by accidently formatting a 200GB USB harddrive full of data which was also connected to the system, thinking that I was formatting a 2 GB flash drive :shock:!!!! Since then I have stopped using that utility. Use it with caution!!!

 

[zapp22]

as it turned out, I used Easeus to get rid of the old partition and make one big 8gb one. tried the HP tool [didn't kill my drive ] but system wouldn't boot it ...dunno why.
but, oddly enough, once I had used the HP flash utility, then the MS Windows 7 flash boot utility worked like a charm. stuck it in the slot in the thinkpad and 'voila''! win7 home premium freshly installed

 

[jumanji]

In the case of the HP tool, there is a misconception that it can be used only for pendrives.

Any formatting tool, has to be used with caution. One has to check and double check that he is formatting the right drive/partition, lest he ends up in misery.

And an elementary rule when one formats an external drive is to make sure that no other external drive is connected. Not very difficult, I presume