Digital photo flash card problems

[waltinvt]

Digital photo flash card capacity - help please

I purchased a couple of Apacer 2GB 60x Photo Series flashcards but have not been able to utilize anywhere near that amount of storage space on them.

I wanted to copy a bunch of digital photos (JPG) from my computer to the cards so they can be used in one of those digital picture frames.

On neither card was I able to get more than about 400MB before getting error messages related to not being able to copy or create directory.

I don't have a regular flash card reader but am doing the transfer via my HP 7550 photosmart printer which reads different mem cards.

Was I maybe supposed to change the format on the card first or something?

 

[waltinvt]

Ok, let me bump and re-phrase in hopes of getting some attention.

Is it possible that the card reader in an older photo printer (HP 7550) can't handle the newer, high capacity SD cards properly?

I can't seem to get more than 4 or 500MB on a 2GB Apacer flash card. Does it need a different format or something?

 

[harshness]

It is likely that you're running up against a limitation of the filesystem with respect to having too many files in a single directory. I would make sure that the format is FAT32 as FAT16 had a limit of up to 512 files in the root directory (capacity substantially reduced by use of long filenames).

You'll notice that most cameras place their pictures in a subdirectory. If your picture frame supports this, you should try it.

 

[waltinvt]

It is likely that you're running up against a limitation of the filesystem with respect to having too many files in a single directory. I would make sure that the format is FAT32 as FAT16 had a limit of up to 512 files in the root directory (capacity substantially reduced by use of long filenames).

You'll notice that most cameras place their pictures in a subdirectory. If your picture frame supports this, you should try it.

Thank you for responding. When I do a "properties" on the card it says "RAW" under file system. Device manager sees the reader as a "photosmart printer card reader (HPH11)" and if I populate it and do a "properties" on the drive it says file system is just "FAT" (no 16 or 32). Device manager does see the capacity as 946MB though.

Anyway, I'll research the picture frame to see if it supports sub-folders.

Thanks again.

 

[Foxbat]

Also, how are you copying the data to the card? Is the card in the picture frame, or are you copying to a USB 2.0 x-in-1 Camera Card dongle? If you have a camera that will take the card, you might reformat it using the camera.

Okay, we posted at the same time. If you have a 2 GB card, you should see more than the 946 MB you report. It may be the digital picture frame can only deal with a maximum 1 GB flash card.

 

[waltinvt]

Also, how are you copying the data to the card? Is the card in the picture frame, or are you copying to a USB 2.0 x-in-1 Camera Card dongle? If you have a camera that will take the card, you might reformat it using the camera.

Okay, we posted at the same time. If you have a 2 GB card, you should see more than the 946 MB you report. It may be the digital picture frame can only deal with a maximum 1 GB flash card.

My bad typo - it should have read 1946 MB.

Harshness's suggestion of using sub-folders worked as far as getting more photos onto the SD card. I'm still copying photos to it now.

I haven't found out if the picture frame will process sub-folders in slide-show mode as the manual doesn't say but when I get all the pictures over to the SD card I'll try it and see.

 

[waltinvt]

According to Apacer tech, I have to format for Fat32.

I did that and that seemed to work as the card accepted all 1400 files (about 950 MB) without a problem. Took hours to transfer though. I guess I should get a USB 2 reader.

Now guess what? After all this was done I pulled the card out and apparently ruined it. I thought I had it set for quick removal but now the reader says "error reading card". Search & Recover says there's a "divide by zero" error on it.

Are there any fixes for this or am I out the price of the card and all the time it took?

Thanks for being patient with me guys.

 

[harshness]

Have you tried formatting the flash card to see if it can be salvaged?

Computers have nothing but time on their hands.

 

[waltinvt]

Yes. I just says "insert" disk, and is not seeing the card. Also as soon as I insert it in the reader on the printer it says error accessing card.

I did order an external, multi-card reader which should be here in a couple days, so maybe I'll have better luck with that.