2GB SD/MiniSD appear as 1GB

[john-woods]

Hey guys,

I recently bought a 2GB SD card and a 2GB MiniSD card for my camera and phone. When I inserted them in my card reader they both appeared to be pre-formatted as FAT16 and were only 1GB in size. I tried re-formatting them, assuming FAT16 to be the cause of the size limitation, using Disk Utility.app in the hope that the missing space would reappear but it didn't.

Using this article http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030613121738812 for reference I tried using several of the commands listed in there.

It appears as though there are two partitions ("ls /dev/rdisk2*" returns disk2s1 and disk2s2). I am unable to reformat the first partition with error "permission denied" even though I am logged in as root (using either of the following commands; "newfs_hfs -v HFS_VOLUME_NAME /dev/rdisk2s1" or "newfs_msdos -v FAT_VOLUME_NAME -F 32 /dev/rdisk2s1")

Is there any way to force the terminal to simply re-format the cards as a single 2GB FAT32 partition? Or even a way to make my Mac see the full drive size and mount it properly?

Many thanks
John

P.S. If it is of any use; my Mac is a 17" PowerBook G4 running OS X v10.4.6, the card reader being used is a SanDisk 6 in 1 PCMCIA card, the two memory cards are made by SanDisk and A-Data respectively.

[ThreeDee]

Maybe your camera or phone doesn't support a 2GB card?

Did you just reformat it? Or did you use Disk Utility's repartition tab?

[john-woods]

I haven't tried the cards in my camera or phone yet, they're showing up as 1GB cards on my Mac.

I used the 'Erase' tab rather than the 'Partition' tab as this is the only option available for FAT format. I couldn't see any way to look at partitions other than disk2s2, this was the only partition visible in the 'Info' option in the contextual menu brought up by right-clicking the drive in Disk Utility.

Cheers
John

[ThreeDee]

Try erasing the card on your camera, and see what happens when you put it back on your mac.

[john-woods]

Tried that but it didn't work either.

I'm slightly worried that the cards are somehow only 1GB models but I don't see how that could've happened. They have 2GB printed on them and came in the right packaging etc. and are both from different manufacturers and retailers. I think the probability that I got two 1GB cards is tiny but it worries me nonetheless.

Has anyone else had this problem at all?

Any more ideas greatly appreciated
Thanks
John

[freimacosxheit]

Try formatting by using FAT32 format. I am very sure that both Mac and digital camera will accept it.

[hayne]

I note this article about counterfeit memory cards often appearing on eBay and that they often don't deliver the promised capacity:
http://reviews.ebay.com.au/Beware-of-FAKE-1GB-2GB-4GB-8GB-USB-Flash-Drives-on-eBay_W0QQugidZ10000000000706427

[john-woods]

Thanks Hayne, yeah that ebay article is quite worrying. The card I got off ebay is the A-Data 2GB MiniSD but it has "2 GB" printed directly onto the card, that seller has 90000+ positive feedback and I've heard of other people using this exact card before with no problems. The SD card I've got also looks identical to the pictures on SanDisk's own website so I'm pretty sure (fingers crossed) that isn't the problem.

Does anybody know any Terminal.app commands I can use to force the cards to be formatted as a single volume? Or even a good place to look for a list of related commands?

Thanks
John

[sdunlapa]

John I had a similiar problem. After I erased info off of my 2gb mini sd it would only read 968mb. I used this program to "reset" my 968mb mini sd card to the original 2gb. http://www.ritekusa.com/absupport_download.asp?catid=8 It is an .exe file so I had to run it on my windoze computer.

Let me know if it works for you.

Steve

[aubreyapple]

Looks like they have a OS X version too:

http://www.ritekusa.com/upload/SDFix2G.zip

[tlarkin]

FAT16 has a 2 gig partition limit, so if your sd card is lets say 2024 megabytes or if its even 2100 MB then it may not be able to partition the whole size.

I would try fat32 next and see what happens.

Remember a lot of times manufacturers just call it the nearest size when in fact it is slightly larger or smaller. Since a gig is 1024 megabytes and some companies consider it to be 1000MB. My flash drive is actually 1.1 gig but it is labled 1 gig, and when I partition it it comes down to be like 980megabytes or something like that.

[sdunlapa]

I would try fat32 next and see what happens.


If you are using it in your phone I wouldn't format to FAT32 since I don't think there is a phone out there that is compatible with FAT32. Phones are typically only compatible with FAT16.

[tlarkin]

If you are using it in your phone I wouldn't format to FAT32 since I don't think there is a phone out there that is compatible with FAT32. Phones are typically only compatible with FAT16.

why aren't phones compatable with FAT32? Don't a lot of phones run a 32bit OS, and even some phones run versions of WindowsCE?

[Shirohagen]

OK, so I'm having EXACTLY the same problem as you and I have the same Powerbook, OSX AND Card Reader.

To be honest I think the problem may lie with the card reader, mine is not very reliable and so I'm wondering if I need to get a new one which is a shame.

Other than that, it does seem to be very difficult to format a card as FAT32 on the Mac, why isn't it easier? I'm trying to format mine for reliablel use in my GP2X which requires a FAT32 card. So far I have only got my Viking 2Gb card to format with half the capacity...


Any ideas?

®

[rhb]

I got a 2 gig SD card for my camera. When I put it in my card reader (which reads a 1 gig card OK), I got a "cannot read" message from my computer. But when I connected the camera directly through USB the computer saw the card.
Got a new card reader (old one was 3-4 years old) - problem solved!
(eMac on 10.2.8)

[john-woods]

Shirohagen, I bought a new Crucial USB card reader to try that out instead and I had the exact same problem.

So I gave the cards to my brother to format on his Windows PC and hey presto they both appear as 2GB partitions. This breaks again as soon as I try to reformat them on my mac however.

There is another problem though, even when they are recognised as 2GB cards when I try to put more than 1GB of data on them the transfer fails. This occurs when using my mac or the M3 Adapter software (for nintendo DS) on Windows.

It's totally infuriating! I hope you are having more luck than me.

John

[CAlvarez]

That last symptom is one that happens with the cards that have been re-marked as 2GB cards but are actually 1GB. Did you try filling them up with data on the Windows machine? Just to see what they do.

[JDV]

CAlvarez, that sounds blantenly illegal. Is this a common phenomenon, and--if so--where are our class-action lawyers when we need them?

Joe VanZandt

[CAlvarez]

It's happening a lot, but it's being done mostly by people selling out of foreign countries. I have not followed up since first reading about this in one of the eBay online articles, so I don't know if it has changed.

[ThreeDee]

I know this is old, but I found (somewhat) of a solution.

I recently bought two 2GB microSD cards from Newegg, a relatively reliable seller. I put one in a Wii and the other in my PC. For some reason, the one I formatted with my PC appeared as 1GB, while the one formatted in my Wii appeared as 2GB on my PC! After seeing this video (http://revver.com/video/1263689/fix-problem-with-sd-2gb-format/), I downloaded the 'official' SDformatter software, and followed what they did. They simply set the "FORMAT SIZE ADJUSTMENT" in the options to "ON".

Of course, this is Windows only software, and I'm not sure how to do this on a Mac, but it worked.

Some really old card readers were only semi-compatible with SD cards over 1GB, so for some reason they could read/write 2GB if the cards were already formatted. But they can't format 2GB cards by themselves.

[stewiesno1]

If you are using it in your phone I wouldn't format to FAT32 since I don't think there is a phone out there that is compatible with FAT32. Phones are typically only compatible with FAT16.

Some cameras too sdunlapa like our Kodak digital.
We used ours for about a year and then started to have a few problems with it.
I backed up all the photos off the card and then thought I should reformat it as Fat32 in my Mac.
I put the card back in the camera and it would not recognize it.
Back to the shop and the tech guy behind the counter just put it into the stores PC and reformatted it as Fat 16.It has worked fine ever since.

Stewie