Micro SD card question

Don M

I have a Sandisk 2GB microSD card. Plugged into an adapter and then into a USB reader it only shows as 54MB on my computer. There aren't any files on the card.

What am I missing in understanding this? Shouldn't it show as 2GB space on my computer? It is formatted in FAT. I tried re-formatting it and it still is the same size.

Thanks.

Don

Duane Degn

How sure are you it's a real Sandisk? Could it be a counterfeit?

When you formatted it did you do it the normal (slow) way or did you use "fast" format?

I've had trouble with SD cards that a normal format would fix but a fast format wouldn't.

Duane

Don M

I did the slow format. I just tried it on my MAC and used the disk utility. I shows that it is a 2 GB disk but it was partitioned. I erased both partitions and now it shows as a 2GB free disk in my Windows PC (XP). Interesting that it didn't give me that option on the Windows machine.

prof_braino

When I started looking at SD, many of the sources on the web talked about differences in the way OS's format the SD.
The recommendation was to use the manufacturer's format utility when available.
The other recommendatin was to format the card in a peripheral device, like a camera or cell phone (but not a windows cell phone).
Also it seems that the first round of SD cards did not have a real standard and/or the manufacturers did not follow them consistently. This last turns out to not be a problem, since folks tended to dismiss the old cards as defective and toss them, so they are not so common anymore.

Mike Green

The MacOS's Disk Utility formats SD cards normally as FAT32 which Windows should recognize, but not all SD card drivers for the Propeller will recognize. Use Kye's driver or the most recent FSRW driver, both of which can handle FAT16 or FAT32. Check what kind of partitioning is being used.

Don M

The Mac did format it in FAT32 but then I re-formated in my Windows PC as FAT (FAT16). It's all good now....