SD Slot will not recognize Kingston 32GB Class 6 SDHC Card

Question

Level 1

4 points

SD Slot will not recognize Kingston 32GB Class 6 SDHC Card

Hello,

I'm hoping someone here can help. I also e-mailed Kingston for help.

I just received a 32GB Kingston SDHC Class 6 card for use in my Canon Digital SLR.

The card was recognized by my Canon T1i camera, but needed to be formatted. The camera would not format the card, and instructed me to switch to another card. I tried inserting the card in my MacBook Pro SD Slot, and the card was not recognized at all. Finally, I tried the card in an external card reader attached to my iMac via USB. This finally worked. I was able to see the card, and formatted it for FAT32 using Disk Utility.

I took the card and put it back in my T1i. I shot a few pictures and a little HD video to test the card. It worked fine. I then tried to put the card back into the SD Slot on my MacBook Pro to check the pictures and footage I shot. Again, the MacBook Pro would not recognize it at all.

I tried restarting the MacBook Pro multiple times, both with the card inserted and not inserted. Nothing worked. My MacBook Pro will NOT recognize the card at all.

I have an 8GB Sandisk Extreme III SDHC card, and the MacBook Pro recognizes this card without issue.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? Has anyone else seen a problem like this with Kingston SDHC cards? I figured Kingston was a pretty safe, well-respected brand, but I am not happy that it is not working consistently in all my devices. The SD Slot on my MacBook Pro has proved very convenient, and I was hoping to be able to continue to use it with this card.

Thanks to anyone who can offer any help! I will let you know if Kingston offers any advice.

- Brian

13.3" MacBook Pro A1278, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Feb 27, 2010 1:27 PM

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Answer 1

F Shippey

Level 7

21,500 points

Feb 27, 2010 1:50 PM in response to Back2Mac

Here is what Apple has to say about the SD card slot: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3553

I have found over the years that as cards have gotten higher capacities and higher speeds, they no longer work in older readers.

I find it interesting that your Canon camera can't format the card. I guess I wouldn't want to use a card in a camera that can't format it.

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Answer 2

Back2Mac Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 27, 2010 3:23 PM in response to F Shippey

Hello,

Thank you for the response!

I did read that article, and I don't see anything that leads me to believe I should be having ANY problems. My MacBook Pro is the latest model released, and according to Apple is fully capable of reading the latest, highest capacity SDHC cards, including the 32GB Kensington.

The external reader attached to my iMac that DID work was older than my MacBook, the iMac itself is older than my MacBook, and the reader itself only cost a few bucks. The internal reader on my expensive Mac should be able to read it. It's just weird.

I should note that the Canon T1i did eventually work just fine. Once the card had been formatted first using Disk Utility on my iMac and the external reader, the Canon recognized it, wrote pictures and video to it, and would format it.

I don't know what the deal is. It seems to me that if everyone is working from the same SDHC standards, the card should work the same in all compatible equipment.

Thanks again for your response. I look forward to others!

- Brian

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Answer 3

Feb 27, 2010 3:45 PM in response to Back2Mac

Your experience is the confirmed reason I have not purchased a SDHC card for my i7. Apple only says the lower GB cards work but others, including the 32 and 64 GB cards, absolutely, as you found, do not. Idea trashed.

zoz

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Answer 4

Back2Mac Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 28, 2010 7:04 AM in response to Randy Pozzi

Hello Randy,

Thank you for the response!

Where did you hear from Apple that only the smaller sized SD cards work? Apple's "official" stance is that SDHC cards of up to 32GB WILL work. Now, I'm obviously not seeing that to be true, but that's what they claim. Did an Apple employee tell you that they won't? It would not surprise me to learn that the "official" word and the word from real world employees would differ.

Asm for 64GB cards, they do not exist under the current SDHC standard. 32GB is the upper limit for SDHC. 64GB cards are available under the brand new SDXC standard, which is just now coming to market. I know for a fact that Apple's SD slot is not designed to handle the new SDXC cards. My 32GB SDHC card however SHOULD work.

I still have not received any response from Kensington, but hope someone can give me an answer. I'll let you know if I learn anything.

Thanks again!

- Brian

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Answer 5

Mar 30, 2010 8:58 AM in response to Back2Mac

Good Morning! It's been about a month, and I was curious if you had received any word from either Kingston or Apple?

Cheers!

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Answer 6

Apr 6, 2010 2:15 PM in response to Back2Mac

Hello
For what it is worth , I took a 32g SDHC transcend card from a panasonic camcorder and loaded the data into an intel mac via on it's board sd slot without any problem , and after a little editing with transitions and titles, exported the data back out to the SDHC card , and thereafter loaded the same card into another intel mac and all the edited data ( in imovie ) imported again without any problem

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Answer 7

fehhkk

Level 1

9 points

Apr 6, 2010 4:00 PM in response to Back2Mac

I have a Sandisk 32GB Class 4, and it works perfectly on my MBP mid 2009

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Answer 8

Apr 7, 2010 6:33 PM in response to fehhkk

Bizarre. I have the same card, a class 4 32 GB that mounts on my 2009 Macbook Pro (the current model) but only as read only. Really a drag since I want to use this card for all kinds of stuff.

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Answer 9

Rod Hagen

Level 7

32,000 points

Apr 7, 2010 6:56 PM in response to Peter Payne

How do you have the card formatted, Peter? FAT, HFSextended or NTFS?

If it is NTFS then you will need to reformat to either FAt or (ideally) HFSextended. to be able to write to it without the addition of third party software.

Cheers

Rod

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Answer 10

Apr 7, 2010 9:33 PM in response to Rod Hagen

The camera formats it as FAT, and then the card mounts as read only when put in the Macbook Pro. I tried slow formatting as FAT in a Windows box but no joy, still trying stuff. How does one format HFSextended? Let me say that that is a really awesome format name for the three letter word it has in it.

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Answer 11

Rod Hagen

Level 7

32,000 points

Apr 7, 2010 10:04 PM in response to Peter Payne

If you are using it in a camera , then you should only format it in that, Peter. Quite a few cameras develop a distaste for cards formatted externally, and few , if any are likely to work if it is HFS formatted.

I suggested HFS formatted because I was getting the impression you were wanting to use it for other purposes. By and large it is a good idea to keep cards used in cameras for that purpose alone, and only bung them in the computer slot to transfer FROM the camera to the computer (though erasing images without reformatting while in the computer is usually harmless enough) .

But normally a "FAT" formatted card, as long as the camera maker hasn't fiddled with the format, should be writeable in a Mac (it is NTFS which isn't.)

If it is appearing as "read only" on the Mac, but is FAT formatted, then check the little switch on the side of the card. Sometimes they get a bit dislodged to an intermediate position between the "writable" and "locked" positions.

(I should have added, if you do want to format a card in a Mac you simply use Disk Utility - in your utilities folder - which will allow you to choose partitioning and formatting schemes for cards as well as memory sticks and hard drives.)

Cheers

Rod

Message was edited by: Rod Hagen

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Answer 12

R J Kerr

Level 1

41 points

Apr 23, 2010 4:20 AM in response to Rod Hagen

I just bought the same card, Kingston 32GB Class 6. I formatted it in the camcorder (Panasonic HDC-TM700). I have a few Macs, G5 Tiger, iMac Snow Leopard, Macbook Pro Leopard. I also have a fairly new Sony laptop running Windows 7. They all behave in the same way i.e. plug the camcorder into their USB slots and you can see the SDHC card and the on-board camera memory as two different volumes. Remove the card and put it in a (SDHC compatible) SD card reader and they all say they can't recognize the volume that's just been inserted and ask if I want to initialize it.

There was nothing of any importance of the card so I thought I'd let one of the Macs initialize the card so went to Disk Utility. The card was showing up as a 2TB volume (I know it's amazing how much they hold but come on). Anyway I hit erase but the process failed. Put the card back in the camcorder and the bit of test footage is still there and can be read when the camcorder is plugged into the Mac or PC.

Baffled.

Bob,

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Answer 13

R J Kerr

Level 1

41 points

Apr 23, 2010 9:10 AM in response to R J Kerr

Forgot to say that the Mac sees the SD Card and internal memory correctly, i.e. both as 32GB, when the camcorder is plugged into the USB port. They are read only, as you might expect.

Bob.

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Answer 14

R J Kerr

Level 1

41 points

May 21, 2010 9:19 AM in response to R J Kerr

Epilogue.

Came to use the card in earnest on the camcorder and it failed after 2 minutes recording. Reformatted etc. but still failed every time. Sent it back, got a refund and bought 2 x 16GB SDHC Class 6 cards instead. These behave exactly as expected.

Bob.

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