[NTLK] Formatting & Erasing Linear Flash Cards

After an 8 month hiatus, I decided to temporarily resubscribe to this fine
list in order to present a problem I was hit with today while using my 2100.
For a couple years, I've been using an AMD D-series 5v linear 32MB flash
card without problem in my Newton. I had a lot of data on the card, but I
never drove it very hard, only using Clarity to record Sunday School class
attendance each Sunday. Today while working in Clarity, I got a lockup.
This is nothing new as Clarity has many bugs that, sadly, will never be
fixed. But it suits my purposes so well though that I've learned to live
with the resets. Anyway, sliding the power switch did nothing, so I took
the stylus as I've done many times and pressed the Reset button on back.
The Newton reset but after everything loaded the wait icon at the top of the
screen stayed on forever. I was forced to reset again via the reset button
on the back of my 2100. Still the same wait icon when all the packages
loaded.

I then resorted to killing power by removing my battery pack, waiting a few
minutes, and then powering up the 2100. (Yes, I've done that many times
before even with my cards still locked in their slots.) But this time I got
a very frightful message that said:

"There is a problem with this card. (Newton cannot recognize this type of
card.)"

If I leave the card in my Newton after OKing that dialog, the Newton just
ignores the card. I tried finding the card with some utility packages, but
they couldn't see it.

I put the Newton to sleep, removed the card and then reinserted it, but I
get the same message every time.

I made a backup a few months ago, so I am happy to erase this card and start
over. Not sure what happened to it, but formatting usually solves these
problems. But it's been so long since I formatted a linear card I wasn't
sure how to go about it. I searched the archives of this list and found
some people suggest inserting the card only after opening the Prefs. I
tried that but I still get the same "There is a problem..." dialog even with
the Prefs open. (And by Prefs I mean the Prefs that show Security, Locale,
Sound, Recording, Alarm, Sleep, etc.) So Prefs doesn't work at all on my
2100 to allow me to erase the card.

I read some old posts that said people tried erasing in an older PowerBook,
but I don't have one of those. I don't have access to a PC with a PCMCIA
card slot either.

I therefore resubscribed to this list in the hope that some of you Newton
experts out there might kindly offer me some prudent advice on how best to
get this card formatted or otherwise erased and working again.

Many thanks for your time,

James Wages

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Received on Sun Aug 3 04:54:08 2008