- In the Safely Remove Hardware dialog box, click on the flash media reader to
highlight it. It might be listed simply as USB Mass Storage Device. - Click Stop. The Stop a Hardware Device dialog box will appear. Click on the
USB device to highlight it and then click OK.
If a message appears saying it is safe to remove the hardware, you’re fin-
ished. If a message appears stating the media is in use and to try again later,
you might want to close all applications you think might be accessing the
media, or shut down/reboot and remove the media.
The Absolute Minimum
In January 2004, the Mars robot Spiritstopped operating because of corrupted flash
memory. Engineers at NASA spent 10 days diagnosing and recovering the robot’s
flash memory before science operations could begin. At some point you might find
yourself in the same situation, courtesy of your digital camera’s flash memory.
Fortunately, a number of tools exist for the Mac and PC to recover images that you
might have written off as corrupted or lost. Keep in mind these points when recover-
ing or working with files on flash media:
■ Consumer-level digital cameras use the FAT16 filesystem, and high-end SLR
digital cameras now use FAT16 and FAT32 filesystems.
■ Filesystems use sectors to store file information. Sectors are grouped together
to form clusters.
■ Clusters in a FAT16 filesystem are 16KB in size, regardless of the data stored
therein. A 1KB file, for example, will occupy one cluster and take up 16KB.
■ Disk defragmentation is healthy maintenance you should perform on your
computer every few months. It isn’t necessary for flash media, however.
■ Windows users have a built-in disk defragmenter; Mac users should check out
DiskWarrior.110 ABSOLUTE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TODIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY