Everyone who uses MemoryStick PRO sticks knows that their real capacity is about 40MB lower than their advertised capacity.

A 256MB card has only about 220 free MBs.

The reason for this is that MagicGate takes up this free space, although digital camera users have no need or use for it.

Is there any way to "get rid" of it and free up the wasted space? What happens if I delete all of the folders on my MS-Pro? Will it free up the 'missing' space? Will my camera be able to work with it afterwards?

My SanDisk and Sony 256MB Memory Stick Pro have a capacity of 249,430,016 bytes (237MB). You cannot change that.

As with deleting everything... It won't make any difference cos those files don't take up any space.

Anyways manufacturers don't use the binary system when they quote their sizes. So when they say "256MB" they actually mean "256,000,000 bytes". Hard drive manufacturer's do this all the time. However this ain't true for actual RAM modules.