Hi Chris

I was not aware that I had done any of the above but you were spot on thanks so much

It may also be worth doing this on Windows machines as well - they could potentially write a hidden file called Thumbs.db to the card and cause similar problem.

Purely for info: I use a Mac at home and Windows at work. If I look at a USB stick on my windows machine that that has been used on my Mac, there are lots of hidden files exposed! They are all to do with how the content will be viewed on screen (size, large or small icons and so on) all of which will confuse the camera.

Steve

i realize this was happening to me too and i no longer rotate images outside of the cameras software and format in camera first , even so a reformat time to time is good to do , i forgert to write protect switch before putting it intoa a win computer , great advice

Is there a way to reformat the card and not erase the images? Or will the write-protect prevent the erasure of the images?

Ok, did some more playing around, and think I figured it out...

Firstly, the word FORMAT with the red highlight is simply a "title" it seems. The formatting will apply to the source shown beside the words FORMAT OK? underneath (the icon will show internal memory when there is no SD card, then SD card only when it is inserted). So that is sorted out. I don't know if this menu would confuse others, but it did me!

But I still had the issue of showing Internal Memory Full when there were no images in internal memory to display, and it would not let me take a photo in this case. So after trying formatting with and without an SD card several times, I finally took a photo with the SD card in, then copied it to the internal memory via the playback menu (why it let me do this when it would not let me take a photo without an SD card, I do not know), then took out the card and formatted the internal memory. Now the Internal Memory Full message does not come on even when there is no SD card, AND my startup time is definitely faster! Whew!

After all of this, I was poking around on some other forums and saw a mention that saving a RAW file to the internal memory may cause this problem, so is perhaps best avoided (even though I don't actually remember saving ANY images to internal memory...).

Very interesting stuff.

A lot of people had issue in an other field (Cowon media player) and Macs. Apple does index every new device that it detects, you can see this on the spotlight icon (the small searching loupe in the right up corner usually). While indexing, it has a blinking point inside the loupe. One can stop this in the system preference, spotlight, and add devices that should not be indexed. Moreover, I did write a small python script for myself that erase all the mac hidden files (files and folder whose names begin with a dot, usually hidden on a mac, but visible under a pc, or one can find the shell command to execute to show/hide them) of my cowon player and unmount/eject it. With Cowon, it's very risky to let these files be created in the memory of the player, it simply brick down it totally, just having to return it before warranty is over. With my script, I never had a problem though. I'll use it with my cards too.

Good advice too to write-protect your card, it will simply block the creation of dot files and folders under mac, and thumbs.db and other trashes under pc.

tlval said:

I found a real trick to seriously speed up the startup of my X100.

Take out your memory card and format the internal memory. I did this and it sped up the start up of my X100 by 3 fold. I found this out by accident because I forgot to put back my memory card and took some photos. My X100 stored about 5 photos on the internal memory and after copying the files over to my Mac, I formatted the internal memory. This really helped!!!

I hopes this helps some of you out.

Dude, just tried this tip out and the camera boots up less than 1 sec! Thanks for the tip!!!

To all persons having trouble with slow start-up-times after having used a card reader om a Mac: Try renaming the card on the desktop - don't format - it is not necessary! Works fine with me - normal start-up-times afterwards!

I hope this can solve some of the problems mentioned above and prevent problem for those who don't find formatting a good solution

I loved the camera, but the startup times were doing my head! WHat a downer I thought... But now, reformatted the SD card in the camera, and no more slow startup times! Perfect! Thanks for the advise Christopher! :-bd

Here is the solution I found, turn the iPad off before pulling the card out. And I mean off!!! (hold the off button until the red slider appears and slide to turn off)

The iPad seems put an index file on the card just like any Mac does, if you actually don't unmount the drive on a Mac before you put it in the camera you will have the same problem. Unmounting the card does delete these index files!!!