Hello. Quick update. It was an issue with the SD memory cards. I believe they were not legitimate cards and advertised a fake capacity.
I was unaware that this was a risk with memory cards so I would suggest if anyone else has this formatting issue to check your cards and make sure you buy them...
I recently purchased two of these cameras (DS-2CD2146G2-ISU) and successfully set them up.
I ordered two 256GB sd cards to also use as storage but I can't get them to be recognised by the cameras.
the data sheets say they will accept cards unto 512GB so I don't think its a capacity issue...
