Card Tricks - a small utility to help manage SD cards [currently v. 1.44]

Joe 1956

whim
BTW You should also be able to format without DOS: 'My Computer' -> right-click card -> choose format
Just make sure it uses FAT not FAT32 (there should be an option for that)

I've tried it that way also. Make bootable stays grayed out though, and that's the only thing I really need to do.

whim

OK, in that case: follow fe50's recommendation and download HxD here:

(free download) http://mh-nexus.de/en/downloads.php?product=HxD

i also did, so let me know when you're ready ...

wim

edit: just tested it (verified with CardTricks) and it works. In the program, you first need to
goto menu Extras -> Options -> Security (on tab General) -> uncheck "Open disk as readonly by default"
Click OK.
then, goto menu Extras -> Open disk and select your card's drive letter under "Logical disks"
(BTW, always format cards with CANON_DC as drive label (like your cam does) that makes it easier to recognize
them - this program also shows the drive label)
Click OK to dismiss the warning and your card will be opened in the editor.
It's the rightmost column that we're interested in - this shows the ASCII representation of the card.
In the first line of this column you should see MSDOS5.0, in the 4th there should be FAT16. Yes ?
Then put the cursor on the 1st character of the 5th line and type (capitals !) BOOTDISK
Then goto menu File -> Save , OK the warnings and close the program. Done.

Joe 1956

Okay, I've downloaded the hex editor, have placed the build on an old 256 card to play around with, (which was fully formatted via right click in My Computer), and here's what I see, just so you'll know where I'm at:

I might be busy for a while tonight, so might not get back to you quickly.

whim

Joe - still can't see whatever you're including - but check my previous post, I edited it with a detailed guide.

wim

Joe 1956

By George, that was easy enough. It works! 😁

To recap, for anyone who'll read this later:

I fully formatted my card by right clicking on it in My Computer, making sure that CANON_DC was the volume label (it always is if you used the card in the camera first, no doubt you'll have to label a new card), used Card Tricks to get my camera build onto the card (which I might be able to do manually - will check later), then used the hex editor to type BOOTDISK on the 5th line of the header.

Now I have something to understand by comparison. This is sorta like editing the header in a .jpg.

Thank you!

whim

@Joe

Nice ! Just remember every time you do this to check if it says FAT16 on line 4 ...
(i'm not sure from which size camera's start formatting FAT32, but they definitely
do for 4 Gb and up)

cheers,

wim

edit:

which I might be able to do manually

yes, it's just an unzip operation

This is sorta like editing the header in a .jpg.

exactly, you can also do that with this program.

Joe 1956

I just now got another card to work, a 1 gig. Tried it on a 4 gig card, but it didn't work, but that's okay since it did work when I set it up on my friends machine. (Don't understand much of it, of course, but I noticed the header was a little different on the 4 gig).

All in all, I can now make do with anything less than a 4 gig, until I can get to an XP machine. Wim, thanks for your help!

Oops. fe50, thanks to you as well.

fe50

The problem is the Win98 format command: there's no /FS: switch since Win98 can only use FAT.

Up to 2GB format uses FAT16, with 4GB automatically FAT32 is used - that's why CT disables the bootable button.
It's also the same with in-camera formatting...

So the card should be formatted on a Windows XP machine with FAT16 (either with Cardtricks or in a CMD windows with the /fs:FAT parameter), on Linux it should also be possible.
Maybe there's another format tool that can do it...

Joe 1956

I wonder how a 4 gig standard card would work with what you guys have taught me, (not an SDHC type, which both of mine are). Seems there aren't that many of the standard ones around. Perhaps nobody's tried?

fe50

Joe,
imo it doesn't matter if the card is SD or SDHC - but with SDHC cards the camera itself must support SDHC.

An older camera without SDHC support always reject a SDHC card (with any size), normally with 'card error' - you can't do anything with such a card in such a camera...

The autostart mechanism in CHDK is limited to 4GB/FAT16 (SD or SDHC), that's why a card > 4GB must be partitioned (needs CHDK multi partition support, CHDK starts from a small FAT16 partition and then swaps the partitions on the fly)...

Joe 1956

I think I understand, but am not sure. I thought that maybe the memory addresses were different in the two types, meaning as to what line in the header you could change.

So much to learn, so little time left.

fe50

Joe 1956
I think I understand, but am not sure. I thought that maybe the memory addresses were different in the two types, meaning as to what line in the header you could change.

The SD and SDHC cards uses different reader hard/software (aka the in-camera 'card reader'), therefore an old SD-only device (e.g. an older camera or USB card reader) can't access the card.

The logical structure of the card's first sector (the 512 bytes where we write the BOOTDISK identifier) is always the same.
The CHDK autostart method hijacks the original Canon firmware update mechanism to load & run the CHDK code on the camera; this update mechanism is designed (by Canon) to work only with FAT16...

So much to learn, so little time left.

Yeah - that's true !

whim

@fe50

The problem is the Win98 format command: there's no /FS: switch since Win98 can only use FAT.

I'm being lazy here, but if it's not too much work, could you get me a dump of the '98 format help output ?
Then it would be a breeze to add support ...

wim

PS Interestingly, i also just ran into the fact that good old debug.exe (present in all Win versions) is able to read/write
disk sectors, if it behaves sufficiently equal that would open up the possibility of replacing bootable.exe with a
debug script on OS'es that don't support it ...

whim

Since I was getting a bit fed up with (false, of course) virus reports about CardTricks, here is

CardTricks-144-SFX.exe - 510 kB

None of the (35) scanners on Virus Total gave a false alarm on this today at 15:00 h (GMT+1)
No need to upgrade from 1.43, functionally identical; if you want to anyway, just point the self-extractor
to the folder containing your previous version
This is a 7-zip self-extracting archive, just get 7-zip (open source, get it here: http://www.7-zip.org)
and you can manually unpack it, giving you full access to the source before running anything 😁
The previous method (AutoIt 'FileInstall' + UPX --ultra-brute) was ~20% more efficient than the current
(UPX --ultra-brute on the CT exe, then 7-zip LZMA Ultra SFX on exe + /CardTricks folder) -
must be the SFX stub, i suppose 🙁

to all users of previous versions: thanks for your confidence,
and sorry, but this update will do more for me than for you 🤣

wim

PS Still don't have a clue why previous method triggered these alarms, though ...

Joe 1956

I'm being lazy here, but if it's not too much work, could you get me a dump of the '98 format help output ?
Then it would be a breeze to add support ...

Is that something I could do? Running ME, for what it's worth. If it entails DOS commands, then I'd need them exact. 😁

Edit - whim, is this what you were talking about a couple of pages back? It didn't make a text file, so the screencap is the best I can do.

whim

@Joe

It's dead simple: (i will put "" around what you see or should type)

- open a DOS box.

- type (remember, omit the ""): "format /? > C:\joeshelp.txt" and press <Enter>

- you can now close the DOS box and check if 'joeshelp.txt' is there (in the root of your disk C😀

- (assuming here you've got your browser opened on this thread and are logged in)
- click 'REPLY' and type your message
- check bottom left under the 'frame' where you're typing: click 'Additional Options'
- click 'browse ...' (or whatever it says on the button) in the line starting with 'Attach:'
- you should get a file select box, browse to and select 'joeshelp.txt'
- done, file is attached (alternatively, you can of course also copy and paste between 'joeshelp.txt' and the forum editor)
- send message

wim

I just included the last section because you seemed to have trouble getting stuff on your computer into your messages.
remember, if you just want to get some text from a file into your message, that you should only use plain text
You might get in trouble if you do a copy-paste from, let's say, Word. However, attaching always works (but mind the size)
There's more too: you can format your text in the forum editor with the buttons above your message.
Gee, I hope all this works on your ME ! by the way, attachment are NOT shown when you do a Preview

Joe 1956

No, it just didn't do anything, left no text file, but this time it did.

Formats a disk for use with MS-DOS.

FORMAT drive: [/V[:label]] [/Q] [/F:size] [/C]
FORMAT drive: [/V[:label]] [/Q] [/T:tracks /N:sectors] [/C]
FORMAT drive: [/V[:label]] [/Q] [/1] [/4] [/C]
FORMAT drive: [/Q] [/1] [/4] [/8] [/C]

/V[:label] Specifies the volume label.
/Q Performs a quick format.
/F:size Specifies the size of the floppy disk to format (such
as 160, 180, 320, 360, 720, 1.2, 1.44, 2.8😎.
/T:tracks Specifies the number of tracks per disk side.
/N:sectors Specifies the number of sectors per track.
/1 Formats a single side of a floppy disk.
/4 Formats a 5.25-inch 360K floppy disk in a high-density drive.
/8 Formats eight sectors per track.
/C Tests clusters that are currently marked "bad."

fe50

@wim ...sorry, a bit late, was busy...
Format.com on Win98/ME do not support the 64k cluster FAT16, so we cant use it.

Yes, with debug it should be possible, but IMO the diskeditor method should be the better way:
'raw' writing on a drive with debug could be very dangerous, with a diskeditor (like HxD) the user can easily check whether the right drive is selected, there are also multiple warnings, it's much 'safer'...

Thx for the new CT version, i'll update the drops & the wikia...

whim

@fe50

'raw' writing on a drive with debug could be very dangerous, with a diskeditor (like HxD) the user can easily check whether the right drive is selected

totally agreed, but i meant this as a possible 'universal' replacement for 'bootable.exe' in CT - but, with your comments
on Win9x/ME 'format' limitations, this doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon ...

wim

fe50

@wim
It was a good timing with the 'new' CT 1.44 version: since today Avira declares v1.43 as trojan, too >🙁
But this was forseeable, it's well known that the virus definitions are exchanged (sadly without a quality check) very fast between the different scanner engines/companies...
One company start and declares something as as new [tt]Trojan TR-W32/bullshit666[/tt], then all the others add this new 'virus/trojan' with a different, fanciful name & some additional numbers to their scanners - yeah, like Lemmings (c) 😉

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