Card Reader won't read 2Gb SD card

Installed Vista yesterday, and the only thing I'm having trouble with is my
card reader.

It'll read all of my 128mb, 256mb, 512mb and 1gb SD cards no problem, but
won't read my 2gb card. Instead, it gives the message "you need to format
the disk in drive X: before you can use it. Do you want to format it?"

Now, if say yes, it brings up the "format disk" box, but shows the capacity
as being 969mb.
However, if I put the same card reader and the same cardback in my Windows
XP box, it reads it fine as being 2Gb.

Have also tried it with another card reader borrowed from a friend, with the
same result.

Any ideas?

 

I've seen reports of this happening under XP on laptops and cured when
they issued a new BIOS update to deal with larger cards.

Might be worth checking for VISTA specific BIOS updates for your
machine.

 

Hugh,

Thanks for the suggestion.

Just tried that this morning, got the latest drivers for my board from the
MSI website, but it hasn't made a difference.

 

That's for the motherboard? Did it include any BIOS update?

 

i have the same problems, i believe it to be a windows driver problem.
both xp and vista refuse to read a 2gb sdcard via usb card reader but
the same hardware in Linux can read it perfectly.

 

Check the driver for the card reader. I had the same problem - couldn't
format an SD card > 1GB. My HP laptop had a 2001 vintage driver for the
reader. Once I updated the driver everything worked fine.

 

I'm having the same problem with my 1GB SD card. I was taking
pictures, then one day when I put the card in the card reader, it
died. One of the pics looked corrupted and the whole card died within
seconds. The card is unreadable on my card reader, my camera, and my
printer card reader.

 

Btw, What is the brand and model of your card reader? I'm using an
IOGear GUH284R.

 

Has anyone found a solution to getting the 2 or 4 Gb cards to be recognised
in VISTA yet?. I have a Lexar USB 2.0 multicard reader an I get the same
problems of you must format before use and only 1Gb available, however in XP
no problem
Thanks
Ian

 

I have the same problem. Anyone found a solution yet?

 

same problem here. Card & reader work just fine in laptop running
XP. Tried 2 different card readers in Vista, so far no luck at all
with 2GB sd cards.

 

Were you using an external USB card reader in either or both systems?

 

Seem to be a problem for many people, boys from Microsoft should fix
it...
G4gir napsal:

 

I've got the same problem. Can't read 2GB SD cards, but I can read
lower capacity ones. Tried 3 different brands of SD cards (Kingston,
Sandisk regular and Sandisk Extreme III). Have 2 different card
readers. Everything works fine on my XP laptop. I believe this to be
a Vista driver issue.

 

Yeah, have an external card reader that works fine in my XP laptop.
It fails to work with Vista. It's a Lexar card reader, tried
different brands of SD cards too. Also have an internal card reader
that doesn't work.

I can read lower capacity cards just fine on Vista with both readers.

 

I also have the SD Card problem in Vista: failure to read a 2 gb card. My
external card reader is "mass storage compliant". It requires no software
installation of drivers to work in Windows 2K and XP. Booting into W2K on the
Vista PC shows that a clean W2K install, and no additional driver
installation, will result in a perfect performance from the 2Gb SD card.
Therefore, there is no motherboard bios issue involved.

For what it is worth: The Vista Driver file version is 6.0.6000.
vista.rtm.061101-2205. In comparing the Vista drivers to the ones that work
in XP, I discovered that in Vista, only two driver files are associated with
my card reader: partmgr.sys and disk.sys. In XP, an additional driver file,
snapman.sys, is present.

Guess all the SD card users who have all those new digital cameras will have
to wait for someone on the Vista team to take an interest in all the millions
of folks who will want to use all the Vista features to see their pictures.

Waiting for SP1 anyone?

 

Embarrassed to report this, but I can read the SD card just fine in Vista if
I ignore my old habit of using a card reader, and instead, leave the card in
the camera and read it into Vista from there. Guess that Nikon knows how to
do it. They ought to tell Microsoft how they did it.

Next question: can you put an SD card from the palm into the camera and read
it? Seems like I can. Can you write to the card in the camera? Seems like I
can. Can you install palm software onto the card in the Nikon? Will keep this
in mind.

So, if you want to read Palm SD cards in Vista, looks like you might need a
nice new Nikon SLR. Head down to accounting right now and get it authorized.
On the other hand, if you try this your company might never adopt Vista.
Maybe Nikon should be in the OS trade since their cameras have an OS that
works. Will we be able to download a new NikTix distro?

bigwater updating his last post.

 

Just came across a reference to this:

Availability of the Windows Vista Secure Digital (SD) hotfix rollup
package

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/933847/en-us

However there's a not inside that KB article indicating that it's been
replaced by:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936825/

which includes download instructions for 32 bit and for 64 bit
versions.

I found the first KB in a thread Google turned up at:

http://www.austech.info/showthread.php?p=1145756

which also indicated that having ReadyBoost set to ON might affect
things.

Good luck!

 

I have that update. It did not change the behavior of Vista not recognizing
2Gb SD card. I have the workaround of using the camera as an SD card reader
and it works fine, even on cards not formatted in the camera. I can read,
write, create folders, etc. on the card in the camera, just not on the card
in the card reader.

 

Really strange -- if you ever sort it out do let us know!