Home > Accessories > Memory Cards > Format or erase memory cards
Format or erase memory cards
Digital cameras provide two ways of deleting images from a memory card: erasing and formatting. Each serves a different purpose.
Camera manuals warn that deleted images can not be recovered. Not entirely true. Great news if you accidentally delete images since they can often be recovered with special software. The bad news is that someone may be able to view images you thought were gone.
Erasing images from a memory card
When images are erased from a memory card, either individually or all at once, space becomes available for more photos. Erasing deletes image and video files, but not other data on the card. It will not remove images that have been protected.
Formatting a memory card
Regularly format a memory card to help prevent it from becoming corrupted. Formatting, also known as initializing, overwrites everything on a card including protected images, directories and camera data, and sets up new folders and data on the card. To help ensure the integrity of the folders and data, it's important to format the card using your camera, not computer!
A camera technician specializing in Fuji cameras, shared this tip a our Forum: A new memory card should ALWAYS be formatted BEFORE use, in it's parent camera. I have experience many card errors- from my clients- when I enquire IF they had ever formatted the card, the answer was in the negative. After formatting, the same clients never came back with card problems.
Erase images and format cards via a menu in the Playback Mode. You can also erase images in Recording mode on some digital cameras. Check your manual for specifics.
