Help with Thumbing...

[Nick M]

Got this in an eMail yesterday from my sister. Can't seem to figure out whats up...

Hey Nick,

I bought bigger memory card for my camera with some of
my Christmas money. It is the exact same brand and
everything as the other one I have, it just holds more
pictures. I took some pictures on it and put the card
in the slot in the side of my computer, and it was not
registering. The same thing happened on my friend
Kassy's computer, but it ended up working on my friend
Kristen's. Do you have any idea why this would be
happening? I am going to be coming home the weekend
beginning Friday, Feb. 23rd, so I can bring my laptop
and everything home if you would have time to look at
it. I just want to get it all fixed before I leave for
Peru on March 9th.

Any ideas from you 'puter experts out there?

Thanks a bunch!

[Lex]

Did she format the card for her camera? Is she using a camera sync cable or a card reader?

My first recommendation is to do a clean format on the card, unless there's a lot of pictures she took of value, then if so, perhaps try a recovery program.

[Kevin P]

Is there any difference in "Kristen's" computer, such as different OS, card reader, etc?

Can she plug the camera into the computer with USB cable and get the pictures off that way?

[Hdale85]

I would say also check out the drivers for the card reader. But other then that the formating suggestion sounds about right. But doesn't make since that it would work on one of her friends but not hers.

[Nick M]

Yeah, kind of a funky problem.

As Kevin suggested I eMailed her yesterday and said to try a direct connection with a USB cable. Unfortunately her USB cable is at home (she's a couple hours away in Boston) so she's going to have my step-mother mail it to her.

I'm pretty sure it's not the drivers because the card reader works with the same exact brand of memory she has, just a different storage volume. I was thinking that the card-readers in her and her friend's laptops might have an upper read-limit of something, kinda like how some cameras are limited by the size card they can handle. Her laptop is less than a year old though, so I dunno (she's running XP Home, not sure about her friends).

Doug - How do you format a memory card?

Since the card functions in the camera and her friend's 'puter, I'm almost positive it's not the card itself, and since the card reader in her laptop works with other cards, I'm almost positive it's not the card reader. Weird.

By the way, thanks for the help guys. :T

[PewterTA]

To format a card like that, it's the same as a drive when using a media reader. You can go into the Computer Management and Disk Management and set your partitions along with formatting it.

I would suggest looking in the Device Manager to see if the card is even being seen by the OS.

Another thing that I've seen happen is that the flash card is given the same designation as another drive on the computer. Like say your CD is drive "F:\" it will assign the card "F:\" as well and you never "see" the card. If you Right Click on My Computer -> Manage -> Go to the Disk Management under the storage. It should show you the memory card and what "letter" is designated (Just look for a drive that is the same size as the memory car--ie. 1GB). If it is the same letter as something else, it will not be shown on the computer. You need to change the letter by right clicking on the drive letter and selecting "Change drive letter or path" then edit the letter and make it something that isn't being used on the system (such as B or Z tend to be good ones).

Hope that helps.

-Dan

[sokoban]

Y
I'm pretty sure it's not the drivers because the card reader works with the same exact brand of memory she has, just a different storage volume. I was thinking that the card-readers in her and her friend's laptops might have an upper read-limit of something, kinda like how some cameras are limited by the size card they can handle. Her laptop is less than a year old though, so I dunno (she's running XP Home, not sure about her friends).

I think you've nailed the problem right on the head here. Her new card is probably an SD memory card, and I'm going to guess it is greater than 2 GB in capacity. That means that her new card is actually an SDHC card. Some older non-SDHC capable readers do not recognize SDHC media.

Here's more info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital_card#SD_and_SDHC_-_compatibility