If you have SSFDC cards then you'll know that some devices use them as a FAT-12 filesystem and others don't. SSFDC cards are just memory - no controller - no wear leveling. Most PCMCIA or USB adaptors make it pretty hard to erase the card and so if you swap cards between FAT and Non-FAT uses the memory on the card will suddenly disappear. Writing 0xff s over the card will (mostly) fix this. My PCMCIA adaptor refuses to write 0xffs over the partition table other than that I can regain all of my card for use in my Yepp player, or sucessfully format the card in widnoze.

[root@isis flash_erase]# ./flash_erase /dev/hdc
29448 sectors   14.4Mb
[root@isis flash_erase]# 

Files for the project are avaiable here, don't come crying to me if you use this program to erase your harddisk.