On Fri, 14 Feb 2003, M. Adam Davis wrote:

*>Really?
*>
*>According to the compactflash specification, all flash memory CF cards
*>must be ATA compliant.  Setting any particular sector to a specific
*>value would violate that spec, making that card non-CF compliant.
*>
*>Do you have any references or resources for this info?  I currently use
*>4 and 8 MB cards in IDE adaptors for 'diskless' workstations and only
*>have an issue if I try to format the cards using a USB adaptor.  The IDE
*>adaptors make them look just like hard drives on a regualr machine, though.

I know that there are CF cards that cannot be formatted, and some machines
do not accept their format. They are (were ?) sold as cheap giveaways with
digital cameras. My theory is that parts of the sector 0 are used
internally to keep some counters and the respective write code does not
allow the sector to be overwritten.

Peter

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