SDHC Card not writable?

Question

SDHC Card not writable?

Hello,
I need help.
I have the older IMAC with leopard without the cardslot, but I have an USB cardreader.

Now i bought a scandisk 8GB SDHC card and whenever i plug it in it appears with NO NAME but i can not transfer things to it. when i get the info it says it can not be modified and it is ONLY READ. i unlocked it but nothing changed.

Can anybody help me with that? Does my old imac does not read it?

thanks any help appreciated!

imac, Mac OS X (10.5.8), Leopard

Posted on Feb 2, 2011 12:29 PM

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Answer 1

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,510 points

Feb 2, 2011 12:45 PM in response to celticspirit08

If the computer can see it then it probably only needs to be formatted. Use Disk Utility to format it.

Roger

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Answer 2

babowa

Level 9

78,574 points

Feb 2, 2011 12:59 PM in response to celticspirit08

As long as the card is not being used in a camera, then follow Roger's suggestions; if this is your camera's card however, you should not use Disk Utility, but format it in the camera itself - otherwise the camera may not be able to read it.

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Answer 3

Feb 4, 2011 3:05 AM in response to celticspirit08

Thanks for your replies.

I tried it with disk utility. I had googled it how to do it with partition 1 and giving it a name etc but always the error message came this card can not partitioned as it is only readable.

Or is there another trick to do it with disk utility??

thanks again guys...

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Answer 4

Feb 4, 2011 3:06 AM in response to celticspirit08

ach i forgot, no it is not a camera card - i bought it for the mac and it is a sdhc card from scandisk...

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Answer 5

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,510 points

Feb 4, 2011 6:36 AM in response to celticspirit08

Don't partition it. Put the card in the drive, start Disk Utility. Then in Disk Utility highlight the card on the left, click the Erase tab and ensure the format is set to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) then click Erase.

Also when replying to a post here please click reply in the post you are replying to, the last 2 posts you made you are replying to yourself. That way we know who you are directing your communication to.

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Answer 6

Feb 4, 2011 11:10 AM in response to rkaufmann87

hi there,

sorry not so familiar with the posting;-)

well i tried the erase thing as well in the disk utility but whenever i go into erase all the fields get inactive and i can not do anything. neither when i click on NONAME or the disk space or 7.8 GB something like that. seems nothing is active with this card......

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Answer 7

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,510 points

Feb 4, 2011 11:17 AM in response to celticspirit08

Check the side of the card and see if the lock is in the locked position. If so move it to unlocked and try again.

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Answer 8

Feb 4, 2011 11:18 AM in response to rkaufmann87

of course that was the first thing i checked. i unlocked it and still nothing......

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Answer 9

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,510 points

Feb 4, 2011 11:20 AM in response to celticspirit08

OK, I'm not sure what's going on. I'd recommend replacing it with another. Is it possible your reader isn't compatible with SDHC?

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Answer 10

Feb 4, 2011 11:21 AM in response to rkaufmann87

i am at my end now as well...my friend used it on his PC, no prob and he has the same card he borrowed it to me before and it worked fine....maybe its the card?
drives me mad since a week....all is inactive and always says: permission read only....

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Answer 11

babowa

Level 9

78,574 points

Feb 4, 2011 1:40 PM in response to celticspirit08

I'm going to jump in here and guess that the card is formatted in some Windows format - I got the impression from your comments: friend's PC and read only. However, not being familiar with Windows formats, I don't know how to fix that. Hopefully Roger or someone else will know.

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Answer 12

Feb 5, 2011 10:18 AM in response to babowa

well i went back to harvey normans where i bought my card and they tried everything.....well in the end it was mysteriously my card reader and now with a new one it works good....
thanks for all the support!!

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Answer 13

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,510 points

Feb 5, 2011 10:29 AM in response to celticspirit08

There you go, I had a vague idea thats what it was.

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Answer 14

Oct 29, 2011 3:12 PM in response to celticspirit08

I had this problem too. A brand new 8Gb SDHC card. I tried it in the MacBook card reader (which is a bit finicky; need to jiggle it in there just to get it to mount), and I also tried a USB adapter. Neither would mount it as writable. I tried the card lock in both positions with no success.

I wrapped a piece of scotch tape around the card and now it works fine.

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Answer 15

allensis

Level 1

0 points

Jan 23, 2012 7:00 PM in response to celticspirit08

I had this same problem with a 16GB SDHC PNY card from Best Buy.

The Mac SD slot would not let me change anything, I put the card into a USB SD reader and Disk Utility immediately recognized it and allowed me to format and partition the SD card as I needed to.

Not sure what the scotch tape accomplishes, unless certain cards just don't 'fit' the mac SD slot very well.

Funny, after the above operation I then put it in the SD slot and it was not immediately mounted. I had to reinsert and 'jiggle' the card a couple of times.

My guess, some of the less expensive cards (read: cheap) need the scotch tape or a good 'jiggle' to get Disk Utility to recognize them properly.

Hope this helps others.

joe - oregon

MacBook Pro - 15' Unibody / 2.66 ghz core 2 / Mac OSX - 10.6.8 / 4GB

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