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SmartMedia | Tech Info Home Page |

General Information -

SmartMedia is a storage card about one-third the size of a  PC Card and 0.76mm in thickness. 

SmartMedia devices are Flash Memory type Devices and are also known as SSFDC ( Solid State Floppy Disk Cards .)

An example of a SmartMedia Card made by SanDisk Corp. is shown below.

SmartMedia ATA memory products are storage devices that can be used by devices like digital cameras to hold information.

Information stored on these cards is retained after power is removed.

SmartMedia Memory Cards can be found at the "SmartMedia Memory Cards" page.

Special devices called "Card Readers" which connect to a computer can be used to read (or write) the data from a SmartMedia card. For example you might use a SmartMedia to record pictures with a digital camera then insert the card into a PC connecter Card Reader and transfer the pictures from the card to the computer.

Card Readers come in both Internal and External mounting configurations. The internal models are primarily older devices used for reading/writing PCMCIA Type II PC Cards and fit into either a 5-1/4" or 3.5" drive bay. The external models are newer and connect to the USB port.

Known Problems -

Formatting:

- Problem: SmartMedia cards should be pre-formatted at the factory. In such cases, if you re-format the card on another devices, there is a good chance that you will not be able to read/format it on another device. The manufacturers suggest if this happens (and it makes your card useless) to send it back to them for repairs. You could try formatting it on on another device. A better solution is to not format the card but rather to Erase it using the provided software.

- How to Format a card: 
Open "My Computer" from the desktop
Right click on the drive letter associated with your media card reader.
(The icon for the Media Reader should  indicate it is a removable device (be sure not to inadvertently format the wrong device.)
Select Format from the pop-up menu and follow the instructions.

- Kingston Memory Cards Warning : You should NOT format the Flash card if your Camera/MP3 player, etc… does not support any Windows / Mac standard OS File Tables or if your Flash card requires an ID string to be recognized by the OEM device (industry formatted card).

Issues with Windows XP:

Cards with capacities of 64MB or above are set by default to use the FAT32 file system which does not work with many cameras and portable devices.

Features -

Voltage - SmartMedia cards come in both 3.3 volt and 5 volt configurations. The 5-volt type is an older style and not compatible with many of the newer card readers.

• 3.3 volt -
  Indicated by a notch on the top right corner
  
• 5 volt -
  Indicated by a notch on the top left corner

Links - 

• More Info @ pc-card.com Link, 

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