Dead Compact Flash card? \ VOGONS

Dead Compact Flash card?

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First post, by Ace

Posted on 2012-06-13, 15:31

Ace Offline

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I have a 4GB Lexar Platinum II Compact Flash card which is giving me hell since yesterday afternoon. Now, let me just say I'm not using the card on a computer (I don't have a Compact Flash to IDE adapter), but rather a flash cartridge for the NES which runs on Compact Flash cards (PowerPak). The card worked fine until yesterday afternoon when the cartridge was giving constant formatting errors. I take the card to my computer, and no matter what I do, I can't format the card! I've tried these:

-Format through Windows
-Use a disk management program
-Low-level format via HDDGuru's Low-Level Format tool
-Use a Linux boot CD to wipe the card and reformat it.

Absolutely nothing formats this card. It always stays as a RAW partition. Aside from attempting to use FDISK, which I'm having some problems with due to not having adequate DOS USB drivers, I'm out of ideas. Is this card recoverable or is it completely shot?

Creator of The Many Sounds of:, a collection of various DOS games played using different sound cards.

Reply 1 of 6, by RichB93

Posted on 2012-06-13, 15:56

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Sounds dead. Same happened to an SD card I had. Strangely it was a Lexar too... 😜

Reply 2 of 6, by keropi

Posted on 2012-06-13, 16:21

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I can't help with the dead part but I have a SNES powerpak and last week I asked retrozone what other card I can buy for it since I used the supplied DANE-ELEC card in an amiga1200 and I am too bored to format another for amiga use... His answer was that DANE-ELEC ones work awesome with the hardware but if I have to go another brand I must avoid the high speed ones (that have 133x, 150x and so on written on them). Just something to keep in mind for your replacement card...

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Reply 3 of 6, by megatron-uk

Posted on 2012-06-13, 18:13

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keropi wrote:
I can't help with the dead part but I have a SNES powerpak and last week I asked retrozone what other card I can buy for it since I used the supplied DANE-ELEC card in an amiga1200 and I am too bored to format another for amiga use... His answer was that DANE-ELEC ones work awesome with the hardware but if I have to go another brand I must avoid the high speed ones (that have 133x, 150x and so on written on them). Just something to keep in mind for your replacement card...

Funny, I use a Kingston Elite 133x 4GB in my Powerpak - works just fine.

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Reply 4 of 6, by Ace

Posted on 2012-06-13, 18:32

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keropi wrote:
I can't help with the dead part but I have a SNES powerpak and last week I asked retrozone what other card I can buy for it since I used the supplied DANE-ELEC card in an amiga1200 and I am too bored to format another for amiga use... His answer was that DANE-ELEC ones work awesome with the hardware but if I have to go another brand I must avoid the high speed ones (that have 133x, 150x and so on written on them). Just something to keep in mind for your replacement card...

Oh crap. Thanks for telling me this; I think the speed might have something to do with the many loading errors I got on my PowerPak (lockups when loading things, not recognizing certain files or directories, throwing "File not found" errors when loading games, throwing "Fatal card read" errors when resetting the console after a crash when loading a game). I'm gonna see if I can get a refund and a slower card (this one has 200x written on it).

Creator of The Many Sounds of:, a collection of various DOS games played using different sound cards.

Reply 5 of 6, by nforce4max

Posted on 2012-06-13, 22:49

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133x isn't high speed in my book 🤣 but getting cards that are not likely to cause problems and issues in general are hit or miss at best. Amazon sometimes have the lower rated cards that work well.

On a far away planet reading your posts in the year 10,191.

Reply 6 of 6, by Ace

Posted on 2012-06-14, 05:26

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Turns out my card was already faulty from the minute I took it out of the packaging. I got it exchanged for another identical card and have not had a single issue with this one. No lockups while loading, doesn't miss any files or directories, doesn't spew out "File not found" or "Fatal card read" errors, simply put, it works (though I will point out these issues happened VERY frequently on my Front-Loader NES, but not very often on my Top-Loader NES).

By the way, the card in question is a Lexar Platinum II 4GB card (200x speed).

Creator of The Many Sounds of:, a collection of various DOS games played using different sound cards.

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