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General discussion

pcmcia card reader size limit

Aug 2, 2006 11:02PM PDT

Hi all,

I recently picked up a 2GB SD card and a 6-in-1 PCMCIA card reader with the idea of turning my iPAQ (with PCMCIA expansion sleeve) into an mp3 player.

I used a USB card reader (Sandisk MobileMate, awesome little thing), to transfer a bunch of music onto the card, but when I plugged the card into the PCMCIA adapter, noticed that a bunch of files were missing. The iPAQ reported that it saw a 2GB card that was 98% full, but several of the folders (which I realized were the *last* ones I transferred) appeared empty. To make sure it wasn't a limitation of the iPAQ, I tried a friend's laptop and found the same thing...with the USB adapter all of the files were visible, but with the PCMCIA adapter the last ~1GB I copied was ''missing''.

I did a little googleing and found that Sandisk and Sony note on their websites that the PCMCIA card readers they make have a 1GB limit for SD cards. (the limits varied by card type, but 1GB was the max) All other manufacturers I checked didn't mention anything like this on their websites.

Does anybody out there know if a PCMCIA card reader exists that can handle larger cards? Since it is a simple transparent throughput device, it doesn't seem like this should be impossible.

If, for some reason, nobody makes card readers that can do that, is there a way to trick mine, like perhaps splitting the SD card into two 1GB partitions?

Any ideas/suggestions would be appreciated!

Thanks!
-John

Discussion is locked

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My 20 buck card does all the sizes I tried up to 4GB.
Aug 3, 2006 1:34AM PDT

It was the CompUSA brand for 20 bucks. Plug SD card into it, slip into my Windows 2000 or XP machine and all card sizes work up to 4GB (I don't have larger to test.)

If it doesn't work on yours I wonder where's the problem.

Bob

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it works!
Aug 4, 2006 3:38AM PDT

Yup! Just got back from CompUSA and I can see all the files on the card now. Thanks so much for the tip!

I wonder why nobody (except Sandisk and Sony) talks about this capability/limitation? It seems like a rather important thing to know to me. I guess with many new laptops including built-in media readers and and express card replacing pcmcia, this sort of thing doesn't get much attention anymore.

Anyway, the compusa card did the trick, so I'm gonna put on some music (*all* 2GB of it) and get back to work!

Thanks again!
-John

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Yup, nod. Glad to hear you repeated my success.
Aug 4, 2006 1:36PM PDT

At least the Compusa card was cheaper than the other. At least for me.

bob