Fear Not! Program To Reclaim SmartMedia from Rio Format Is Available!

(This just in from reader Matt Chroust)

To all those who have used SmartMedia in the Rio MP3 player, only to find out that the card will not reformat/initialize in their camera, there IS a way. Thanks to a brilliant piece of software by Harald Niesche, called "Dreaming of Brazil, which is a Rio Manager, you CAN restore the SmartMedia for camera use. I tried it in my Fuji MX-700 and can confirm it did allow the camera to once again initialize the card.

I do not know what other cameras will once again accept the card, but I'd imagine most if not all should. To use the feature, one must RIGHT-CLICK on the Initialize Button in 'Dreaming" and then choose "SmartMedia" or "SmartMediaize". Insert the card in the camera, and the camera should give you a message like "Card not Initialized" or similar. At that point try reformatting.

All the usual disclaimers and warnings apply. I post this message only as a courtesy to Harald, and those many folks who have been posting queries looking for a way to reclaim their SM for their cameras.

Harald's 'Dreaming of Brazil' can be found at:

http://www.parkverbot.org/harald/download/

Dreaming of Brazil 2.1 for Win9x/NT4 (517 kb)

Description: "Mature Rio PMP300 File Manager for Windows NT. Handles SmartMedia / FlashCards. Lets you backup/restore cards and reformat them as SmartMedia so cameras can use them again." The latest version lets you backup the card label or other parameters so they are not permanently lost - i.e. The Olympus cards' ability to do panorama shots in-camera.