old 128 MB Smart Media Card problems

I have an old 128MB Smart Media Card. It has a strange problem. I can fill the card up to approx. 40 MB and then I get a message from Windows Explorer that the card is write protected!

I formated the card and tried it again. Still the same problem. It doesn't matter which files I copy. When the used space on the card reaches 40MB, Windows tells me that the card is write protected and I'm not able to copy anymore files. However I can use the 40MB of the card without any problems. I can delete write, modify files.

I already tried to free the disk space with WinHex, but that operation failed unfortunately.

Does anyone know how I can solve that problem? I would really like to use the whole 128MB and not just 40MB.

 

It could be that the card has reached the end of it's useful life.

If you are are copying a load of files to the root directory of the card then this is your problem. Create a folder on the memory card and copy the files to that.

 

It doesn't matter if I use subfolders

Is it possible to repair Smart Media Cards?

 

lol.



Er, uhh.

Here's my experience. SM cards are notorious for pooping in their own shorts. I had one that was used in an old Olympus digicam and later in my Korg sampler. The damn card occasionally decides to corrupt itself and become unusable. I wouldn't have a clue if it would help, but I know there's some sort of recovery software I used back then to slap it back into working properly. Like a sort of 'reset' or 'ultra-format' or something.
Maybe look into that sort of thing?

 

Try a low level format, this program will do so (use at your own risk, etc, etc) as it should fix it.

http://www.rashmun.com/Files/SMprep3.exe

I've had issues with SMC, generally if the card is well used then it might be reaching the end of it's useful life and no amount of formating is going to help. Although saying that the branded (Olympus and Toshiba) cards still work where as unknown brand cards gave me the most issues.

It's annoying that new SMC are expensive for what a branded 128mb card costs new you could get an 16GB SD card...

 

Thanks for the hints. I tried several tools, including smprep, unfortunately none was able torecognize my card reader. I tried it with 2 cardreaders on 2 different computers and OS'.

Seems those utilities work only with specific card readers

 

Try using a Smart Media Card flopppy adapter as I've had more luck with that then a card reader. Remember the SMC where meant to be floppy replacements and where designed at a low level to function like a floppy disc. They are very cheap, here is one on Ebay for 99p with a day left.