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Question about formatting footage.

I shot some footage, but my computer told me that it cannot be played cause it was not formatted correctly. I shot from the Canon T2i. This was the first time my computer told me and it was playing just fine and then stopped, before it said that. It asked me if I wanted to format it properly. I clicked yes, and a warning popped up saying that doing so, would erase all the existing data. My friends who also own computers say they don't know how to fix this problem. Any ideas? Thanks.
 
formatting your footage and your drive are NOT the same thing !!!!!!!!!

formatting your drive is erasing it... formatting your footage is changing the type of file it is stored as.. careful -- the difference is important.
 
PC.


"formatting your footage and your drive are NOT the same thing !!!!!!!!!

formatting your drive is erasing it... formatting your footage is changing the type of file it is stored as.. careful -- the difference is important."

Okay thanks. But I don't know how to format the footage since the computer is only giving me the 'format disk' option. That's the one that threatens to erase the content, if I do so.
 
Last edited:
Back to the beginning:

Does your OS (=Operating System aka Windows) tell you it's not formatted correctly?
(In Premiere Pro it would say it's an 'unknown/incorrect format' meaning it can't open the codec.)

You want to play the footage:
Are you trying to play it from the memorycard or from the harddrive?
Can you click and select the file you want to play?
Or does the folder with footage not open at all? (And you get the format message?)

When playing from memorycard:
does the footage play in camera? (when the card is in the camera)
Do you connect your cardreader with an USB-cable?
(Try different USB-gate, try different cable: it could also be you didn't connect it properly.)

When playing from harddisk:
Check the connections and cables.
Can you still open folders and play orther files?
Did you try to disconnect and reconnect the harddrive?
Restarting the computer?
Does the harddisk work on other computers?

--------------------------------------

Btw, this sounds like a troll question... or a prelude to "oh no, I lost all my work, now I can't finish my short"
 
PC.


"formatting your footage and your drive are NOT the same thing !!!!!!!!!

formatting your drive is erasing it... formatting your footage is changing the type of file it is stored as.. careful -- the difference is important."

Okay thanks. But I don't know how to format the footage since the computer is only giving me the 'format disk' option. That's the one that threatens to erase the content, if I do so.

Hence, it's not about the footage, but about the disk.
(That's called logic!)
 
Whatever dialog is coming up is asking to erase your disk... it's got nothing to do with the footage. How is your disk formatted? FAT32 or NTFS? Some of the windows folks can direct you to fast ways to gather this information, I'd have to look it up.

FAT32 will only allow 4Gb files due to the 32 bit addressing schema it uses. NTFS will allow for larger files. FAT32 is cross-platform compatible, however and is a good solution if you're doing any transferring between mac/pc with smaller sized files. Macs will read NTFS, but can't currently write to them (although there are solutions for that available).

What application are you in that is asking you to erase your drive? What drive is it asking you to erase? (at the OS/System level, format = erase for ease of reference)
 
Whatever dialog is coming up is asking to erase your disk... it's got nothing to do with the footage. How is your disk formatted? FAT32 or NTFS? Some of the windows folks can direct you to fast ways to gather this information, I'd have to look it up.

FAT32 will only allow 4Gb files due to the 32 bit addressing schema it uses. NTFS will allow for larger files. FAT32 is cross-platform compatible, however and is a good solution if you're doing any transferring between mac/pc with smaller sized files. Macs will read NTFS, but can't currently write to them (although there are solutions for that available).

What application are you in that is asking you to erase your drive? What drive is it asking you to erase? (at the OS/System level, format = erase for ease of reference)
 
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