El Capitian broke SD card, how to fix?

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Level 4

3,613 points

El Capitian broke SD card, how to fix?

I have an old camera that has been sitting around unused for years that only accepts the original 1GB max SD card format. I recently dusted it off, bought a 'new' 512MB SD card, took a couple pictures, and then popped the SD card into the side of my iMac to transfer the pictures into Photos. Thats when the trouble started.

Afterwards my mac can still see the original pictures but reported -13MB disk space used while the camera is now rejecting the card as unsupported. I tried running first aid in Disk Utility but the formerly working card is still rejected by the camera as unsupported.

Has anyone else had this issues and know how to both restore the card to factory default and prevent whatever it was that OSX automatically did from happening again?

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)

Posted on Oct 16, 2016 11:28 AM

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Answer 1

chris_g1

Community Specialist

Oct 17, 2016 10:12 AM in response to padams35

Hello padams35,

Thanks for that info and choosing the Apple Support Communities. I know how important being able to use this SD card with your Mac is to you! Based on what you stated, it seems you may be experiencing issues with the SD card after being used in a camera and then inserting the card into your Mac. I would check with the manufacturer of the camera if the camera you have needs a certain format of the SD card to work in the camera again. Here is more about using SD cards with your Mac:

OS X El Capitan: Use an SD or SDXC card
About the SD and SDXC card slot

Cheers!

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Answer 2

Oct 17, 2016 3:35 PM in response to padams35

Try reformatting the card in camera.

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Answer 3

padams35 Author

Level 4

3,613 points

Oct 17, 2016 2:48 PM in response to leroydouglas

I can't reformat the card in the camera. The camera (an HP Photosmart M415 if that makes any difference) gives the same error message with the SD card as when I insert an SDHC card, "Unsupported Card."

I'll next see if I can reformatting on El Capitian, and if that doesn't work try reformatting via Snow Leopard, and if that doesn't work blame the SD card manufacturer but I'm still hoping someone else had already experienced the same issue and knew of a software resolution.

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Answer 4

Oct 17, 2016 2:55 PM in response to padams35

padams35 wrote:

I can't reformat the card in the camera. The camera (an HP Photosmart M415 if that makes any difference) gives the same error message with the SD card as when I insert an SDHC card, "Unsupported Card."

Sounds like the card has failed.

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Answer 5

padams35 Author

Level 4

3,613 points

Oct 17, 2016 3:02 PM in response to leroydouglas

No, the problem is the card now acts like a 500MB SDHC card. Everything I've tried that support the newer card formats recognizes the card. By all appearances my El Capitian iMac did something to 'upgrade' the card to a newer format incompatible with my camera.

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Answer 6

Oct 17, 2016 3:06 PM in response to padams35

padams35 wrote:

500MB SDHC card.

?

Isn't that an oxymoron

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Answer 7

padams35 Author

Level 4

3,613 points

Oct 17, 2016 3:33 PM in response to leroydouglas

Ok... inserting the card into my Nintendo Wii and saving a game somehow did something that let my camera see the SD card again. 😕 (I was hoping the game system would have a reformat option but hey, whatever works)

Anyway no success at reproducing the issue. Subsequent picture imports, ejections, reinsertion, save game deletions, etc still end with a usable SD card. My new theory was that this was just a bad sector or a fluke of an improper ejection and not an El Capitan issue after all.

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