Format Sd Card For Canon Camera On Pc

Here's a good one to tuck away for another time.
I started this post thinking I had a problem. I have a couple of 16Gb SDHC cards that I bought for my HP iPAQ (which I no longer use). I thought they would go well with my new Canon T2i [550D] (which I have not yet received, by the way) since I will need the space to take advantage of the video capabilities. The cards had lots of data on them from my iPAQ so I erased them and popped them in the XSi for formatting. I get a 'Cannot format. Change Card' error. OK, so I pop them back in the PC and do a complete format. They check full and healthy. Back in the camera, I get the same message as before. So back to the PC and check them again. Now they're 0 bytes capacity and 0 bytes available. What gives? I format them again in the PC, check their integrity, and now drag a few files to them as another check. No problem here! Back in the camera the same message awaits. I'm stumped so I come here. I'm thinking I will try a long shot. The card is still in the camera so I fire off a few shots and guess what - it's working fine. The PC says that the obligatory folders are in place and the files are good. (I am now getting a Book Worthy sign so I will end here.)

after you take the shots and it saves fine, format the card again. if it still doesnt work, try another card. if it works then it could be a problem with the original card.

Yes, won't format or erase images in camera. Funny thing this happened to two 16Gb cards. Definitely unreliable. Guess they're toast.

GREAT NEWS!!
In case anyone's still interested, both cards refused to work properly and the camera will still not format them after all, BUT, I found this neat utility that miraculously brought them back to life. I found it here:
http://jkontherun.com …sd-memory-card-formatter/
I am now using both cards as usual and they both format like new. Hp officejet pro scanner. This saved me about $80.
This utility is from the SD Association so it may not work with CF or other form factor cards, but it couldn't hurt to try on otherwise fried and useless cards.

I still wouldn't be using a card that was proven to have problems.
Not worth the risk
I'd bin them and get a new card/s.

I've had this problem. On a linux system, I usually just:
$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/${card} bs=1024 count=1
to clear out the old table, and then use fdisk to create a new DOS partition table. This does clear all the data from the card though. Does your utility allow you to recover the data?
No idea how you'd do a similar thing under windows.

I don't know who the manufacturer of your cards are but I did experience a similar problem with a sandisk 8gb memory card. One of my cameras would recognize it and format it but my other camera would not. I called sandisk, we troubleshooted, and sandisk sent me a rma label which I used to send the card back free of charge. After they received the card Sandisk sent me a new card.

When you say you formatted the card in the PC, that was a low level format, right? From tinkering with the SD card in my MK3, that is what it indicates when I format it. I guess the SD cards can't be formatted like the compact flash cards.
Just thinking..

I did the final format IN THE CAMERA. All went fine after that. I have been using the cards extensively for the last 2 days with no problems.

Card may not be compatible with the camera for some reason, maybe it's over the max size the camera can read properly. I don't see a max card size in the documentation for the camera though, maybe try a 2gb card http://support-sg.canon-asia.com …nts/SG/EN/82007​48800.html
or try the below article to see if there is any problem with your device or ports http://www.ieeworld.co​m …-devices-when-plugged-in/