Tag : digital microdrive, high speed, memory card, hitachi 4gb

Company : Hitachi List Price : $299.95 Amazon Price : $23.00 Used Price : $22.00 Average customer review :

Features

• Store thousands of high-resolution images
• High speed means less delay between shots
• Weighs less that a roll of film
• Best choice for digital cameras
• Kit includes Hitachi 4gb microdrive retail packing, Pro card reader, & Opteka cleaning kit

Product Description

Small size and enhanced 4GB capacity permits you to carry an entire continent of maps or 1,000 songs in your pocket. Reliable storage for data, photos, music, and videos from digital cameras, PDAs, handheld PCs, MP3 digital audio players, laptops and other portable handheld devices Hitachi’s new 4GB Microdrive is designed to the Compact Flash Type II industry standard and is compatible with a wide variety of devices that accept CF+ Type II media. The 4GB Microdrive is formatted at the factory using the FAT32 file system to remedy the 2GB limitation of the FAT16 file system.

Customer reviews

microdrives.
most cameras need a Fat 16 formated drive.

All 4 GB drives come (IBM or Hitachi or labels) come formated FAT32

so given that fact , most cameras will fail. If yours works , skip this review, ok?

However you can reformat it.

What’s worse,

there at 2 types of drives.

Hitachi says

white label is REAL-IDE interface only ( computer , Ipod, MP3 unit, etc)

and that blue label is: CF+ Camera Microdrive

so if you have a white lable , chances are, It will never work with a camera. To be sure, check the model number on your drive againt the Hitachi online specifications to be sure.

To fix FAT32 , get a USB to FC/MD Memory reader device.

find Windows XP pro, Home stinks , find the real thing.

Go to control panel + admin..tools +computer.managment + disk management.

recommend looking before and after pluging in your microdrive

so you will recognize it when plugged in.

find it and right click , delete partition. ( be dang careful here)

now, right click it again, and creat a new partition of 2gb.

when that is done format it to FAT16. ( some times called FAT)

you lost 2gb, but that ok, as many cams have a limit of 2gb, but not all.

set the partition to whatever you camera manaual allows.

the above assume you are not in some recovery mode.

For that you need special software and $40

Kicks after 1 GB
I bought two of these 4 GB drives from different vendors and about a year apart, yet I have had the same problem with both of them. At just over 1 gig of photos it starts giving me ‘corrupt image’ notices, and I have gotten to where I can tell when it’s going to happen, because when it does, the camera’s display stays on too long after I have taken a shot and then all of my manual settings are reset. I am trying to find research on why it does this, because the reason I bought 4 gigs was so that I did not have to worry about backups while traveling. Now I have to take my laptop or a secondary backup device with me on long trips, which can be cumbersome when travelling internationally, because when these errors begin to happen I have to backup the drive immediately and re-format the card or I can’t even continue taking photographs. I have a Canon Eos that’s only 3 years old, so the camera should not be the problem.

Disapointed
4gb microdrive, batteries all charged up on my Canon EOS 20D. Excited to use the camera at my nephew’s graduation. Brother, wanted copies of the pics that I had taken. Much to MY DISAPOINTMENT, went to download the images to my computer, and there’s NADA, nothing. I’ve use a dozen different programs to ‘recover’ loss data/images, but nothing. I didn’t delete any of the pics. I didn’t know there’s a problem of loss data with the microdrives. Here I am, thinking I’m all set, ready to take pics, and didn’t even get one photo. So, with my experience I will not buy another one, and that’s why 1 star.

Card crashed after less than a year.
If I had written this review two weeks ago I would be leaving five stars.

I’ve had this card for less than a year, and use it with my Nikon D70s. I always take great care when handling it, never pressing on the front and back, dropping, or severely jostling it.

I took a few photos and went directly inside to transfer them to my computer, but when the drive mounted everything was garbled and all of my data was gone. I popped it back in my camera to confirm the loss of my photos, and the error read “Card Not Formatted.” I then attempted to format the card via my camera, but it would not format. When trying to format it from a computer it just crashed the entire system (multiple machines.) The card is now utterly useless!

I had read of this happening but assumed it was user negligence in some way and bought it anyway. Don’t take a chance! Stick with a non-moving CF card instead.

Bought this to use in a camera
Bought this to use in a camera.

It is good overall but would prefer a card with higher write speeds.

Sometimes, when you take pictures at a very high rate, you will experience some lag.

I have been using it for about 1 1/2 year now.