Need advice with CF card

I'm sure this is a common problem but I honestly have no way understanding of how to solve it even after googling for hours.
I have my mom's Olympus E-330 with 3 CF cards, all of which say "Card Full" when I put them in the camera, and all of which are not recognized by my mac. I really want to get them to work so I can take some pictures. I tried to format the card in the camera which is what everybody says to do but there is no way to do that now, it just says "Card Error" when I try.

Any advice please??

Sounds like a thinker there

One question I would have is are you trying to retrieve the photos from the camera? It doesn't sound like you are, but that clarification would be useful ^_~

if it's saying "card error" when you try to format the card from the camera, try leaving the card in and plugging your camera into your mac. Usually, CF cards are mounted onto the desktop like any other portable media, and you can access it from here. If it mounts, run disk utility. From this app you can format the CF card. Make sure to format it into the same format it was before. If you don't know, insert a working CF card and get the info on that card. It should tell you what you need to know

Hope this helps

dave

I am not trying to recover any photos I just want my camera to work because right now it will not take pictures. All it says is "Card Full" when I put the card in the camera. When I plug the camera into the computer with the card in my mac does not recognize it. Do I need a special cord?