How Come I Can Only Use 2gb Of A 4gb Card Sd Card ?

[Fruity]

Hi guys

I recently bought a 4gb Kingston SD card which I beleive is non SDHC.

My PC reads the card as 4gb but only allows me to write on 2GB of it !

The computer still displays that there is 2gb free space but I can't use it !

I have tried 4 different card readers.

Whats going on ?!?

 

[Squidge]

There's a lot of sd card readers which only support upto 2GB.

There's also a lot of people on ebay selling 2GB cards as 4GB cards. They act as a 4GB card and have 4GB of apparent physical space, until you try and copy more than 2GB onto them.

 

[Fruity]

Thanks Squidge.

It was bought through ebay but it came in original Kingston packaging and the card had a genuine Kingston 4GB sticker on it.

I beleive you are right.

Can you recommend a card and possibly a reader?

What does everyone else use?

 

[Quiest]

*triumphes* I use a 1 gig card

 

[Squidge]

I have a 64MB and 128MB card for the gp2x. Works for me as I hardly ever use it for anything other than development (and as you have seen, that's very rare these days too)

 

[Si7777]

Hmm... This is quite concerning for me as I ordered a Kingston 4GB SD card from Play-Asia yesterday! :unsure:

I should get it in the post tomorrow, so will report back if I have the same issues as yourself.

 

[Fruity]

Yes, I would be interested if yours works or not.

What card reader are you goung to use?

 

[Si7777]

Just thought - is it because it is formatted in FAT (i.e. not FAT32)? IIRC, this has an upper partition limit of 2GB? I wonder if formatting in FAT32 will solve this?

 

[linoleum13]

I dont know how I ever did without a SD card reader like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820242001

 

[christo930]

Hi guys

I recently bought a 4gb Kingston SD card which I beleive is non SDHC.

My PC reads the card as 4gb but only allows me to write on 2GB of it !

The computer still displays that there is 2gb free space but I can't use it !

I have tried 4 different card readers.

Whats going on ?!?

The Fat 16 file system can only support partitions of 2gig. Try formating it to fat 32.

Chris

I dont know how I ever did without a SD card reader like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820242001



l.e.d. shop sell the same thing for 2.99 including shipping.

http://www.ledshoppe.com/Product/com/CA2018.htm

I own it and it works fine, though I only have usb 1 on this POS pc I'm using at the moment, so I can't report on it's usb2 performance. I am told however, that it is just as fast as any other usb2 reader/writer.

Chris

 

[Fruity]

Hi guys

I recently bought a 4gb Kingston SD card which I beleive is non SDHC.

My PC reads the card as 4gb but only allows me to write on 2GB of it !

The computer still displays that there is 2gb free space but I can't use it !

I have tried 4 different card readers.

Whats going on ?!?

The Fat 16 file system can only support partitions of 2gig. Try formating it to fat 32.

Chris





I have formatted it in XP using FAT32 - I don't get any other options anyway.

It is definately formatted in FAT32.

 

[Squidge]

The Fat 16 file system can only support partitions of 2gig. Try formating it to fat 32.

Multiply the maximum number of clusters (64k) by the maximum cluster size (64K), and the result is 4GB.

 

[slaanesh]

Thanks Squidge.

It was bought through ebay but it came in original Kingston packaging and the card had a genuine Kingston 4GB sticker on it.

I beleive you are right.

Can you recommend a card and possibly a reader?

What does everyone else use?

If what you got is only a 2GB card which is a fake you should be able to get at least a partial refund through eBay. Use the dispute resolution system on eBay to do this.

Although hard to get, I highly recommend Ridata SD cards - I have 2x 2GB cards which are excellent and very fast to read and write. I also have a Tomato 4GB card but this is not as good as the Ridata. It's main advantage is that it can store muchly

 

[Fruity]

I have decided to not buy another card from ebay and I recommend you guys do the same.

I have just ordered this Trancend high speed standard SD card which is apparently compatible :-

http://www.onlinememory.co.uk/transcend-4g...peed-p-717.html

thanks for all your help guys

 

[christo930]

The Fat 16 file system can only support partitions of 2gig. Try formating it to fat 32.

Multiply the maximum number of clusters (64k) by the maximum cluster size (64K), and the result is 4GB.


Fat 16 is definately limited to 2gb. When I made the post the first thing I did was the math above and it came to the 4G, but then I double checked and found my memory was not failing me and that 2gb is the maximum partition size for fat 16.
Check it out:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/118335

Chris

 

[cyclone5uk]

Anyone in the UK should consider dabs.com - they have some great prices on SD cards and computer equipment in general. I have ordered a ton of stuff from them and been extremely satisfied.

I got a Kingston 2GB SD card from them (for use with my 2X) for £12.61 and it works great.

 

[Squidge]

Fat 16 is definately limited to 2gb. When I made the post the first thing I did was the math above and it came to the 4G, but then I double checked and found my memory was not failing me and that 2gb is the maximum partition size for fat 16.
Check it out:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/118335



Apart from the fact that is only valid for Windows 95/98, which I doubt anyone uses any more.

Win 95/98 have a maximum cluster size of 32KB, which would be 2GB.
Win 2K/XP/Vista/etc/etc have a maximum cluster size of 64KB, which would be 4GB.

 

[TheMinder]

QUOTE
I got a Kingston 2GB SD card from them (for use with my 2X) for £12.61 and it works great.


Not taking this off topic but the same product is £9.49 at 7dayshop which is a big saving percentage wise.

 

[prairiefire]

I dont know how I ever did without a SD card reader like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820242001


this is exactly what i have too and i couldn't agree more. I also have a kingston 4GB SD card

 

[christo930]

Fat 16 is definately limited to 2gb. When I made the post the first thing I did was the math above and it came to the 4G, but then I double checked and found my memory was not failing me and that 2gb is the maximum partition size for fat 16.
Check it out:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/118335



Apart from the fact that is only valid for Windows 95/98, which I doubt anyone uses any more.

Win 95/98 have a maximum cluster size of 32KB, which would be 2GB.
Win 2K/XP/Vista/etc/etc have a maximum cluster size of 64KB, which would be 4GB.


You would be suprised how many people still use 98 on at least one of their pc's. If you are going to run win NT 4 or better might as well use ntfs or fat 32 for compatability.

What happens if you try to read a 4gb partition if fat 16 formatted on a 2k system on a win 9x system? Does this rule (64k cluster size) apply to hard disk partitions or just digital media?