Windows vista and strange memory card problem.

[viperx45]

hey back again with another problem

I have a regular SD card for a camera and one day i decided to stick it in an MP3 player and connect it to my computer to download the files, like i always do. anyways when i went to explore the drive, windows told me that it needed to be formatted. I viewed the properties of the card and capacity was all messed, so i thought formatting it was the only solution, turns out windows couldn't format it and now the card doesn't work at all and lags any computer i stick it in. and now today my external hard drive had the same problem only i wasn't going to try formatting. i plugged it into my laptop and it ran just fine. is this a random windows vista error? and how do i fix my camera card now?

Vista is fully updated and camera was working just fine in camera until vista killed it. i don't have the slightest clue as where to start this time.

[soybean]

So, you have previously used that SD card in both camera and MP3 player, and downloaded and/or uploaded files between both those devices and the computer without problems, right?

Does the camera have it's own formatting capability?  If so, I'd try that.

[viperx45]

Ya my external hard drive has worked just fine before too. The Hard Drive works perfectly in my laptop. however the card doesn't work at all anymore. not even recognized by any device except my camera. camera has the ability to format but it says the card is unusable. Laptop has a card reader so it rules out the mp3 player being bad.
-Hard drive operates extremely slowly on desktop. tried checking for errors and it got stuck. The seagate go external hard drive makes beeping   noises when connected to my desktop. usually this means lack of power. but this is a new computer and it worked before. no beeping noises on the laptop. I've tried all my other devices such as: PSP, Tom tom,  cell phone, and mp3 players. they work just fine. my vista installation is pretty new. i might just reinstall it as a last call.
- tried scanning for bad sectors and errors. the scan froze on my new computer but seems to be scanning just fine on my laptop

laptop: vista not updated
new desktop: vista updated

sorry for any confusion

[patio]

It sounds like the MP3 player was underpowered and or hiccuped during the transfer...
Whatever errors took place may be making the card unreadable at this point.
Since the errors happened while the card was in the player i would try the following steps :
First try formatting it in the player.
Next try the same in the camera itself.
Finally try the above in the laptop.

If this does not work DLoad install and try Recuva ( FREE ) on it...not so much to retrieve the data but to try and get it back to where you can at least format it and use it...

Last ditch effort try to format it in a dedicated card reader.
Good Luck.