The protected area shall be formatted by an appropriate PC application or SD host devices that provide SD security function. The SD Memory Card Formatter does not format the protected area in the SD/SDHC/SDXC Cards. SD/SDHC/SDXC Cards have a “Protected Area” for SD Card security purposes. In general, formatting tools provided with operating systems can format various storage media including SD/SDHC/SDXC Cards, but it may not be optimized for SD/SDHC/SDXC Cards and it may result in lower performance. It is strongly recommended to use the SD Memory Card Formatter to format SD/SDHC/SDXC Cards rather than using formatting tools provided with individual operating systems. The SD Memory Card Formatter formats SD Memory Card, SDHC Memory Card and SDXC Memory Card (respectively SD/SDHC/SDXC Cards) complying with the SD File System Specification created by the SD Association (SDA). SD Memory Card Formatter 5.0.1 for SD/SDHC/SDXC
