The difference between a quick format and long format:
Virtually all modern storage devices have little controllers inside them, and those controllers store what is known as a “page file” which is basically a manifest of everything that exists on the storage medium and where.
A quick format is quite simple and, in fact, quick. All it does is erase the page file, so it says there’s nothing on the SD card.
An overwrite format can take a while, because besides erasing the page file, it actually writes the entire SD card with zero’d data, properly erasing everything.
The reason for doing an overwrite is typically data security, but it’s possible there’s something funky that would cause issues with the proffieboard, so doing a full overwrite on one might not be a bad idea just to try it.
If it’s having issues mounting the SD card, but only with a specific SD card, that’d indicate to me either corruption or simply a damaged SD card. Maybe both. I’d turn off Mass Storage completely just to be safe, for testing.
Ok so just set it to serial for the upload? I’m long formatting a card right now. I’ll try that. It’s having trouble mounting all 4 of the new cards I bought. The only one that works is a card from a saber I built last fall
Thanks I’ll have to give this a try if nothing else works. I’m pulling my hair out right now. It’s like building a car from scratch and then not finding a key that fits
Ok, so I dumped the program with it on “serial” only, on a freshly long formatted 16gb. When I insert the battery, I get the boot sound. The first time I changed fonts it worked, and I heard the font sound for the next style. Every operation after that is “font directory not found”. Every re insert if the battery after that also gets a boot sound, but nothing after that. No other successful style change fonts or anything.
Hmm… to me that sounds like a potentially damaged SD card. If things are (seemingly) getting corrupted like that.
You might reach out to Electronics123 and ask about it, see what they say or if they have any recommendations, but based on what you’ve described so far it does just seem to be a bad lot of SD cards. Can’t think of any other reason why they’d be failing like this, especially since the board has been confirmed to not be the issue and works with another SD card.
You should be able to create a smaller partition as FAT32, just make it the first/only partition on the SD card and it should be readable by the proffieboard, fwiw.
Ok I thought that might be an option, but most of this is just on the edge of my understanding. I just had some success with the 32g card. I only put a few fonts on it, and when I would cycle to those fonts I was still getting “FDnF” but I was ALSO getting the sound fonts… Ok weird question… could it be that I’ve moved and copied and altered the sound folders SO many times that they’re “slow”? But I guess that wouldn’t explain why they work fine on the first card… nvmd. Grasping at some thin ass straws here…
Yesn’t. Moving things around on the SD card could cause fragmentation and in extreme cases slow things down, but when you wipe a card and copy things over that’d clear that up, so that wouldn’t be the issue here.
That just sounds like the SD being real tempermental… or something else interfering, but since Mass Storage has been turned off there’s not really anything to interfere.
Use Easeus Partition Manager instead of the SD Card Assoc one. It’s a tier higher as far as it goes. Heck, I used it to make a 64gb FAT32 that works on all my boards. My guess is a bad Partition ID, not the partition itself. SD Association and Windows won’t ever change that ID and a lot of cheap SD cards have the wrong ID for use for these boards but will work in PC’s.
OMG I got the 32g one to work! Having the board in serial only, in a freshly long formatted card. I did that so many times idk why this time it decided to take. At the first power up I got “FDnF” , but when I switched fonts it worked. And I’ve since tested all the fonts, and they all work. Gonna throw the blade in to make sure the more complicated stuff works (transition sounds and what not) but I think we got it. Kinda looks like all 3 of the cards I got from E123 are bogus, but the one from the camera ship works
fat32 is not restricted to 32gb.
However, the windows disk management tool won’t let you create fat32 parittions bigger than 32gb. Virtually every other formatting tool in the universe can create fat32 partitions which are much bigger. If I remember correctly the upper limit is actually 2Tb.
Are you sure about this? I’ve recommended the SD association formatter to a fair number of people who almost certainly had the wrong partition ID, and it seems to have always fixed it in the past.
Thank you for the insight and response. I’m gunna try everything I can to get these other cards to work. Honestly though after 2 very frustrating days I’m so happy I got the one to work. Am building a saber to send to my dad for Father’s day, and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to finish it in time. Very thankful for this community and the quick and diligent help
While there may be exceptions, I don’t think this is usually the case.
In most cases, “quick format” means to only write the blocks needed to create a valid filesystem. All the rest of the blocks are left as-is. If you go read them, they are not zero.
Now, it’s possible some progarms use the TRIM and/or FORMAT commands to try to clean up the non-used blocks, but I don’t think most programs do. (At least not on linux, which is where I have the most knowledge.)
Until manufacturers start doing the right things, I guess probably need to just add an addendum to the recommendations. First Windows, then SD assoc, then another formatter, then DOS prompt.