reformatting

[carole_lehrman]

<p>Do you reformat your card each time after downloading photos using a card reader?</p>

[amol]

<p>Not right away. After I download to the computer, I have to back up to another external harddrive. Then I reformat the card. So, if for some reason my computer crashed an hour later, I would still have a back-up of photos.<br>

Eventually, I back-up to another external harddrive. (so it's backed up to 2 external HD's, and my computer). After a year or 2, I'll erase them from the computer to make space, but still have a 2 external hard-drives with duplicate photos on each. The chances of both crashing at the same time is low... some people have 3-4 external hardrives with duplicates. There is also a RAID set-up which can help with a more secure back-up.</p>

<p>But to answer your question after I shoot, I do my back-up thing to at least the computer and external HD. And then I format the entire card.</p>

[colin carron]

<p>I just delete the files from the card using the camera 'delete all images' function. This is obviously after uploading to whatever storage I am using. I only reformat if I am changing cameras. If the card malfunctions it is probably best to junk it and get a new one.</p>

[david_henderson]

<p>Download and backup are to me the same thing since the backup to external drive is created automatically. I tend to keep the photographs on the cards until I'm preparing for another trip and then reformat them all.</p>

[keith_durnford]

<p>For me, yes, everytime, as soon as the images are uploaded the card is put back in the camera and formatted. Ive had few issues with corupt cards in the past so now it is a matter of course to format everytime, but everyone has a different way of doing things, so, if it works for you then do what ever you are happy with.</p>

[Greg M]

<p>I always re-format my card after downloading a set of images to my computer. The only time I delete is when I am out shooting and I review a file and decide to re-shoot the subject to get a better exposure or composition. If the card is full, reformating takes less time and more completely wipes the card clean.</p>

[phule]

<p>I always format after I'm sure the images have been downloaded and backed up to at least one hard drive. </p>

[albertdarmali]

<p>I do, because reformatting is the fastest way to clear the images. If you do "delete all", it's much slower. I've been doing this to my memory cards for a long time and there's no harm done, so I think it's the best way.<br>

And if you accidentally reformat the memory card but you need to recover the files again, as long as you haven't overwritten it with new pictures, you should still be able to recover all the files using a file rescue program.</p>

[jcuknz]

<p>I have reformatted perhaps half a dozen time over the past few years, if that. I can only remember doing it once when for some reason something appeared to go wrong, so long ago I forget the details, apart from the fact that I was away from home, in the States and working on my daughter-in-law's lap-top computer.<br>

My system at home is to place card in reader and copy all files to my 'archive' folder which is on a second hard drive. I then move files to appropriate 'working folders' on my primary HD. The card is empty by that stage. In the States I was making two CD's, second time using the 'move to' command in Windows Explorer similar to how I work at home. <br>

Using SD cards I have detected no build up of 'junk'. On CF cards there is a small build-up but this amounted to less than one photo file [ FINE jpg ] over the period when I bothered to track it, several months.<br>

Up to you if you format but I don't see any need so don't :-)</p>

[kendall helmstetter gelner]

<p>This seems like two questions.</p>

<p>When I want to empty a card, I always reformat it. The FAT filesystem which all camera cards used is very old, and with any kind of bugs in writing and removing files can over time become corrupted. Formatting always gives a fresh start, and furthermore actually takes less time and energy on the part of the camera while re-writing to fewer locations on the card. In short, to empty a card there is simply no reason why you would not want to re-format in camera.</p>

<p>The other question is reading your statement exactly as written "do I reformat your card each time after downloading photos". The answer to that is, never ever. Because that would mean at the time you were re-formatting there is only one copy of your photo anywhere, on the hard drive you just copied to - my rule is that a photo is NEVER deleted from the camera storage card until there are at least two copies. So in repeated shoots I may well end up copying a few different sets of image files off a CF card but I don't remove any of them until the drive I store RAW files on is backed up.</p>