Sd Cards

[Blusaber]

Hi

When formatting an sd card for firmware updates if I use FAT what allocation size do I use 64?

Gary

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I found on my JBL, Fat 16 (often listed as Fat) worked best. I just selected it and my computer did the rest.

[Blusaber]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

I found on my JBL, Fat 16 (often listed as Fat) worked best. I just selected it and my computer did the rest.

Thank you

I finally did just let the puter do it and all went well. I have a 2gb and a 4gb
card it used different settings for each card (both done in fat).

Anyhoo I'm now ready for the JBL of course I always wind up ordering things on Friday for some reason and lose the two weekend days of travel.

I'll just have two put up with that pesky Sony 505 for a little while longer

Gary

[Ken Maltby]

FAT32 is a far better choice for your library SD format.

FAT16 is what you would want to use for the firmware updating though.
The formatting program can pick the allocation size based on the size of
the SD card, automatically.

Luck;
Ken

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

FAT32 is a far better choice for your library SD format.

FAT16 is what you would want to use for the firmware updating though.
The formatting program can pick the allocation size based on the size of
the SD card, automatically.

Luck;
Ken

Ken, I had a 1GB Fat 32 card and JBL wouldn't recognize it (it showed up fine on my computer) and it wasn't until I reformatted it to Fat 16 that it would read it.

[Blusaber]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

FAT32 is a far better choice for your library SD format.

FAT16 is what you would want to use for the firmware updating though.
The formatting program can pick the allocation size based on the size of
the SD card, automatically.

Luck;
Ken

Thank you Ken

I thought I read Fat 32 would be better for the library....nice to have it confirmed

Gary

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

Ken, I had a 1GB Fat 32 card and JBL wouldn't recognize it (it showed up fine on my computer) and it wasn't until I reformatted it to Fat 16 that it would read it.

It must be something specific to that card not the format.

Do a Google on the FAT32 format and how it compares to the FAT16.
Basically, the FAT32 format lets you have more files and a better file
structure and naming. With the simpler FAT16 structure you will start to
run into limitations as to what you can have on the SD card.

Luck;
Ken

[Number_6]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

FAT32 is a far better choice for your library SD format.

FAT16 is what you would want to use for the firmware updating though.
The formatting program can pick the allocation size based on the size of
the SD card, automatically.

Luck;
Ken

I have a 4gb Kingston SDHC with FAT32 in my JBL. I've also done 3 firmware updates (and one downgrade) with it still formatted as FAT32 without a problem. I like living on the edge and don't even reformat the card to do firmware upgrades. I just add the three folders for the update to the SD card with my existing ebook folders and upgrade the firmware. So far, I've had no issues with FAT32 or ebook folders on the SD card when doing firmware upgrades. I know this is not the "recommended" method, but it does work.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I know the advantages of FAT32 over FAT 16. NTFS is even better but it's not compatable with all devices (same for FAT 32) so when the FAT 32 formatted card (it's a fairly new SanDisk Ultra II 1 GB and, yes, the lock was off) I naturally thought it was the formatting when the card couldn't be recognized by the JBL (my desktop and my netbook, both running XP, could read it). I'll have to try formatting it to FAT32 sometime when I'm through with the file on it just to see if it's the card or a fluke. Right now, I've got too many irons in the fire.

[Ron46]

Ken- What file system do you use for the reader itself? I redid my SD card to FAT32 as you recommended, and I think it manages files faster. But the 100MB section on my reader is FAT16, and I do not remember if the reader came that way, or if I changed it. Would you say that the reader FAT should also be FAT32 to match the file system on the SD card? You seem to be the most experienced member on this forum, so I would really like to know how your reader is set up.

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by Ron46

Ken- What file system do you use for the reader itself? I redid my SD card to FAT32 as you recommended, and I think it manages files faster. But the 100MB section on my reader is FAT16, and I do not remember if the reader came that way, or if I changed it. Would you say that the reader FAT should also be FAT32 to match the file system on the SD card? You seem to be the most experienced member on this forum, so I would really like to know how your reader is set up.

***DO NOT MESS WITH THE JBL's INTERNAL MEMORY'S FORMAT***

The safest thing to do is to lock up your USB cord in a hard to find
location. (Once you have used it to download the books that came
preloaded in the JBL's internal user's memory and copied them to your
SD card.)

In fact what I have done is to also delete all the internal folders EXCEPT
the "Books" and "Pictures" folders. All the subfolders under those were
deleted as well. Leaving just the Root directory with an empty Books
folder and an empty Pictures folder, in the JBL's internal memory.

(I have added back just a few "special" pictures and documents to have
with the SD card out of the JBL.)

The SD card(s) used as JBL library SD cards have to include a "Books"
and a "Pictures" folder in their Root directory. I use the Books folder as
a catch all scratch folder, it has NO subfolders.

The rest of the SD card includes a number of theme folders for the
>8000 ebooks. Almost all of them have no subfolders.

Another thing that makes things easier is that I have a folder on my PC
the I maintain as an exact copy of my JBL library SD cards. I use the
free SyncToy to keep both my son's SD card and my own, matching the
additions and changes I make to the folder on my PC. This also makes
it easy to tweek the structure and file names easily on my powerful PC.
Then just sync the SD cards to have the changes applied.

Luck;
Ken

P.S. I am hardly the most experienced forum member, there are some
here who actually voted to establish the Jetbook Forum here.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Curiosity finally got the better of me so I pulled the card from my JBL and reformatted it to FAT32. I put it back in the JBL, hooked up the USB, and fired it up. When I tried to put a couple of test books on the card using calibre, the JBL shut down early (when I did it before, I had no problems). I tried again and got the same results. I pulled the card and re-reformatted it to FAT16. Got the same results. I pulled the card and still got the same results. I pulled the batteries to make sure they were good. All were well over 1.4v. I popped the batteries back in, pulled the card, and fired up the JBL. It shut itself down after a couple of minutes. Even though it was set to autoclose at 15 minutes, I reset to 30 minutes. Still would shutdown after a couple of minutes. I had to leave so I left the thing on the bed.

After I got back home, I was in a proper snit becausr my OTHER e-book reader (Astak Mentor) also decided to act wonky and stall in startup mode. (mutter, mutter, mumble, mumble). I put it on the charger even though the battery indicator said it had a full charge (it happened once before and putting on the charger fixed it; I think the indicator lies) then turned my attention to the JBL. I considered several courses of action and rejected them due to their terminal nature. Then, I fired it up and hit the little reset button. When I tried to fire it up again, I was afraid I had broken it because nothing happened at first. Eventually (shortly before I tried to skip it off the floor on the way to the trash) it decided to do something. It took quite a while but it eventually "recovered" (I think the immiment threat of being bounced off the floor scared it into behaving). After starting and shutting down the JBL a few times and letting it run awhile to make sure it would behave, I reformatted the card to FAT32. I put it back in the JBL, fired it up, hooked it to the computer, fired up calibre and successfully loaded a couple of test books onto the card.

Why it wouldn't work the first time I tried it on FAT32 but did when I reformatted to FAT16 is a mystery to me. Same for all the problems I ran into when I tried to re-reformat it to FAT32. All I know is it's working fine on FAT 32 now. Yeesh!

[Ken Maltby]

You can save yourself a lot of aggravation by getting a USB2 media card reader/writer,
for your PC. Then hide the USB cable.

I have one of these in my PC:
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CR-350&cat=RDM

I also have a number of this type around as well:
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?inv...DR5-BP&cat=RDM

There is nothing you can do to the SD card using the USB1.1 interface in the JBL,
that you can't do much better using the USB2 interface and your PC, including
formatting of the SD cards.

Luck;
Ken

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

You can save yourself a lot of aggravation by getting a USB2 media card reader/writer,
for your PC. Then hide the USB cable.

I have one of these in my PC:
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CR-350&cat=RDM

I also have a number of this type around as well:
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?inv...DR5-BP&cat=RDM

There is nothing you can do to the SD card using the USB1.1 interface in the JBL,
that you can't do much better using the USB2 interface and your PC, including
formatting of the SD cards.

Luck;
Ken

How do you think I formatted the card? I'm using a SanDisk MobileMate SD+ external reader with my desktop right now but when I get the time (and nerve), I'm going to install an internal reader (I already have it). My netbook has a card reader port but I normally don't dig it out until I'm getting ready to go out of town (and that's to update everything and top off the battery). I will try loading the card directly next time to see what happens.

[Number_6]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

There is nothing you can do to the SD card using the USB1.1 interface in the JBL,
that you can't do much better using the USB2 interface and your PC, including
formatting of the SD cards.

This includes getting Adobe Digital Editions to recognize the SD card in a memory card reader as your jetBook. I removed the SD card from my JBL, stuck it into a card reader on my PC, fired up ADE and it recognized it as my jetBook library. It was an easy process to then copy books over into my jetBook library under ADE. It puts them in the Digital Editions folder and I just renamed and moved them to where I wanted. This was much faster and easier than using the cable would have been.