A friend and I both have the same setups for taking photographs and transferring them to a G3. The cameras are a Canon A1200s which
originally saved the pictures on an SD card but now use a micro-SD card
in an adaptor.

There is no software available from Canon to allow the card to be read
in the camera by a G3, so it has to be removed and plugged into a card
reader, joined to the G3 by a USB cable. I have written an applescript
to transfer the pictures, create thumbnails with Graphic Converter and
re-name the files to suit the filing system.

My friend reported that the applescript was saying it couldn't contact
the card, so I sent her a new card (Sandisk 64 GB) which still didn't
work. The fault turned out to be dirt in card reader connections, when
this was removed the original card worked well again.

The new Sandisk card wouldn't work at first because it hadn't been
initiallised by the camera. After initiallisation, the camera
recognised it and could view pictures saved on it. I plugged it into
the card reader and the Applescript wouldn't download from it because it expected a card with a different name. I re-named the card and the
Applescript read it and said there were no files on it.

I have now looked into this in more detail. My Mac mini sees the card
with the name the camera gave it and the pictures that were taken. My
G3 sees the card with the name I gave it on my friend's G3 and no
pictures. Finder reports that there are invisible files on it but these
are "Desktop DB" and similar. There is no sign of the pictures or a
second partition' or anything of that sort.

The card appears to have a split personality, how is this possible?


--
~ Liz Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

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Liz Tuddenham <[email protected]d> wrote:

I have now looked into this in more detail. My Mac mini sees the card
with the name the camera gave it and the pictures that were taken. My
G3 sees the card with the name I gave it on my friend's G3 and no
pictures. Finder reports that there are invisible files on it but these
are "Desktop DB" and similar. There is no sign of the pictures or a
second partition' or anything of that sort.

The card appears to have a split personality, how is this possible?

Traditionally, SD cards 32GB or larger are formatted as exFAT, not FAT16 / FAT32 as smaller cards are (FAT='file allocation table'). Perhaps your
camera and the Mini are seeing the exFAT table, but there's also a FAT32
table which the G3 is seeing as it doesn't know how to read exFAT. That's
why there are parallel universes.

It is possible the camera would support a >32GB card formatted as FAT32 -
you could try that and see if it'll accept it. You'd have to format it as FAT32 on the Mini - Disk Utility should allow you to erase it and select the format.

(the reason for the limit isn't hardware, but because for many years Windows refused to format anything larger than 32GiB as FAT32 - this has only been lifted in the last month or two).

If you can't get the camera to accept the card formatted as FAT32, you could try making two partitions with the first partition <32GB and see if that accepts it. But it that fails you may need to buy a 32GB or smaller card.

Theo

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Theo <[email protected]> wrote:

Liz Tuddenham <[email protected]d> wrote:

I have now looked into this in more detail. My Mac mini sees the card
with the name the camera gave it and the pictures that were taken. My
G3 sees the card with the name I gave it on my friend's G3 and no
pictures. Finder reports that there are invisible files on it but these are "Desktop DB" and similar. There is no sign of the pictures or a
second partition' or anything of that sort.

The card appears to have a split personality, how is this possible?

Traditionally, SD cards 32GB or larger are formatted as exFAT, not FAT16 / FAT32 as smaller cards are (FAT='file allocation table'). Perhaps your camera and the Mini are seeing the exFAT table, but there's also a FAT32 table which the G3 is seeing as it doesn't know how to read exFAT. That's why there are parallel universes.

That explains it.

It is possible the camera would support a >32GB card formatted as FAT32 -
you could try that and see if it'll accept it. You'd have to format it as FAT32 on the Mini - Disk Utility should allow you to erase it and select the format.

The camera didn't like it: "Memory card error".

If you can't get the camera to accept the card formatted as FAT32, you could try making two partitions with the first partition <32GB and see if that accepts it. But it that fails you may need to buy a 32GB or smaller card.

That doesn't work either - but thanks for the suggestions.

The card was the smallest they stocked in our local PC World/Currys so
it looks as though I shall have to buy one online. I can still use this
card for other storge and transfer purposes, so I haven't lost anything.


--
~ Liz Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

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On 1 Nov 2024 at 17:48:43 GMT, "Liz Tuddenham" <Liz Tuddenham> wrote:

Theo <[email protected]> wrote:

It is possible the camera would support a >32GB card formatted as FAT32 -
you could try that and see if it'll accept it. You'd have to format it as >> FAT32 on the Mini - Disk Utility should allow you to erase it and select the >> format.

The camera didn't like it: "Memory card error".

No it won't - 32GB is the limit for an SD card running, that was the purpose
of exFAT.
It should be possible to format a 64GB card as 32GB with the right software, but then obviously you have half a card missing. Pretty sure you wouldn't be able to do that from a G3 mac though.

Woody

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Woody <[email protected]> wrote:

On 1 Nov 2024 at 17:48:43 GMT, "Liz Tuddenham" <Liz Tuddenham> wrote:

Theo <[email protected]> wrote:

It is possible the camera would support a >32GB card formatted as FAT32
- you could try that and see if it'll accept it. You'd have to format
it as FAT32 on the Mini - Disk Utility should allow you to erase it and
select the format.

The camera didn't like it: "Memory card error".

No it won't - 32GB is the limit for an SD card running, that was the purpose of exFAT.
It should be possible to format a 64GB card as 32GB with the right software, but then obviously you have half a card missing. Pretty sure you wouldn't be able to do that from a G3 mac though.

...Nor from a Mini (OS10.15.7) with only the built-in software.


--
~ Liz Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

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Woody <[email protected]> wrote:

On 1 Nov 2024 at 17:48:43 GMT, "Liz Tuddenham" <Liz Tuddenham> wrote:

Theo <[email protected]> wrote:

It is possible the camera would support a >32GB card formatted as FAT32 - >> you could try that and see if it'll accept it. You'd have to format it as >> FAT32 on the Mini - Disk Utility should allow you to erase it and select the
format.

The camera didn't like it: "Memory card error".

No it won't - 32GB is the limit for an SD card running, that was the purpose of exFAT.

There is no actual reason why not - it's just that Windows couldn't do it,
so that got written into the SD card specs. There is a hardware difference
at 4GiB between SD and SDHC, but nothing at 32GiB. It's quite possible to format a bigger SD card to FAT32 - it's just a storage medium like any other.

But that's up to the camera/etc as to whether they have logic 'if size >
32GiB then exFAT else FAT32' or if they look at the partition table on the medium and work with what they have. It sounds like this camera just has
the hardcoded size difference.

(there's a good reason for exFAT because FAT32 can't handle files >4GiB,
which isn't a problem for photos but is when you start taking videos. It's possible the camera refuses the card because you might possibly start
recording videos and it doesn't want your recording to be terminated when
the file becomes too big. Even though it would be terminated on a 16GiB
card. Some cameras can break up videos into multiple sections to avoid the file size limitation)

It should be possible to format a 64GB card as 32GB with the right software, but then obviously you have half a card missing. Pretty sure you wouldn't be able to do that from a G3 mac though.

It sounds like the same 'if size > 32GiB' check is causing that to fail too.

Theo

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Theo <[email protected]> wrote:

[...]

It sounds like the same 'if size > 32GiB' check is causing that to fail too.

I'm pleased to report that a new 8GB card worked straight away.

Thanks to everyone, problem solved.

--
~ Liz Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

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