Formatting Compact Flash Cards

[SteelPulse]

hey everyone, I work at a small company that manufactures heart monitors and we use Compact Flash cards in our devices. We've recently come across a problem where only the 64MB versions of the SanDisk Compact Flash Cards need to be pre-formatted before they can be used in the device. Ive found that using an old DOS-based 486 and an outdated Adtron PC-Card drive that provided a batch file for formatting of the cards works, but A) its a real pain in the ass to deal with a fussy 486 to format a few hundred flash cards and B) if this drive dies I dont forsee anyway of it being replaced and that would be a MAJOR problem.

unfotunately, at this time, simply not using these cards is not an option. what i need to know is if someone can tell me how to format these in windows. ive tried just the basic format command, specifying the tracks/sectors and allocation size as per SanDisk's website(490 Tracks, 32 Sectors, 512 bytes), and so far it is not working at all. These need to be formatted in FAT(16 not 32) and windows is telling me the "cluster size is too small for FAT16/12". Im really at a loss here, and thus far any searches have come up with nothing.

At this point im willing to try anything, so any ideas would be spectacular. Or if anyone knows for certain how to accomplish this that would be even better. Thanks very much in advance for any help.

Also, to the mods, sorry if this is in the wrong section but it seemed the most appropriate.

 

[kitkat22]

This was just a quick look at www.download.com, but I did run across something that might be promising. I've never tried it, but if it does what it claims then you may be in good shape. Flash Format (Pocket PC) 2.61

 

[SteelPulse]

yea.. ive seen that. unfortunately it only works for windows CE which doesnt help me much. it kinda pisses me off, too, because it makes absolutely no sense why this program would only be made for PDAs and nothing else.

 

[kitkat22]

It might be useful to just get a PDA and use that. It would be much faster than your 486 and would give you the option of FAT16. Are you using Win98SE to do the formatting?

 

[SteelPulse]

no, its a DOS based machine that is correctly formatting them with the drive. The other PCs are XP/2k. Getting a PDA might be a good idea, but im just amazed that there is no way for this to be done in windows XP/2k. I was able to find a program called DiskMan for Win98 that got the job done, but no support for XP/2k as of yet. The more I look, the more I realize that alot of other people are having similar problems and noone is finding help anywhere either. Whats truely amazing is that the manufacturers themsevles havent developed a simple tool for this purpose, let alone a third party.