Never format a 16GB Compact Flash (CF) card with your camera!

I learned my lesson yesterday when I happily bought a new 16GB Kingmax Compact Flash (CF) card for my DSLR from DCIM shows 2009 in Midvalley.

After I purchase the CF card, I immediately pop it into my 350D WITHOUT formatting it. It works like charm. The total image remaining indicate 999 even on RAW quality. I was really amazed with it. I tested a few shots and it works perfectly.

Till I get back home, since this is a new card, I normally use my camera to format it. I did it as usual for my camera. I go to the format card menu in 350D, it indicate total of 14.5GB memory space available. Without think much, I just pressed OK. There is goes. About 30 seconds later, the card is ready. I was shock when I check the capacity on the card. It indicate 7.5GB instead of 14.5GB!

Still unable to convince myself, I switch off my camera and turn it on again after remove all the battery, CF card and leave it for 1 minute. The capacity still the same 7.5GB!

The very next thing I did was to remove the card from the camera and popped in to my card reader. I used Disk Management from Windows XP to check the partition, surprisingly there's total of 2 partition, one active partition 7.45GB and another one is also around 7.5GB but unknown partition.

There's no way you can delete the partition from disk management tools. The option just grayed out!

Luckily, I had my friend's Nikon D2Xs with me. A little desperate, I try to use the D2Xs to format my card. Woalla! It works again after I formatted it with D2Xs. I recheck the capacity again in my computer and it indicate total capacity of14.5GB!

Lesson learned: 16GB CF card can be use on my 350D but DON'T ever use camera to format it! Use a computer instead to format it with FAT32 file system.

After I did some google from the web, I found that most of Canon camera having this problem. 5D Mark I (Please note it is not Mark II) problem solved with upgrading firmware, but then there's no firmware upgrade for 30D and 350D.

Canon Camera that might have problem:
1. 350D, 300D?
2. 20D, 30D
4. 5D Mark I (NOT Mark II)

So far Nikon camera haven't encounter this problem before.
1. D300
2. D2Xs

I am uncertain about older model for Nikon like D70, D70s, D100, D200, D1, D2x etc..

Please check out the link below for more information regarding this.
1. http://mikewren.com/transcend-16gb-formatting-kludge
2. http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3304
3. http://davidnaylor.org/blog/2008/04/problem-and-solution-16gb-compact-flash.html