Help with SD card reading

[jerkbait]

I am wondering if there is software out there to upgrade ones computer to read bigger(higher gig) SD cards. My computer will only read up to a 2gig card through the built in card reader. I have a 4 and 8 gig cards that I can read through my printer. Also my buddy brought his note book to hunting camp but couldn't read the 4 gig either, only the 1 & 2 gig cards. Both computers are running XP. Any thoughts?

[Jim Almquist]

That is very strange because I can read my 8Gb compact flash cards with no problem using XP. I an using a stand alone card reader. Almost makes me think that there is a issue maybe with your drivers and they need to be updated but then again your buddy had the same problem. I am guessing that you are using the reader that is on your laptop and that is why I think the drivers need to be updated.

Have you looked in My Computer to see if it even shows up there and if it dose can you double click on it to open ?

[delcecchi]

I am wondering if there is software out there to upgrade ones computer to read bigger(higher gig) SD cards. My computer will only read up to a 2gig card through the built in card reader. I have a 4 and 8 gig cards that I can read through my printer. Also my buddy brought his note book to hunting camp but couldn't read the 4 gig either, only the 1 & 2 gig cards. Both computers are running XP. Any thoughts?

It is the card reader usually. Go buy one of those dealies that make the SD card into a thumb drive. Mine works great with 4G (SDHC) cards.

Mine came from wally world

[bigbad401]

The hardware does not care what size the SD cards are, it is the software or the drivers. See if there is a driver update for the card reader.

[PerchJerker]

The hardware does not care what size the SD cards are, it is the software or the drivers. See if there is a driver update for the card reader.

Agree.

[MN Mike]

We had a older card reader this year that wouldn't read anything over 2 GB either, best thing to do is just go buy a new one, not much you can do about it in most cases, laptops with built in card readers might have a update driver or a BIOS update that might fix it but most external readers are going to be left behind.

Luckily we had a newer card reader that came with one of the 8 GB cards and that worked fine.

Mike

[delcecchi]

Not so fast.

Check the Wikipedia entry

Standard SD cards have an official maximum capacity of 2 GB, though technically they can store up to 4 GB.[1] SDHC (High-capacity) cards have a maximum capacity of 32 GB. SDXC (eXtended Capacity) allows for up to 2 TB cards.

The format has proven very popular. Changes to the interface of the established format have made some older devices designed for standard SD cards (≤4 GB) unable to handle newer formats such as SDHC (≥4 GB). All SD cards have the same physical shape, which causes confusion for many consumers.

...

Compatibility issues with 4 GB and larger cards

4 GByte standard SD card, non-SDHC

Devices that use SD cards identify the card by requesting a 128-bit identification string from the card. For standard-capacity SD cards, 12 of the bits are used to identify the number of memory clusters (ranging from 1 to 4,096) and 3 of the bits are used to identify the number of blocks per cluster (which decode to 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, or 512 blocks per cluster).

In older 1.x implementations the standard capacity block was exactly 512 bytes. This gives 4,096 × 512 × 512 = 1 gigabyte of storage memory. A later revision of the 1.x standard allowed a 4-bit field to indicate 1,024 or 2,048 bytes per block instead, yielding up to 4 gigabytes of memory storage.

Devices designed before this change may incorrectly identify such cards, usually by misidentifying a card with lower capacity than is the case by assuming 512 bytes per block rather than 1,024 or 2,048.

For the new SDHC (2.0) implementation, 32 bits of the identification string are used to indicate the memory size in increments of 512 bytes. The SDCA currently allows only 26 of the 32 bits to be used, giving a maximum size of 32 GB. All SD cards with a capacity larger than 4 GB must use the 2.0 implementation at minimum. Two bits that were previously reserved and fixed at 0 are now used for identifying the type of card, 0: standard; 1: SDHC; 2, 3: reserved. Non-SDHC devices are not programmed to read this code and therefore cannot correctly identify SDHC or SDXC cards.

All SDHC readers work with standard SD cards.[23]

Many older devices will not accept the 2 or 4 GB size even though it is in the revised standard. The following statement is from the SD Card Association specification:

To make 2 GByte card, the Maximum Block Length (READ_BL_LEN=WRITE_BL_LEN) shall be set to 1024 bytes. However, the Block Length, set by CMD16, shall be up to 512 bytes to keep consistency with 512 bytes Maximum Block Length cards (Less than and equal 2 Gbyte cards).

.....

SD and SDHC compatibility issues

The SDHC specification was completed in June 2006,[29] but by that time, non-standard high-capacity (>1GB) SD cards (based on the older 1.x specification) were already on the market. The two types of storage cards were not interchangeable, creating some confusion among customers. SD and SDHC cards and devices have these compatibility issues :

* Devices that do not specifically support SDHC do not recognize SDHC memory cards.[30] Some devices can support SDHC through a firmware upgrade.[31]

* SDHC devices are backward compatible with SD memory cards.[31]

* Some manufacturers have produced 4 GB SD cards that conform to neither the SD2.0/SDHC spec nor existing SD devices.[32]

* File System: SD cards are typically formatted with the FAT16 file system, while SDHC cards are typically formatted as FAT32.[28] However, both types of cards can support other general-purpose file systems, such as UFS2, ext2 or the proprietary exFAT for example.

* Microsoft Windows may need a hotfix to support accessing SDHC cards

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Looks like software MIGHT be able to fix the problem, but the USB things need a new adapter. At least it looks like it to me.

[jerkbait]

I just bought a card reader that plugs into the USB port like a thumb drive. This is how we were trying to read the 4GB cards. On my home computer neither the thumb drive nor the built in card reader will read 4GB or higher. I can read 4GB and higher through the card slot on my printer at home though. Which now makes me think the new card reader does not support the SDHC cards. I was hoping there was a software upgrade.

Delcecchi, what brand is the card reader you bought? It must support the SDHC cards.

[Jim Almquist]

Before you go out and buy a new one make sure to go to the manufactures HSOforum and see if there is drivers that need to be installed to get the device to recognize the larger format.

[jerkbait]

Good idea....

[delcecchi]

It was hanging on a rack at wally world. It says

"Converter Drive"

Digital Concepts

SD/MMC

Reader/Writer

Model Number CR-35TD-P

made in China

[jerkbait]

Thanks!