How to read contents of Micro SD card in Sonoma

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How to read contents of Micro SD card in Sonoma

I have a micro SD card which I cannot access the information on. It is a 4 GB card (Toshiba) and should have at least 1 GB of data to be read, but shows only "0 items, 3.98 GB available. I cannot format and erase it as the data will then be gone. Is there a way to access the information on the card? I am using a 2021 M1 iMac with Sonoma installed. The card indicates it is MS-DOS FAT32.

Any guidance on how to retrieve the information would be much appreciated as it is the only copy I have.

Thank you.

Lynn

iMac 24″, macOS 14.1

Posted on Nov 29, 2023 10:02 PM

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Answer 1

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LynnQ Author

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Nov 30, 2023 4:45 AM in response to Servant of Cats

Hi there,

Tried it on a Windows computer, and copied the files to a USB stick. Can see there are two file folders when on the Windows system but the Mac doesn't see those, and it didn't before the copy was made. Couldn't find a way to duplicate the micro disk, only to copy it. So I think the micro disk has the data, only that the Mac can't "see" it.

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Answer 2

Nov 29, 2023 10:51 PM in response to LynnQ

"0 items, 3.98 GB available" suggests that it has already been erased somewhere – whether in your Mac, or in another device like a digital camera.

Is there another computer you could try reading this card on? And/or another card reader? If it is formatted in FAT32 format (and the data is still there and is not corrupted), any Mac or PC should be able to read it. If you find one that can, I would suggest immediately copying the data off the micro SD card.

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Answer 3

Nov 30, 2023 4:54 AM in response to LynnQ

That's odd. The Mac should be able to read and write volumes formatted using FAT32 or exFAT. Even if someone had formatted the volume using NTFS, the Mac should have been able to read it. (Out of the box, Macs can read, but not write, NTFS.)

Once you had the files on the USB flash drive, were you able to copy them from there to the Mac?

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Answer 4

LynnQ Author

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Nov 30, 2023 5:20 AM in response to Servant of Cats

Sad to say that I copied the USB stick to my Mac and it still doesn't see the data. I also now tried to duplicate the original Micro disk to my mac and it now tells me that there is "1 item" and when I open that item I see "System Volume Information", with two subfolders called "IndexerVolumeGuid" and "WPSettings.dat". I clicked on the "System..." folder when then opened the Indexer sub item and it gives me what I assume is a DOS text file (opened using Terminal). Then I clicked on the WPSettings item and it tells me there is no application set to open the document "WPSettings.dat". Then I tried to Choose Application, and I don't see anything that fits even with Enable All applications selected. The choices are for Microsoft products like Word which I currently don't use anyway, I just haven't removed the software (paid subscription) from my system. When I choose to Search App Store it indicates the "app is not available".

Any suggestions, please? I would appreciate it.

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Answer 5

Nov 30, 2023 6:29 AM in response to LynnQ

A .DAT file could be anything – .DAT is a generic extension that lots of developers use, for many different formats. But the name WPSettings.dat suggests that the file only contains preferences, not a document.

IndexerVolumeGuid might be something written by Microsoft Windows to assign a unique ID to each volume/drive. As for WPSettings.dat, someone on the Microsoft Forum seemed to think that holds Windows Phone settings that the Windows StorSvc service wants to save.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/indexervolumeguid-what-the-heck-is-it/be20e18a-842d-4a9f-b21b-b9ba180c39c7

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/all/whats-wpsettingsdat-generated-by/e11bca97-8c76-4662-8897-774ea3d5691a

Are you sure there wasn't anything else on the microSD card or on the USB flash drive? Anything that might look like the documents you believed were on there?

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Answer 6

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Nov 30, 2023 7:38 AM in response to LynnQ

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/all/whats-wpsettingsdat-generated-by/e11bca97-8c76-4662-8897-774ea3d5691a#:~:text=dat%20means%20the%20data%20files,storage%20features%20of%20Windows%20Store%2C

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Answer 7

LynnQ Author

Level 1

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Nov 30, 2023 10:45 AM in response to LynnQ

Thank you for the responses. I do recall that when I received this information previously (in 2020) it was on a DVD and I believe I burned the DVD to a new image file so that I could access it without using the original DVD.

I found this:

and

and I followed the instructions and now have a new .dmg image file. Problem is I cannot now find a way to open that new file. The size of data on there is 10.4 MB.

This is reference information which I purchase ever 3 or 4 years and the only difference is that the 2020 version was on a DVD (my old iMac had a CD/DVD drive which I still have in case of an emergency) and this newer one is on a Micro SD and I now use an M1 iMac (Sonoma).

Is there a way I can now use the new .dmg file? What needs to be done?

Thanks again.

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Answer 8

Nov 30, 2023 11:20 AM in response to LynnQ

I wonder what would happen if you tried to open a .DMG file with a HFS (no "+") filesystem inside, on Catalina or later. (Catalina dropped all support for the original HFS.)

Would you get a message saying the filesystem was unsupported?

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Answer 9

LynnQ Author

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Nov 30, 2023 1:13 PM in response to Servant of Cats

Can you please advise how I would do this?

By the way I have a 12-year old iMac with High Sierra (latest) on it and then I have this new iMac M1 with Sonoma, nothing in between.

Is it worth trying on my old iMac which I will have to dig out. What's the best way to accomplish this?

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Answer 10

Nov 30, 2023 1:23 PM in response to LynnQ

If you feel like digging out the old Mac,

Copy the .DMG file to a USB flash drive.
Try opening it on the old Mac.
If there's anything useful inside of the mounted volume, use Disk Utility on the old Mac to create another .DMG. Format this one using Mac OS X Extended (journaled, non-case-sensitive) – a.k.a., HFS+. Open it and copy in all of the files from the first volume. Then close both and copy the new .DMG file to the flash drive.

Might work, might not – but if it doesn't, you'll have ruled out that possible cause of the problem.

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Answer 11

LynnQ Author

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Nov 30, 2023 2:52 PM in response to Servant of Cats

Thanks for the suggestion; however, no change. I get the same results as what I had using the new iMac. I can see that the "System Volume Information", with two subfolders called "IndexerVolumeGuid" and "WPSettings.dat".

Not sure what to do. The original micro disk was created using a Windows system. That has always been the way but it's never been an issue until this micro disk arrived as previously was on a CD and then on a DVD. Have tried to access the contents of the MicroDisk on a Windows computer (owned by someone else here) and still having issues.

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