Re: contacts

From	Arno Welzel <usenet@arnowelzel.de>
Newsgroups	comp.mobile.android
Subject	Re: contacts
Date	2026-07-14 16:06 +0200
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<1135fq2$ej02$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References	(7 earlier) <nbhd9vFa22bU3@mid.individual.net> <1130ep0$2uvvp$1@dont-email.me> <nbianjFeuonU1@mid.individual.net> <1131147$34vjh$1@dont-email.me> <1133muv.9i4.1@ID-201911.user.individual.net>

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Frank Slootweg, 2026-07-13 21:57:

> AJL <noemail@none.com> wrote:
> [...]
>> I have always used a card to transfer stuff to the tablet or to use as
>>  external storage (like my music collection for tablet listening - earphones
>>  of course as the speakers ain't so great...) so it has already been
>>  formatted and loaded beforehand. I'd try sticking in an unformatted card
>>  just to see what it would do but don't have any. My guess is just a failure
>>  warning. If you have an unformatted one sitting around give it a try on
>>  your new toys and let us know...
> 
>   Minor, but in this context  important, nit: There is no such thing as
> "an unformatted card". An SD card can be formatted with the
> wrong/undesired filesystem or the formatting might be partly broken,
> etc., but it's not unformatted. I.e. when you buy one, it's already
> formatted.

To be precise: SD cards are flash media. And this kind of media is not
"formatted" at all, it's just flash storage which can be completely
empty or it contains a filesystem with data. But to write data or to
create a new file system you don't have to "format" it.

The concept of reak "formatting" a media comes from magnetic media like
floppy disks or old very old MFM/RLL hard disks before we had IDE, which
required to have sector information written to it, before you can create
a file system on it - so the medium has a sector format. The procedure
to format hard disks this was also called "low level format" in contrast
to write a new file system. It is just MS-DOS which also used "format"
as command, but formatting and creating a file system are two separate
things. Microsoft once also used a special higher density format for the
Windows 95 installation floppy disks which had more sectors per
cylinder, so the disks could store a bit more data.

A medium which needs formatting, before it can be used is also called
"soft sectored" since the sector boundaries are not defined by the
hardware but only by the sector identification written to the disk.
Modern hard disks get the secore information written in the factory and
they don't support "low level format" at all and just ignore this. On
the other hand, if the sector data ever gets lost, the hard disk is not
usable any longer.

In Linux there are two separate tools to format floppy disks, like
ufiformat and mkdosfs, but MS-DOS and Windows usually combined both in
one single operation to write new sectors and create the file system
afterwards.

However, over the decades "formatting" a media became a synonym for
creating a new empty file system.

-- 
Arno Welzel
https://arnowelzel.de

Thread

contacts "Carlos E. R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-07-09 18:33 +0200
  Re: contacts Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2026-07-09 18:02 +0100
    Re: contacts "Carlos E. R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-07-09 20:08 +0200
      Re: contacts Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2026-07-10 11:26 +0100
        Re: contacts "Carlos E. R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-07-10 12:49 +0200
        Re: contacts Jörg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.net> - 2026-07-10 15:30 +0200
  Re: contacts Jörg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.net> - 2026-07-09 19:26 +0200
    Re: contacts Jörg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.net> - 2026-07-09 19:30 +0200
      Re: contacts "Carlos E. R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-07-09 20:10 +0200
        Re: contacts Jörg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.net> - 2026-07-09 22:21 +0200
          Re: contacts "Carlos E. R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-07-10 12:50 +0200
            Re: contacts Jörg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.net> - 2026-07-10 15:32 +0200
        Re: contacts Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-07-11 08:50 +0100
          Re: contacts "Carlos E. R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-07-11 12:25 +0200
            Re: contacts Jörg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.net> - 2026-07-12 09:59 +0200
          Re: contacts Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-07-12 19:31 -0400
            Re: contacts Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-07-14 17:33 +0100
              Re: contacts Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-07-14 13:25 -0400
                Re: contacts Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-07-14 17:01 -0400
      Re: contacts Arno Welzel <usenet@arnowelzel.de> - 2026-07-10 13:18 +0200
        Re: contacts Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2026-07-10 13:38 +0000
          Re: contacts Arno Welzel <usenet@arnowelzel.de> - 2026-07-10 16:49 +0200
            Re: contacts Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2026-07-10 18:32 +0100
              Re: contacts Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2026-07-10 18:05 +0000
              Re: contacts Dave Royal <dave@dave123royal.com> - 2026-07-10 19:12 +0100
                Re: contacts Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2026-07-11 18:37 +0100
              Re: contacts Arno Welzel <usenet@arnowelzel.de> - 2026-07-12 11:58 +0200
                Re: contacts Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-07-12 19:36 -0400
                Re: contacts Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-07-12 19:44 -0400
    Re: contacts Arno Welzel <usenet@arnowelzel.de> - 2026-07-10 13:16 +0200
  Re: contacts "s|b" <me@privacy.invalid> - 2026-07-09 22:17 +0200
    Re: contacts Jörg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.net> - 2026-07-09 22:22 +0200
      Re: contacts "s|b" <me@privacy.invalid> - 2026-07-10 11:12 +0200
        Re: contacts Jörg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.net> - 2026-07-10 11:33 +0200
          Re: contacts Arno Welzel <usenet@arnowelzel.de> - 2026-07-10 13:22 +0200
            Re: contacts "s|b" <me@privacy.invalid> - 2026-07-10 17:53 +0200
      Re: contacts Arno Welzel <usenet@arnowelzel.de> - 2026-07-10 13:20 +0200
        Re: contacts Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-07-12 00:03 -0400
          Re: contacts ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) - 2026-07-12 07:42 +0000
            Re: contacts Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-07-12 09:44 +0100
              Re: contacts "Carlos E. R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-07-12 13:49 +0200
                Re: contacts AJL <noemail@none.com> - 2026-07-12 16:18 +0000
                Re: contacts "Carlos E. R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-07-12 22:11 +0200
                Re: contacts AJL <noemail@none.com> - 2026-07-12 21:31 +0000
                Re: contacts Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-07-12 21:05 -0400
                Re: contacts AJL <noemail@none.com> - 2026-07-13 01:52 +0000
                Re: contacts Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-07-13 02:26 -0400
                Re: contacts AJL <noemail@none.com> - 2026-07-13 16:50 +0000
                Re: contacts Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2026-07-13 20:04 +0000
                Re: contacts AJL <noemail@none.com> - 2026-07-13 21:17 +0000
                Re: contacts Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2026-07-13 17:00 +0100
                Re: contacts AJL <noemail@none.com> - 2026-07-13 17:00 +0000
                Re: contacts Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2026-07-13 18:10 +0100
                Re: contacts AJL <noemail@none.com> - 2026-07-13 17:48 +0000
                Re: contacts Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2026-07-13 19:57 +0000
                Re: contacts Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2026-07-14 12:45 +0100
                Re: contacts Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2026-07-14 14:07 +0000
                Re: contacts Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2026-07-14 15:28 +0100
                Re: contacts Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> - 2026-07-14 15:45 +0000
                Re: contacts Arno Welzel <usenet@arnowelzel.de> - 2026-07-14 16:06 +0200
            Re: contacts Arno Welzel <usenet@arnowelzel.de> - 2026-07-12 12:04 +0200
          Re: contacts Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-07-12 09:53 +0100
          Re: contacts Arno Welzel <usenet@arnowelzel.de> - 2026-07-12 12:01 +0200
      Re: contacts AJL <noemail@none.com> - 2026-07-10 16:10 +0000
        Re: contacts Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-07-12 00:03 -0400
  Re: contacts Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-07-11 23:53 -0400

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