SD Cards not recognized

[qisforqaidim]

Hello,


This is probably a very simple situation and I'm missing something horribly obvious but I'm having a devil of a time.


I received my Pandora today, went through the quick start guide, looked at the new user threads. My Pandora does not seem able to see the SD cards through the file system or the sd mass storage option. I downloaded the SD formatter utility and formatted them, put in the menu structure of pandora/apps pandora/appdata pandora/menu pandora/desktop. I searched through the forums for issues with SD cards, saw that one solution was to reseat the battery when someone was having a similar problem but that unfortunately didn't help. I've rebooted fully.


When I insert the cards I see the little green light on the right flicker, but nothing comes up. On the cards in the apps directory I have pndmanager, midori, vlc, and the codecpack and it doesn't come up. Went to system/sd card mass storage, ran that and it does not see the cards.


Am I missing something terribly obvious or is this a bit weird?

 

[Binky]

Have you tried putting a shim of paper/card in on top of the cards?


I thing some cards are a tad to thin and don't touch the contacts very well.

 

[TrashyMG]

@Binky - That would make me nervous putting bits of paper in the SD slot. I would be afraid that it would jam up in the spring loaded mechanism..


What is the file system is the card formatted to?

 

[Asmo]

Just in case anyone's encountered anything similar before, it might be worth mentioning what make/capacity/class SD card they are. Even if you have not made the necessary directory structure, a formatted card should show up.

 

[Binky]

@Binky - That would make me nervous putting bits of paper in the SD slot. I would be afraid that it would jam up in the spring loaded mechanism..

I'm sure I read somewhere on this forum that someone had found cards that were too thin...


Perhaps some clear sticky tape of the card feels loose in its slot

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

As binky said some cards can be a bit thin.Also sometimes you need to push the sd card in a bit more firmly.If its even slightly at an angle whilst in the slot it may not read the card.


also the card must be formatted to fat 32.Use the full format option and not the quick format option in the sd card formatter software. All pnds must go in pandora menu so they can appear in the desktop menu as executables.

 

[qisforqaidim]

These are the SD cards that ITHIC sells along with the pandora, I was hoping for ideal compatibility. I've tried fiddling with the cards, but it's still not working though the drive light still flickers when they're inserted so it's making some form of contact. They were formatted to exfat, I am now formatting them to fat32 and will see if that resolves the issue. I'll edit this post once completed.

 

[qisforqaidim]

Well tried to format to fat32, the formatting failed declaring that it was too large (64gb) for fat 32.


So on a lark I formatted it to NTFS, _now_ it shows up, but can't access it as it's a non-supported format type.

 

[qisforqaidim]

Well, got a 32gb card to work. So basically just need to find some way to get these cards set to fat32. Used Format /fs:FAT32 G: on a windows 7 machine and it's just coming back with the card being too big. Also used SDFormatter and that did not seem to work either.


Update: Got it to work, just had to get a small app and finally was able to finagle it to fat32. Sorry for spamming, I'm a noob.

 

[bukkit]

Update: Got it to work, just had to get a small app and finally was able to finagle it to fat32. Sorry for spamming, I'm a noob.

Hey, don't worry. You're definitely not a noob if you find the solution yourself and additionally have the kindness and courtesy to post it. And we should have been smart enough to ask you for the dmesg output, that would probably ha saved us all some thoughts and paperwork.

 

[Null]

So on a lark I formatted it to NTFS, _now_ it shows up, but can't access it as it's a non-supported format type.

Just for future reference, there's an app Community Codec Pack for that.


http://openpandora.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=199&Itemid=40&lang=en

 

[Binky]

So on a lark I formatted it to NTFS, _now_ it shows up, but can't access it as it's a non-supported format type.

Just for future reference, there's an app Community Codec Pack for that.


http://openpandora.o...emid=40&lang=en

...and where's the codec pack? On the SD card that didn't work!

On the cards in the apps directory I have pndmanager, midori, vlc, and the codecpack and it doesn't come up.

That joke is dreadful, bukkit!


Just..


:lol: :wacko:

 

[Null]

...and where's the codec pack? On the SD card that didn't work!

You see that stick that you're holding? well i'm afraid that you've got hold of the wrong end of it, what I posted wasn't meant to be taken as repair advice, but as to how they can get NTFS volumes to work with the Pandora in the future if they want to, e.g. for the >4GB file support now that they have a working FAT32 card.

 

[bukkit]

That joke is dreadful, bukkit!

Indeed.

 

[WizardStan]

The Pandora doesn't support exFat and I'm not sure if it ever will. I'm kind of surprised Link is sending such large cards without at least some kind of notice about that.

 

[2bit]

Hi , avid question asker 2bit here : I ordered a 32 gig sd card from Link same problem as qisforqaidium as the sd card is not thick enough tried Binky`s idea nearly got the card stuck ( used a pair of pliers with paper over them to keep from scratching ) . I also tried using a 2 gig i had laying around ( use it on my n3ds ) , that one works . Also the usb port does not recognize thumb / flash ( whatever you wish to call them ) when inserted not sure if this is because both flash drives are used on windows computers .

 

[WizardStan]

Also the usb port does not recognize thumb / flash ( whatever you wish to call them ) when inserted not sure if this is because both flash drives are used on windows computers .

The icon in the bottom right next to the wifi icon, the one you select to turn wifi on and off? It should also have a "turn USB on/off" option. USB is turned off by default because it uses a surprising amount of power, even when idle.

 

[2bit]

Also the usb port does not recognize thumb / flash ( whatever you wish to call them ) when inserted not sure if this is because both flash drives are used on windows computers .

The icon in the bottom right next to the wifi icon, the one you select to turn wifi on and off? It should also have a "turn USB on/off" option. USB is turned off by default because it uses a surprising amount of power, even when idle.

Ok thanks will try that right after I finish typing this ... awsome it works ! and your right about the power drain

 

[Link]

The Pandora doesn't support exFat and I'm not sure if it ever will. I'm kind of surprised Link is sending such large cards without at least some kind of notice about that.

Should I put a notice on my site that tells people to format their cards to FAT32 first? I've had these issues with all SD cards from various companies on the Pandora.

 

[WizardStan]

Should I put a notice on my site that tells people to format their cards to FAT32 first? I've had these issues with all SD cards from various companies on the Pandora.

Absolutely. Just a little note saying something like "These cards are formatted with Microsofts proprietary exFat file system and need to be formatted to FAT32 (or EXT) before they can be used in the Pandora" or similar. You can probably come up with some better wording. Maybe include a link to the Panasonic SD formatter: http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/index.html