HP 50g and SD cards
Mike Bryant
For the last 2 1/2 years I've been using a 2 GB Lexar SD card with my
50g and the card finally died. I replaced it with a Kingston 2 GB SD
card and it will not work reliably on my 50g. It works fine on my
computer, but not on the calculator, so I thought I'd take an informal
survey as to what cards people use on their 50g's. Some camera
manufacturers will recommend one manufacturer or another because they
know what cards work and which won't for their cameras and maybe HP
needs to do the same thing. Also, my 50g would not format either card.
Is it the fact that they are both 2GB?
Thank you in advance.
Jacob Wall
I have heard of this before, it appears that some cards (randomly it
seems) just do not function properly on the calculator, or not
consistently on the calculator. I don't have an answer as to why this
happens. It appears to have something to do with the calculator
turning off, then back on, from my experience, but that is not a fully
tested theory, only seen it once before. I would be inclined to say
if you were to get another 2GB Kingston SD card, it would at high
probability work just fine, luck of the draw got you one that doesn't
work. I know, not much information but a 2GB card "normally" works
just fine with the calculator.
Jacob
IMQ
I bought 4 SanDisk 2GB SD cards pre-formatted with FAT16 from factory.
So far it seems to work well. I used it to do the ROM upgrade without
a problem.
Can you explain what you mean "it will not work reliably"?
Thanks.
Mike Bryant
> Can you explain what you mean "it will not work reliably"?
>
> Thanks.
Sure. Files stored on the card (by the computer) when viewed with the
filer will randomly have a [?] icon. When I press the view key for
that file, it 'normalizes' and shows the proper icon after pressing
CANCL or OK. Also, not all the files will show up in the catalog for
the current directory being viewed, then when I press left arrow to go
up a level, it sends me to the home directory. Storing and retrieving
files on the card (by the 50g) usually results in an error.
TW
> filer will randomly have a [?] icon. When I press the view key for
> that file, it 'normalizes' and shows the proper icon after pressing
> CANCL or OK. Also, not all the files will show up in the catalog for
> the current directory being viewed, then when I press left arrow to go
> up a level, it sends me to the home directory. Storing and retrieving
> files on the card (by the 50g) usually results in an error.
Run a quick file system check on the card. You might have some errors
there. Also, if the card was given a name on format that can sometimes
interfere on the calc.
TW
Mike Bryant
I did that first thing and no diff. The PC gives my card a clean bill
of health. Interestingly, your SDFiler won't even show a directory.
It's as if nothing is even there. (I wonder if my card needs a priest).
John H Meyers
> I wonder if my card needs a priest.
No problem -- this group has everything you'll ever need :)
http://holyjoe.org/
http://holyjoe.org/hobbies.htm
.
danki...@msn.com
http://www.hpcalc.org/details.php?id=7097
There is also a bugfix firmware included in this release.
IMPORTANT! The bugfix firmware will overwrite ALL THE FLASH in the
HP50g,
including port2. So back up the calculator BEFORE using the bugfix
firmware.
After hearing of a few problems with 2GB cards I decided on a 1GB card
for my HP50g.
I got a SanDisk Extreme III 1.0GB card. While both calculator and
card are pretty new,
everything seems to work just fine. I have formated on both the
calculator and computer
just fine. I ended up using computer format for FAT (FAT16).
It seems to me that the 1GB card is the sweetspot for the HP50g. They
often use faster
technology than smaller cards, and have somewhat fewer problems than
2GB cards.
And even faster 1GB cards are usually pretty cheap now (under $10).
Ingo Thies
> It seems to me that the 1GB card is the sweetspot for the HP50g. They
> often use faster
> technology than smaller cards, and have somewhat fewer problems than
> 2GB cards.
> And even faster 1GB cards are usually pretty cheap now (under $10).
Hmm, nowadays it seems to be hard to find any card with less then 2 GB
which seems to be the only non-HC size still in production. At least,
smaller ones seem to be extremely rare. I am running an old 128 MB card
(formerly used for a camera which now uses a fresh 2 GB one) without
problems. But I am not using the SD card for long time yet (bought the
calc a few weeks ago, only little data transfer and backup yet). I am
using ROM version 2.15 (the most recent one, I guess).
Ingo
TW
> as FAT32... Both ways, the calculator was able to recognize the SD
> card. I formatted the SD card using allocation size of 8192 and 4096,
> both ways were fine for the calculator to recognize the SD card.
Format as FAT. FAT32 has a 2 second or so pause every time you power
on the calculator.
> Is anybody in this thread able to see the 2GB (2097152 KB) available
> on a 2GB/SD card. Or do you thing is a truncation problem with the
> display.
It is just a trucation thing. Everything works fine though. When the
calc OS was made 2GB cards weren't even on the horizon. . . :-)
TW