Lexar 4GB SD card read problem

Osem · 10-02-2009, 10:10

Hi guys. I took my camera to Twickenham on Saturday loaded with a brand new Lexar 4GB premium series 60x SD card. On trying to download the pictures to my PC I found the built in card reader wouldn't read the card. The on-board reader has been a tad temperamental lately in reading my 2GB cards but a little jiggle normally sorts it out. Today although the 2GB cards would read fine nothing would work for the new card so I opened a previously unused USB multi-card reader and had exactly the same problem - the 2GB cards would read but the 4GB wouldn't. Not sure this is relevant but when fiddling with the card in the external card reader I found a small progress window labelled 'autoplay' kept opening and closing.

Is this likely to be down to the size of the card? My PC is a few years old now and the card reader older than that....

Kymmy · 10-02-2009, 10:16

I had problems recently with a 2GB SD card not being read...straight from the packaging it was fine, but as soon as I formatted it in the camera the camera could read it but the PC card reader failed.. Even official SD formatters wouldn't help..

My problem was the way the camera formats the cards makes it unreadable by older card readers..

Osem · 10-02-2009, 10:25

I didn't realise but the 4GB card is SDHC so could the problem be due to SDHC incompatibility with older devices?

Kymmy · 10-02-2009, 10:52

You got me thinking then...the 2Gb ard doesn;t say it's SDHC, but does say it's CLASS2...can anyone tell me what the difference is for a class 2 SD card compared to a class 1??

Osem · 10-02-2009, 11:05

Looks like this is the Osem and Kymmy show....

OK so I have a card my PC and card reader won't read but my camera does recognise so could I download the pictures direct from my camera via its USB connection or will that create similar issues? Not knowing much about these things I'm loath to try this in case I damage something or corrupt the data.

Cheers

Kymmy · 10-02-2009, 11:06

That's exactly what I do, just plug the camera in and download/upload...in the end your camera USB link is just really a card reader..

Osem · 10-02-2009, 11:11

Off out now but will give that a try. Never done it that way so do you have any dos/don'ts? Eg. Do I connect the cam to the PC switched on or off or doesn't it matter?

Kymmy · 10-02-2009, 11:13

It's USB so hot plugable, as for the camera side my one auto-detects the USB as the USB powers the internal card reader so wil even work with dead batteries..But it might vary from camera to camera...should be in the manual

punky · 10-02-2009, 11:16

Classes are speeds just like the x speeds for CD-ROMs. Class 2 is faster than Class 1. 4gb is the limit for normal SD cards so it might not be SDHC. It should say on the front. One common problem is that a lot of device struggle with Fat32 format so people should always try Fat16. You would think your computer could read Fat32, but it may be down to the firmware of the reader, not the OS.

Dai · 10-02-2009, 11:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kymmy

It's USB so hot plugable, as for the camera side my one auto-detects the USB as the USB powers the internal card reader so wil even work with dead batteries..But it might vary from camera to camera...should be in the manual

My baby Canon has a switch on the back that has to be set from picture to read mode. XP has a neat wizard to read from a USB camera device so you should not need any extra software.

Hot-plug with power on is fine. I always do it that way.

Aragorn · 10-02-2009, 13:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Osem

I didn't realise but the 4GB card is SDHC so could the problem be due to SDHC incompatibility with older devices?

4GB + SD cards are all SHDC and will not be read by an older SD only reader. You can get specific SDHC readers or just use the camera & USB.

Wicked_and_Crazy · 10-02-2009, 13:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kymmy

You got me thinking then...the 2Gb ard doesn;t say it's SDHC, but does say it's CLASS2...can anyone tell me what the difference is for a class 2 SD card compared to a class 1??

Class 2 is faster

Aragorn · 10-02-2009, 13:35

Classes usually only apply to SDHC cards, and are only class 2, 4 or 6 - 2 being the slowest. Wikia SD page

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wikia

SDHC cards have SD Speed Class Ratings defined by the SD Association. The SD Speed Class Ratings specify the following minimum write speeds based on "the best fragmented state where no memory unit is occupied":[19]

Class 2: 2 MB/s - 13x
Class 4: 4 MB/s - 26x
Class 6: 6 MB/s - 40x

Osem · 10-02-2009, 13:46

OK guys -thanks for all the feedback. Have just successfully copied the jpg and mov files direct from the camera. The only problem is that c. 750mb of data took 15 mins to copy....

It was much faster using the card reader option but at least this way I can continue using the new card.

Thanks again