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Unable to access Element14 SD card on PC

Former Member

I recently bought a Raspberry Pi (Element14) and a 4GB SD card [LINK], also from Element14, which came with Debian 6 preinstalled. The card works fine with the Raspberry Pi, it boots Debian without a hitch.

 

However, I am unable to access the card on my PC. I have tried two different card readers (Hama 19in1 and a built-in reader on my Dell 2407WFP-HC).

 

Windows 7 does not acknowledge the card at all. I have tried using Windows 7 Disk Management and the Raspbmc installer. Both programs hang until I remove the SD card from either reader. Windows is also unable to shut down until I remove the SD card.

 

I have also tried using a Ubuntu (12.10) Live USB to access the card (same card readers though) without luck. Fdisk is not able to detect a device (or partitions) either.

 

Finally, when I inserted the SD card into the camera it displayed an error message saying “Error reading card” and “Card locked” even though the lock switch on the card is in the open position.

 

Has anyone experienced a similar situation? I would like to use this SD card to install Raspbmc. Thanks

  • Debian uses the EXT3 file system which windows and your camera won't be able to read and may not even see.

     

    I'd be willing to bet that the card is locked weather the slider is in the right position or not.

     

    What are you wanting to do with the card? Why do you feel the need to read it as a regular SD card?

  • in reply to Former Member

    Hey Michael, thank you for the reply.

     

    Whilst Windows may be unable to read the EXT3 filesystem on the card I believe it should still see the card in Disk Management (a tool used for partitioning drives, presumably regardless of their existing filesystem). Furthermore, I was unable to access the card using Ubuntu (running live from a USB stick), suggesting EXT3 may not be the problem.

     

    I want to install Raspbmc on the card so my Raspberry Pi can run it, instead of the Debian currently installed on the card. I realise there may be multiple ways of running XMBC / Raspbmc on the Raspberry Pi but I want to keep things as simple as possible by running it straight from the SD.

     

    I would have thought the SD card was simply not working if not for the fact that the Raspberry Pi runs the currently installed Debian from it without problems.

  • As it turns it, the problem lay with the two card readers. The card from Element14 is in fact a SDHC card (and not simply SD). While this may be assumed from the size of the card (4GB), the card itself is not labelled as SDHC. My two card readers were capable of reading SD cards, not SDHC. I solved the problem by using a different computer with a built-in SDHC reader.