HACK Garmin City Navigator Europe NT V9 Update English Only
Kiera Mcintyde
I recently had to update a Nuvi 205W that has been kept in the family for many years for sentimental reasons. It has Lifetime City Navigator Europe Maps and has been used with most, if not all UK regions.
Using the current version of Express, v7.17.3.0, I can only install a map region that will fit in the spare space on the device. It insists on installing Germany or Turkey, rather than updating the UK regions that were loaded previously. With Germany installed, choosing Change Map in Express only offers Turkey. I am in the UK so would really like the UK maps to be updated.
This may help with your understanding of what is going on. You should be able to install all of the areas you want to a sd card. There is no need to delete Germany. There is a link in that post explaining what to do.
Thanks for the suggestion. I did try fitting an 8GB MicroSD card in a full-size SD adapter. I think the computer recognised it but I didn't know how to use it so I took it out again. I'll have another go later.
Leave the card/adapter in the nuvi and perform the map update in the normal manner using Garmin Express. If the maps you are downloading are large enough to exceed the internal memory capacity of the 205W, Express should handle the task automatically.
I originally tried a Kingston 8GB Class 4 microSD card in the Kingston SD adapter that came with it. This was not recognised by either the 205W or Windows 10 with a Kingston USB3 Card Reader. I also have a pair of SanDisk 32GB Class 10 microSD cards with a SanDisk adapter. I tried formatting one of these in the Card Reader. That did not complete successfully, either in the microSD slot or with the adapter in the SD slot.
Following the instructions in the post linked above was a bit better. With the Nuvi plugged into a front-panel USB socket, I was able to insert the SanDisk 32GB microSD in the adapter into the 205W's SD slot. Windows recognised that there was a new drive. I was able to format it, but I had to change one of the settings, namely the Allocation unit size. I had this set to 4096 but changed it to Default allocation size, as per the troubleshooting instructions. Formatting completed, Windows recognised a 29.7GB capacity mostly empty drive. It contains a hidden System Volume Information folder and a file called id.txt. I can read that file. It contains a GUID: ad166e4b-af44-450f-8931-01ccfc7f13b5. That is not included in the GMA files list in the main device Garmin folder.
Restarting Express (without rebooting the PC because I am typing this), I can select the device. Map Details shows Germany 2024.10. Map Options, Change Map brings up the Select a Region page, saying the map update is too large and showing Germany and Turkey as the only regions that will fit.
MapInstall can see the device but shows that there is 154.3 MB free, (6 KB used). It will only allow me to select a few regions around the Midlands before running out of space. That is as before. I also tried MapSource with the same result.
There's no indication from either of them that an SD card is present or usable. So, if it is the SD card that is not being accepted by Express or MapInstall, what make and type should I use? The link that suggests buying one from Garmin doesn't work.
P.S. After trying MapSource, I thought why not try BaseCamp? I've not use it with this navigator. It started up, identified the 205W with the SD card and started reading gmapprom. However, it exited with Exception code: 0xc0000374 in ntdll.dll. That means heap corruption, so I will have to reboot now.
MapSource cannot read maps from a device as it's a much older program than BaseCamp. Can you confirm you've used Express to install the full map to your PC? Does that map appear in BaseCamp? If so, and if Windows recognises the card as you state, it should show in the lower left hand pane of BaseCamp under the device, which should also show in the left hand pane. You should be able to right click the sd card and select Install map ... select the area you want and install that to your sd card.
I reconnected the 205W to the PC after rebooting. Express was behaving the same way, so I started Basecamp. That exited with the same exception in NTDLL.DLL, but I'm not that easy to deter, so started it up again and it was able to read the memory on the Nuvi, including the SD card, which was nested under the 205W (top left for me, not bottom left).
I was then able to follow your instructions, right-click on the card and Install map. it fired up MapInstall and I was able to throw a marquee around the UK maps, trim around the edges and then Continue. It took a while but went perfectly. I now have some 350MB of map on the SD card and an enormous amount of spare space!
Express is behaving the same as before, even when Run as Administrator, so it's a waste of space on this device apart from software updartes. Basecamp on the other hand and MapInstall running from it seemed to do the trick.
Yes I do have experience with this.
1. You need to buy the SD Micro card with European maps.
2. You can buy those directly from Garmin at a higher price, or you can buy them on Amazon for much less (which is what I did). I see them at $60 on Amazon (vs $100 at Garmin) but maybe if you search you can find a deal at even less (I paid $30 two years ago on Amazon for brand new maps card for "City navigator Europe NT).
3. Once you receive the SD microcard you purchased online, to learn how to install them, Google: "how to install European maps on Garmin 2405 series". There will be a plethora of U-Tube video demonstrations on line. Just watch the video and follow the instructions. It's actually very easy.
I had one that came with Europe maps in it(Nuvi 370). It worked very well in France, it even let us know where the speed cameras were.
A note on adding maps to an existing gps unit, check the Garmin website(or call them) to make sure your model can take the added maps and that it has enough room on it. I have a Nuvi 265 that would have taken an SD card for Europe maps, I did one US map update on it now that card can't be removed or the unit is useless:(
Our last trip in Sept we ended up using our daughter's French phone's (iPhone) gps to get around. Wouldn't want to be without some sort of gps now. We would have had a tough time getting around the countryside without it and just the map.
I ended up buying a 2577T recently with US and Europe because my old 370 is lost and we won't always have access to our daughter's phone.
Although Europe seems to call for a premium price, you might also look around for a europe-only GPS with lifetime map updates. I have found that even Garmin GPS units have a limited lifespan - memory size issues, vibration in the car, battery deterioration - and you might want to have a newer unit just for that job. On the other side, if you don't plug it in except one month a year, the battery life may suffer anyway, due to complete discharge when in a drawer.
To be more specific, most Garmins I've had have eventually received map updates that were too big for the internal memory. And when I added an outboard memory card, speed of screen-painting and Recalculation suffered. I'm still a Garmin buyer, but you should go into this with your eyes open.
Or you could rent your car through AutoEurope. Right now they are offering free GPSs with rentals in western Europe. Then you don't have to worry about whether your GPS will work, etc. You would have to pay the round trip shipping costs of around $40.
If you buy a GPS rather than update yours (I've also heard of memory issues updating with Europe maps, but that may not affect you), I'd suggest a TomTom over Garmin. I've used both for more than a couple of years each. Right now I have a Garmin and am considering purchasing a TomTom (with both US and Europe maps) for the next trip.
Last trip the Garmin started me going north when I wanted to go south (which was probably me inputting the destination wrong, one letter can change everything) but also wanted me to go the wrong way down a one way street and refused to calculate another option (kept taking me back to the same one way street, yes it was freshly updated). At one point it navigated to the same street address twice but went to two completely different parts of town; as far as I could tell, neither was right.
I feel the TomTom navigates better, with more reliable arrival times than Garmin. I also like to check a route for tolls vs. no-tolls. In a Garmin, it's a system setting. You have to go into system tools to test a toll vs. no-toll route. TomTom asks if you want to avoid tolls for each route calculation. It's much easier to try both ways and decide whether paying a toll saves significant time or not.
Great instructions as always Ray
Is it possible to download entire continents such as North America etc or even just the USA in its entirety rather than having to select all the squares manually?
You can actually toggle the DEM map separately. So you could just add the OSM maps in there as you want (should have plenty of room for both), and then just got into the menus and toggle which layers you want, including (or not including) the DEM map.
The gmaptool.eu maps definitely do include DEM data. There are routable topo maps available for everywhere except Europe. I have used the Southern Africa, Southeast Africa, East Africa and Southwest USA maps both on fēnix 5X and in Basecamp. They are very high quality.
Hello and thanks,
Silly question maybe, what is the use of dowloading a free map on my Edge 820 which already has got one?
Are the ones you mention more precise? It looks you are saying no (in terms of rendering) so really I was wondering.
Thanks!
KRgds,
Ray,
Any idea if Garmin is planning on updating their integration with OSM in the web version of Connect? The current implementation is horrible. No contour lines, missing road names for secondary and fire roads, blocky trails. Just terrible. Looking at connect.garmin.com and openstreetmap.org side by side in a browser is night and day. The maps on the edge device actually look better than the maps in Connect!