Resolved Can't fill up a SD card

I got a weird problem.

I'm trying to "fill up" a 1 GB SD card with MP3s. For whatever reason the most I can put on this card is 508 MB.

Afterwards it says" Error copying... Cannot copy... The directory or file cannot be created ". Yet I still have 455 MB of free space left.

Seems like I had this problem with a Sandisk USB drive. It had that U3 or whatever on it and when I reformated the drive it solved the problem.

I tried doing a full FAT32 format on this SD card but still 508 MB of data is all it will hold.

So I reformatted the SD card in NTFS mode and now I was able to get 868 MB of MP3s on it and 100 MB left to go.

The only reason this matters is I don't think my car stereo can read an SD card formated in NFTS mode. I'll know tommorrow.

Any ideas why all I can get on this card in FAT32 is 508MB?

 

Hi jseabolt, see this link:http://www.ehow.com/facts_5006144_songs-fit-gb-sd-card.html
Does this help in your volume entry. The average songs @4mB = 256 on 1GB SD card.
You may have a faulty SD card? Neil.

 

Well I read the link but that really didn't tell me anything I already didn't know. I know how large these MP3s are and the total size of the SD card I'm putting them on.

So 1MB of MP3s it should fit on a 1MB SD card right? Well close to it. I know there is some space allocated for something else so it's actually like 98%.

I just don't understand why I can only fill up half of the SD card yet under properties it says I have more free space to go.

I can fill up a USB thumbdrive formatted in FAT32 but not this particular SD card formatted in FAT32. Unless USB and SD cards handle data differently in FAT32 format.

But once I formated it in NTFS, I can get over 800MB of data on it. I haven't tried totally filling it up yet.

 

Well yeah I can by a new card but I don't think there is really anything wrong with this particular SD card. I think it has something to do with the way it's formated.

So why would formating it in NTFS "fix" it then?

I have confirmed that my car stereo won't read SD cards formatted in NTFS so I'll have to go back and reformat it in FAT mode and see if it will now hold more than half it's capacity.

 

I got an opinion from a guy I work with who may have the solution.

I believe I purchased this SD card about 10 years ago for a digital camera. I'm guessing the camera formats the card is FAT format.

He says FAT was around during DOS and Windows 3.11. FAT16 was used for Windows 95, FAT32 for Windows 98 and NTFS came along either with Windows 2000 or XP.

He says anything formated in FAT won't support more than around 500 MB. Supposeably that's why I could store over 800 MB of data when formated in NFTS but not FAT.

So I'll try formatting it in FAT32 and see if what happens.

 

Your right. I formatted the card in FAT32 and now I managed to get over 800MB of MP3s on the card. The problem all along as it being formated in FAT.

OK now how to I resolve this post now?