[SGVLUG] problems reading 2 GB SD card

Claude Felizardo cafelizardo at gmail.com
Thu Apr 10 15:59:39 PDT 2008


I do not believe any of my cards are SDHC and all of my devices came
out way before.

When I got the phone late last year, I had heard that there was a
problem with > 2GB SD cards so I purchased a SanDisk 2 GB microSD
card.  I do not believe it is SDHC especially as it is only 2 GB.
Part number is SDSDQ-2048-A10M and was purchased end of Nov.

As for the other SD card which I got a few months ago, the camera came
out in 2005 and IIRC, the specs and reviews at the time said that 2 GB
SD cards should work but there was a clause that said something about
not all memory features were guaranteed.  When the camera formats the
card, it sees it with around 19xx MB but I have not gone over 1 GB for
fear of corruption.

>From the stuff I've read online, it's not clear if a device driver
update is sufficient and I may need to look for a card reader that
supports SD2.0/SDHC not just USB 2.0 speeds.

I will try and bring my existing reader and card to the meeting tonight.

claude



On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 2:09 PM, Mic Chow <zen at netten.net> wrote:
> It is an SDHC card?  I ran into a similar issue with SDHC cards.  I
>  picked up two 4GB SD cards (not knowing that there is a major difference
>  between SD and SDHC cards) for my Nokia N800.  I knew I had to flash my
>  tablet to a newer version of BusyBox to make it recognize the card, but
>  I assumed that my old card readers could read the cards too.  The
>  physical interface is the same between SD and SDHC cards.  My digital
>  camera could not recognize the SDHC card at all.  I had to get a new USB
>  2.0 version card reader to read the SDHC card.  Once I got that, it did
>  not matter the OS(Windows, Mac, or Nix), the card mounted and is
>  completely readable.  If these are SDHC cards, then I would check with
>  the vendor websites to see if they have software upgradeable firmware
>  and see if they have one to update your card readers.  Chances are slim,
>  but Canon is usually pretty good about supporting their customers.
>  Toshiba may have a fix for you.  If all you want is 2Gigs then hopefully
>  you can return them and replace them for a different type of SD, making
>  sure it is NOT SDHC.  If memory serves me right standard SD cards
>  internally are the same up to 2GB, when jumping from 2GB and up, the
>  internal electronics and logic had to be changed to accommodate the
>  increased data density, hence the need to change reading/writing devices.
>
>  Hope this helps.
>
>  --
>  Mic
>  North Hollywood, CA
>  N34° 8'33.02"
>  W118° 21'39.62"
>
>
>
>  Claude Felizardo wrote:
>  > I picked up a 2 GB SD card for my digital camera (Canon A610 ~2005)
>  > and I'm having a problem reading the darn thing either directly using
>  > the build-in slot in my laptop (Toshiba Satellite M35 ~2005) as well
>  > as various USB adapters, both internal and external.  WinXP hangs for
>  > several minutes before timing out.  Under Linux (Mandrake 2008 with
>  > 2.6.22.18) I can see the partition type is FAT16 but I eventually get
>  > errors when I try to read it.  I can change the partition type to
>  > FAT32 but it fails while trying to format. If I put it back in the
>  > camera it reports a media error but it can reformat the card.  Camera
>  > takes pics but I can only retrieve the images via USB cable.   I have
>  > a similar problem with a 2 GB microSD card in my smartphone - neither
>  > winXP nor Laptop can read the card.  I have not tried to reformat that
>  > card.  Don't recall if I was able to get camera to use card formatted
>  > FAT32.  Don't recall if I tried Partition Magic on the laptop to
>  > access the built-in slot but I do have a writable FAT32 partition on
>  > the HD.
>  >
>  > Do I need a new card reader?   I believe most of the card readers I
>  > tried (internal, external and built-in) were purchased prior 2006
>  > though I might have one that was more recent but I'd have to open
>  > things up to see where it is.
>  >
>  > claude
>  >
>  >
>
>
>


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