Formatting problems with 4gb SD Card

[pumical]

I am having a really strange problem with my new 4gb SD Card.

When inserting the SD card into my PPC, I do see the capacity at around 3800 MB, which is fine - so the PPC does recognize the size of the SD card.

So far so good.

Now, I am putting the SD card into my card reader of my laptop and it asks me to format the card and for some strange reason (the PPC reads the card perfectly fine). I am formatting the SD card via Windows XP but the SD card shows up with a capacity of only 930 MB.

I have a second laptop and tried the same procedure only to see the same result = 930 MB.

How can I format the 4gb card correctly in order to use the card via the card reader??

Any thoughts??

[Jeanyes]

You need a new card reader. I had the same problem with a 2 GB SD card. Some of the older readers won't read anything over 1GB.

[pumical]

You need a new card reader. I had the same problem with a 2 GB SD card. Some of the older readers won't read anything over 1GB.

I am coming to the conclusion that this is my problem. Is that a known problem with older card readers? How do I ensure that a new reader is capabale of reading bigger cards?

[jevans64]

Before you ditch your old card reader check the manufacturers website to see if it can be flashed with a new firmware. The el-cheapo readers usually cannot be flashed but some of the 3.5" floppy & reader combo drives can.

[pumical]

Before you ditch your old card reader check the manufacturers website to see if it can be flashed with a new firmware. The el-cheapo readers usually cannot be flashed but some of the 3.5" floppy & reader combo drives can.

thanks for the tip! Though I was too impatient and just bought a new card reader - magically my SD card is recognized and it works fine.

I guess I had the oldest card reader you can imagine

thanks for any help!!!

[JNDSDA]

Thanks, Jeanyes! Just received my Transcent 4GB SD card today from Newegg. Inserted it in my card reader connected to laptop and checked the capacity, showed it as 1GB, formatted it and still 1GB. Checked around good ole Aximsite and found this post. I inserted the card to my desktop computer slot and it correctly showed 3.86MB. So I formatted it and inserted it in my card reader again and this time it read the card as 3.86MB.

Weird thing is that I formatted my card via card reader but the card still read 1GB, but after I formatted it on my desktop computer, my card reader now can read it as 4GB.

Anyway, thanks again you guys!