Format SD card on Win98

Hi I have a 2gb Sandisk SD Card. It has 'Wii' branding on it, but it's just a normal card.

I need to format it to FAT32, when I click on properties of my card reader it does list "FAT" as the type of files but I don't know if it's FAT32. Either way I can't find a program to format the card that runs on 98.

Anyone have link handy to a program I could use?

 

Ok I did some searching and there is this program in win98 called Cvt1.exe for converting.

When I run it It shows my hard drive is FAT32 and my E; drive (SD CARD) is FAT16...so now I know it needs to be formatted. When I run the converter I get this pop-up-message:

Norton Anti-Virus is not compatible with FAT32 and converter cannot continue.

Which is messed up because I uninstalled Norton ages ago. So yeah I'm still lookink for an alternate program for this.

 

You might take a look at this: http://www.sdcard.org/consumers/formatter/

 

thanks but, as I mentioned in my first post, I'm looking for a program that can run on 98.

 

Ah, sorry - saw the 98 uninstall, but not the sys. requirements...

Ok, then: how about SwissKnife? I know it can run on 98...

 

Quick question - why can't you just format the card to FAT32 on another computer that's running XP, Vista, or 7?

 

An sd card formatted FAT (meaning FAT 16) will work in 98. The major problem, finding a card reader that will have drivers for windows 98. Without a card reader, you won't get 98 to "see" the card. Win 98 is not plug and play.

 

I have a card reader that came with drivers to detect the card reader on 98, so that's not the problem. I need to reformat to FAT32 for other reasons.

Yeah I saw Swiss Knife in the downloads section but I wasn't sure if it covers SD cards, it says:

"used to create/format partitions in your hard drive."

It also says:


"Supports creating FAT16 and FAT32 fixed and removable partitions."

I'm not sure if that means SD cards or not, it doesn't say "flash drives' anywhere.

I could go to the internet cafe downtown, from what I've read XP can reformat right in the OS, but I'm in Canada and it's currently the coldest time (-30) of year so I'd vastly prefer not to go out more than I have to!!

 

So I download Swiss Knife, just to test it, and it detects the card as FAT 16 and says 'formated' next to it, but when I select it to format the little drop down menu that says 'FAT32' at the top remains muted and unclickable. Like it doesn't get that I want to convert it to another kind of FAT..:-D

Even worse when I try just format the card anyway...it says "Media is write protected. Format cannot be completed". And that's with either quick and full format.

Boo...I did do a 'full' format with the win98 Cvt1.exe program, would that have made it 'Write protected'.??

So now I just don't know what's going on.

 

I was under the impression that media less than 2Gb would be formatted in FAT16 and anything over would be FAT32. I believe that the only difference is going to be in the cluster sizes in any case.

At the end of the day I do not think that it really matters what format you have on the stick itself.

In respect of driver for 98 you may want to try NUSB as it will eliminate the need for various drivers.

http://www.technical-assistance.co.uk/kb/usbmsd98.php

I have used NUSB for external HDD, flash drives, cameras and usb hubs without any issues. You also get the little eject icon in the systray.

You may also look USBView which will make sure that all your usb devices are correctly detected and which will also work in 98SE.

http://www.mdgx.com/files/USBVIEW.EXE

As regards the current problem which you have with the media being write protected, I would use a Linux live cd and use GParted (within Linux) to format the stick (GParted will probably also be able to format stick with FAT16). I personally use Puppy since it is only 100mb but others to choose from.

Good Luck

 

I need to get the SD cards to FAT32 because of some perfectly legal 'homebrew' I'm doing with my Wii the card needs to be at that. I put some files on there with the card at FAT16 and the Wii didn't see them.

I'm not having any problems with my PC detecting the card itself.

 

This will do it, unfortunately, it requires windows 2000 or later.
http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/sd_formatter.html

 

Hi All,

The difference in Fat16 and Fat32 is in how much space is in the directory for filenames and in the FAT Tables. The size of the drive dictates what it will be. Floppy is Fat12, Small drives are Fat16 and larger drives are Fat32. MTFS is an entirely different bookkeeping system. You will not be able to format the drive as Fat32. Should make no difference to your system.

Good Luck to All,
Jim