disable delete button

[joe_mezzanini1]

<p>Anyway to disable the delete button on D90 and/or D80's</p>

<p>thanks</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>The simple answer is "no."</p>

<p>Of course you could do something extreme like putting glue on that button so that there will not be any effect if you press on it, but most people are not going to damage their camera that way. Also keep in mind that the delete button is also used to format your memory cards. If you physically disable that button, you'll have to go to the menu to format your cards.</p>

[mccosh]

<p>After pressing the delete button you get a second warning asking if you do want to delete the file. I can't see how you can accidental delete a file so why would you want to disable the button. If you do somehow delete a file by accident, remove the card immediately and continue shooting with another card. When you get home use image recovery software that can be had for free to retrieve your deleted file. Hope this helps.<br>

Happy shooting<br>

John</p>

[john_tran14]

<blockquote>

<p>Anyway to disable the delete button</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Sure, that's easy. Tell yourself "Don't touch that button". There is no way the button will be <strong>ABLE</strong> to do anything (<em>by itself</em>). It's just exactly how I disabled the scene modes</p>

[nishnishant]

<p>Shun,</p>

<p>What cameras have that? (using the Delete button to format the card)</p>

<p>Both my D80 and 40X support the double-press Delete to delete a file. But I've never been able to bring up the format option through that button (too lazy to dig up the manual right now).</p>

[ShunCheung]

<blockquote>

<p>What cameras have that? (using the Delete button to format the card)</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Nish, every Nikon DSLR I have used has that feature, including the OP's D90: you press on two buttons simultanrously to format the memory card. One of the two buttons is the delete button; the other button varies depending on the camera model.</p>

<p>How do you format your memory cards?</p><div></div>

[andrew_fedon]

<p>This is really a silly question, and the OP hasn't even stated why he asked it in the first place.</p>

[CvhKaar]

<p>Easy, two layers of duct tape ...</p>

 

[ArthurRichardson]

<p>Keep the master switch set to off: that will disable it.</p>

[walterh]

<p>Shun I use the menu to format my cards in the D3.<br>

So there seems a way to format without the need of the delete button.</p>

[nishnishant]

<p>Thanks Shun. Even though I've been advised against it, I format my SD cards on my computer. So I've never had to use the camera to do this.</p>

<p>In fact, most of the time I don't even format the card. When I copy the files from the SD card to my hard disk, I do a cut-paste (as opposed to a copy-paste), so my cards end up empty after the transfer. And I just reuse it without doing a full format.</p>

[raczoliver]

<p>I've had people deleting my pictures when they were viewing them on my camera, so it is a very valid question. My friend's two-year-old just formatted their card in a camcorder by accident. </p>

[walterh]

<blockquote>

<p>In fact, most of the time I don't even format the card.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That is not a good idea.</p>

<p>With time your files will be fragmented and the write and read processes may slow down.<br>

Also in case of data loss on your SD card it will be really difficult to recover files from a card that is partially unreadable. When erasing files from a card the images are not physically erased but only flagged as erased. So a lot of "garbage" is left on a card that stores files over and over again.</p>

<p>Unless you know exactly what you do it is better to format the card in the camera.</p>

[nishnishant]

<p>Walter,</p>

<p>That is true, but when you format a card, it's basically the same. Only the header information in the initial sectors (or sector equivalents) get overwritten. The data remains (which works well when you want to recover files from an accidentally formatted card).</p>

<p>But I hear you, the fragmentation is very much possible. Whenever I go on a trip where I expect to take a lot of pics, I format all my cards. I suppose I just need to do it more frequently than I do now.</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Walter, apparently you miss the very last sentence in my first post in this thread.</p>

<p>And for whatever it is worth, I just realized that while the D100 has the two-button format feature, neither one of the two buttons is the delete button. Nikon has been very consistent about the locations of those two buttons, but the normal functionality of those buttons has changed a bit from model to model.</p>

<p>The original question is uncommon, but if you have small kids playing around with your camera, there may be concerns about accidental deletes.<br>

</p>

[CvhKaar]

<p>Mmm, I guess if you would want to prevent others from erasing your pictures, you can select the ones you want to protect and press the "Lock"button ? ( not sure about the D80, but it should work on a D90 , shouldn't it ?)</p>

[emiliogtz]

<blockquote>

<p>That is not a good idea.<br>

With time your files will be fragmented and the write and read processes may slow down.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Cards have an internal mechanisms that makes sure the memory banks are used on an even way, even deleting and moving files around will not produce the same side effects associated with fragmentation on optical or magnetic disks because you are not going over the same memory locations as in a typical optical or magnetic disk.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Also in case of data loss on your SD card it will be really difficult to recover files from a card that is partially unreadable. When erasing files from a card the images are not physically erased but only flagged as erased. So a lot of "garbage" is left on a card that stores files over and over again.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That "garbage" is just rows of zeros and one's, to the physical medium it makes no difference what all those bits are set to weather they are an image or an excel file, the difference is made by what those bits mean to the file system structure. Also, formatting a card does not necessarily set every memory bank to a predefined value, basically it just erases the table of contents, so the device has all the memory banks available to itself. All the "garbage" it's just left there.</p>

[andrew_fedon]

<p>Well, after all these responses that so many have found time to post in thee days, maybe the OP will find time to elaborate on the reasons for asking the original question and thereby stopping many of the speculations.<br>

Personally, if its the two year olds deleting from camcorder, or small kids playing around with your camera, if anyones fool enough to let kids play around with their gear then they deserve whatever they get.</p>

[walterh]

<p>Emilio do you have a reference about the memory bank use on CF cards? Is there a standard or is it up to the brand?</p>

<p>As to the garbage I was once able to restore images (from a crashed hard drive - apparently different from CF cards) because the recovery software I used was able to detect image data in the "just rows of zeros and one's" on the device.<br>

But I agree that one might want to overwrite old data during format which is not done by a simple format.</p>

[emiliogtz]

<blockquote>

<p>Emilio do you have a reference about the memory bank use on CF cards? Is there a standard or is it up to the brand?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It's like that for every brand since the specification switched to NAND memory technology some time ago. CF was originally based on Intel's NOR technology, which lacked the density needed for increasing the card's storage capacity.The current specification is built on the NAND technology which besides greater density also incorporates the wear leveling capabilities.</p>

<p>Check this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompactFlash and this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_leveling, there's plenty of interesting information there.</p>