Can I skip formatting an SD Card? Will formatting make my MP3 player not accept it?

[CroutonsofDeath{RD}]

So my new computer has an SD slot, which is nice since in the past to put music on my SD cards, I would have to borrow my wife Chie's school laptop and she doesn't like that to happen very often since obviously we own two desktops at home and her school laptop is... well, for school. But when I put in either of my SD cards (both are 8 GB) into my new computer, which runs Windows 7, it says I must format them. This never happened on Chie's laptop (Windows Vista) and while I can easily just replace the music (I'm going to be replacing many albums with different ones anyways) I'm afraid to format them because I fear it will make them incompatible with my MP3 player, plus I simply don't understand much about Computer hardware and am prone to making things a'splode (You should've seen how pathetic it was when I upgraded my last computers ram and I spent an hour with caveman like rage trying to pound it upside down into the slot and then before it breaks Chie walks in, flips it over and just gently taps it and it slides in) if I mess with them.

So is there a way to skip the format? If not, will formatting it make it incompatible with my MP3 player? If not, what format (NTFS? FAT32? etc.) do I need to make it in, what the heck does "Allocation Size Unit" mean and do I need to make a special folder to put my music in?

Also I don't know what model MP3 player I have is. I'm not rich, plus I really only want an MP3 player that plays MP3s and not have to pay extra for features I would never use, so I don't own or want a spiffy Zune or iPhone/iPad/iPod/whatever the hell they are called now. I just use a cheap GTX with 1 gb of base storage, but it has an SD slot and over two 8 gb SD sticks I have more than enough room for most of my music. If I do have to format it, what format do I need to use?

 

[metro]

How are the cards currently formatted? To find this out:

1. Insert the card
2. Open Computer
3. Right click on the card
4. Click Properties
5. Then it should say "File System: __________"

If you don't know what file system your mp3 player uses I would suggest using FAT32 as it can be converted to NTFS without reformatting (I'm 90% sure).