Confused about same size CF cards

[Redneck]

This is the situation:

Nikon D700 with 2 Transcend 8 GB CF cards.

Both cards are empty, even reformatted. One of'em will show me 303 images (which is normal) while the other one only shows 213. (I'm not changing camera settings while checking the cards.)

I'm a little confused - this never happened to me before. Any explanations, helpful tips?

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

The second card may have a partitioned section that has shots on it that the reformatting did not remove- it just reformated say the A partition and didn't touch the B that has the data on it which is using up file space. Plug it into your comp through a card reader and see if there are any parititions on the card.

[Redneck]

Thanks for the quick response.
I was able to solve the problem. I've put the "small" card into my D300 backup camera and did a reformat. That took care of the problem (it now shows 303 in both bodies), but I still don't have an explanation for it. I've never knowingly set up an additional partition, I wouldn't even know how.

[Rson]

The format really isn't a format...it deletes the directory and sometimes there are other folders left on the card. Nothing big.

[The Loft Studios]

I can only guesstimate that the D700 and the D300 made two separate folders on the same card due to them being two separate cameras and when placed in the D700 for formatting it did not or could not format the D300 folder. So once you placed it into the D300 for formatting, only then was it able to format the remaining data.....

Anyone?


Try a test using the same card in both cameras and do some test shooting with both cameras, then place the card in a card reader and view it from your computer to see if indeed there are two separate folders from each camera. Then try formatting them again..... See what happens.

[Redneck]

Thanks for all the advice, very much appreciated.