VIOFO Support Center

Why should I format the card and how to do that?

Dash Cam records continuously in a loop, which means it writes and overwrites continuously, so a lot of stress is put on the SD card,  we suggest you format the card at least once a month.

If you fail to format your SD card for a prolonged period of time, you may encounter the following issues:

  1. SD card error messages
  2. Recording failure and constant beeps
  3. Automatic recording failure
  4. Frozen screen
  5. Gaps between recordings   
  6. Corrupted or unplayable files
  7. Failure to start up and shutdown
  8. Inoperable buttons

Tips: If you drive often, we suggest you format your SD card more frequently than the average person. 

Do I get reminders?

You may get popups on screens like memory error or memory full, or voice notifications like "Please format the card "'Memory error', etc, in such situations, please format the card accordingly, a deep format is preferable.

Tips: For cameras with screens, you can set the frequency of format reminders in the option "Format Warning".


How to format the card?

You can format the card by camera or by computer.

  • Format on computer.

Windows: Please download the GUIFormat tool from the attachment, then insert your card into your computer and open the tool, you can then click "Start" as per the below pic.

We do not suggest you click "Quick Format".

MacBook: Please choose MS-DOS (FAT) in Disk Utility to format the card to FAT32.


  • Format on camera

For cameras with a screen, you can format by the option "Format " in the menu; 

For cameras without a screen, you can quickly format by pressing buttons.

Click the support page of each camera and you can find detailed instructions.

Tips: 

Micro SD Cards play an important role in dashcams, but not all cards are suitable to be used in dashcams.

Click this FAQ for the card we recommend.

Click this FAQ for how to test a card.

Click this Link for customer support.

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