SD Card Troubleshooting

[lensman]

From my post in this thread

Just wanted to say that I just got my 4GB Ritek Ridata 150x SD card working in my reader. It gave me lots of problems until I just deleted all the data off of the card (after backing it up on my computer) and stuck the blank card into my reader. After that, it appeared in the CONNECT Reader and showed Available 3.8 GB, Capacity 3.8 GB!

I'm pretty sure this means that the Sony reader supports at least some 4GB SD cards. The "flat" interface to selecting books and music on the reader makes me disinclined to put too much material on the card at one time.

[Dalton]

I bought a PNY 1 GB SD card at CompUSA, and it works fine in the Reader. It was on sale for $29.99, plus there is a $10 mail-in rebate until the end of the year for a total cost of $19.99. There also are 2 GB versions of this card, but they were not on sale.

[jgbrut]

I got a new 2 gb card to work the first time, But i did reformat the fat partition to a much smaller cluseter size. Becasue the most of these book files are fairly small, If you use a default cluster size, it uses one whole cluster for a small file. waisting lots of space on The end of the cluster. I think I used 32KB the smallest it would let me use. I would start by reformating your cards in a pc. Loading them throught to sony software. The Sony connect software says they do some compression and conversions when transfering.

[fdp]

Hey,
I've now gone through two Sandisk 2gb SD cards, and CONNECT has wiped them both out. They will work fine until I try to use CONNECT to load data into them, then the software freezes, and the cards become completely unreadable afterwards. I am not even able to format them and have had to return them to the store. Anyone else have such a bad experience? I went with Sandisk because I've had good experiences in the past. The CONNECT software does work fine with a 1gig kingston miniSD card that I have in an adapter.

Also, has anyone else read about formatting the SD cards with special software? Aparently the SD specs require some kind of custom formatting, but I'm not sure if this is manufacturer specific. Here is a panasonic link:
http://panasonic.co.jp/pavc/global/c...formatter.html

-Joel

[SoCal Bob]

Originally Posted by fdp

Hey,
I've now gone through two Sandisk 2gb SD cards, and CONNECT has wiped them both out. They will work fine until I try to use CONNECT to load data into them, then the software freezes, and the cards become completely unreadable afterwards. I am not even able to format them and have had to return them to the store. Anyone else have such a bad experience? I went with Sandisk because I've had good experiences in the past. The CONNECT software does work fine with a 1gig kingston miniSD card that I have in an adapter.
-Joel

I use a 2GB sandisk without any problem, both transferring from Connect to the SD and dropping directly from the PC to the SD. Perhaps the Reader's SD port it bad?

[RWood]

Same response as SoCal Bob -- no problems with the 2 GB SanDisk SD card. (On sale a while back at RatShack.) I used it straight from the package. Just plugged it in and connected the Reader to the USB port. I have used the SD card outside the CONNECT software to load music and pictures (each in their own subdirectory for my sanity.) Never a problem yet.

As for formatting the SD card, yes, there are special formatting programs required for the higher features of SD cards that the generic Windows type OS formatters will not provide. If you use the Windows format programs the card will work fine in most readers attached to computers and MAY work fine in the Reader. It also may not work fine. I would go with the referenced program for formatting the SD cards if I wanted to reformat an SD card. I have a special program from Sony for reformatting Memory Sticks and another from HP for reformatting USB thumb drives. I always use these rather than the OS commands.

[HarryT]

I use a "no-name" 2GB SD card and it works just fine. Put it straight out of the package into the Reader. No problems at all. It's what I've got all my Reader content stored on.

[JoeTampa]

My 512M Lexar gave me problems the other day with an Ebook that apparently got corrupted. The card "disappeared" and would not be recognized. A reset fixed the problem.

[melchioe]

My 2G Sandisk works fine, and for grins, I put in a 2G PNY I had sitting around. Both are fully functional out of the box.

However, I have noticed an interesting phenomenon regarding cards - both SD and Memory sticks, and on two different Readers:

- Start Connect, plug in Reader, reader shows up in the Connect software, and a few seconds later, the card shows up in Connect. Everything works fine.

- with Connect not running, plug in Reader, start Connect. Reader shows up in Connect, but SD or Memory Stick never show up (at least not after 30 minutes, then I give up.)

Anyone else have the issue where the card is not seen in Connect if the Reader is already plugged in when Connect it started? This might have some bearing on some of the card issues reported in this thread...

[RWood]

I've had equal (good) results with both SD cards and Memory Sticks in all sequences of starting.

[fdp]

I'm going to pick up a new Card reader, hoping that it is the problem (although it doesn't explain why the kingston 1gig works fine). Anyone have a recommendation on a good piece of software other than the Panasonic app for formatting SD cards? It will only format my newest sandisk card to 1.8gig (I'm pretty sure it was 1.9 when I originally checked it).

-Joel

[SoCal Bob]

Originally Posted by melchioe

- with Connect not running, plug in Reader, start Connect. Reader shows up in Connect, but SD or Memory Stick never show up (at least not after 30 minutes, then I give up.)

Anyone else have the issue where the card is not seen in Connect if the Reader is already plugged in when Connect it started? This might have some bearing on some of the card issues reported in this thread...

I just tested my kensington 2gb SD in this manner. Showed up fine after I entered the lock code, about 5 seconds after the Reader itself showed. I do use the screen lock, and therefore must enter the code each time in Connect to see the Reader drive and the SD card. That might make the critical difference.

[HarryT]

I start Connect both with and without Reader plugged in, and my SD card always shows up fine. I don't use a lock code.

From another thread, though, I seem to be one of the fortunate ones who doesn't have any problems with Connect. Perhaps the "no-show" of the SD card is related to the other instability problems that some people are experiencing?

[melchioe]

Harry, that makes sense - I am one of the unfortunate ones that have mucho instability with the Connect software (and so does my wife, and she doesn't have anywhere near as many whacky programs installed on her PC.) I restart the Connect software so much after crashes that it is contstantly at the top of my most frequently used program list...

It's certainly not a huge problem to unplug it and plug it back in for me, so I'm not actively worried about it, although I'd really love it if the instability were fixed.

-e-

[fdp]

Does anyone know whether or not you can load the files onto one card and then just drop them (xml file and all) onto another card? I'm interested in doing this because CONNECT wiped out yet another SanDisk 2gb card (I'm on #3) and I can only get an RMA replacement at this point. My Kingston miniSD 1gb continues to perform like a champ, so I'm only using this with CONNECT for now on. If nobody knows the answer I can just test it, but I won't be getting an RMA for a few weeks. Thanks.

-Joel

Also, to detail my SanDisk problem: When transferring large RTF files (over 1.5mb) CONNECT freezes. This locks up the SD card and destroys the file system. About 50% of the time the card cannot be reformatted (by either windows, OSX, or the SDFormatter from Panasonic) and has to be returned.