Updated micro SD card

KnittinKityn · June 18th, 2011, 09:46 PM

I followed the instructions from Pandigital's website on how to change the internal micro SD card. The WPDN seems to be working okay with only one exception. I put an 8GB card in and the Settings function is telling me it has 3.8GB available space.

Other than loading Overdrive lending library on the WPDN (which was on the original micro SD) there is nothing on it beyond what was direct from Pandigital. So what happened to the other 4GB on the micro SD card?

KnittinKityn · June 22nd, 2011, 12:57 AM

I finally fumbled my way through solving the PC half of this one. I'm not sure the techie terms involved or all of the explanations behind how this works but I can at least post how I was able to fix it. At least if I royally goof something up I can come back here and retrace my steps.

First there were two problems to address, hardware and software. Hardware was a combination of the SDHC card had unallocated space and the card reader on my desktop did not support SDHC. The software part was much more complicated as there wasn't a one-size-fits-all solution to the problem. I had to download updates and another software program to get this part fixed.

So here's how I did it:
1) Buy a USB card reader that is SDHC compatible.
2) Update the card reader firmware for the desktop computer. For mine I did not have any success with Microsoft (some people did) while I had to go back to HP for the file. In case anyone else has a HP, do a search for file sp38607.
3) Try to format the drive through Windows Explorer and see it's only recognizing 3.7GB. Open Disk Manager and see there is unallocated space and Disk Manager doesn't fix this. Go oh S#*!.
4) Find Fat32Formatter and allocate the other half of the card. (Something about XP can't handle the larger formats???)
5) Discover Fat32 Formatter allocated the card but not formatted.
6) On a hunch, go back to Windows Explorer and try to format again. It recognizes the card is 8GB (YAY!!). Format as Fat32.
7) Transfer files and install micro SDHC card in the PDN.

Now to figure out why the PDN still isn't recognizing the full 8GB on the micro SDHC card. Grrr.

Edited to add: From what I'm finding is the larger cards automatically lose half the volume. Not sure why but it would have been nice to know this before I bought the 8GB card.

morganqtaylor · September 13th, 2011, 11:57 PM

I thought my pandigital planet was broken when I couldn't get the sd card to mount. I called pandigital only to get a recording, and then I emailed someone at pandigital who told me to first format it. Then I said I had already formatted it, and it still didn't work. The Pandigital rep didn't know what to say next.

So, I go to the Geek Squad at Best Buy, and in five minutes after looking at the sd card I had in it, which was a 4 GB, he tells me it probably would need a 2 GB.

So, I buy a 2 GB sandisk micro chip, and turned the tablet on. Immediatly, my 2 GB card mounted and it worked. I'm so happy about this.

I cannot believe I called all these people who should have known what the problem was, and still couldn't help. I swear, it seemed like these Pandigital employees wanted me to just throw out the tablet [feigning it was broken], just so I'd buy a new and more expensive one.

Nowhere on these forums does it say that a 4 GB won't work in a Pandigital Planet and this is why the sd won't mount.

So everyone: If you have a 4 GB in an Android tablet,it's possible you too should change it to a 2 GB. Try it and see if it works.

2GB sandisks for tablets can be bought at any Best Buy. Get the 'PNY; Make It Simple' brand. It's about 12.00 and comes with the regular size micro also,so you can insert the tiny into it if you need to connect it to your pc.

I'm new at Android and these tablets,b ut not even the user guide directly explained that I would need a 2 GB sd card, and not a 4GB.

KnittinKityn · September 29th, 2011, 12:05 PM

I'd like an answer to this too. The specs on the Pandigital website claims the SDHC cards are supported but I can't get it to work on my PDN either.

remarquee · October 6th, 2011, 06:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by morganqtaylor

I thought my pandigital planet was broken when I couldn't get the sd card to mount. I called pandigital only to get a recording, and then I emailed someone at pandigital who told me to first format it. Then I said I had already formatted it, and it still didn't work. The Pandigital rep didn't know what to say next.

So, I go to the Geek Squad at Best Buy, and in five minutes after looking at the sd card I had in it, which was a 4 GB, he tells me it probably would need a 2 GB.

So, I buy a 2 GB sandisk micro chip, and turned the tablet on. Immediatly, my 2 GB card mounted and it worked. I'm so happy about this.

I cannot believe I called all these people who should have known what the problem was, and still couldn't help. I swear, it seemed like these Pandigital employees wanted me to just throw out the tablet [feigning it was broken], just so I'd buy a new and more expensive one.

Nowhere on these forums does it say that a 4 GB won't work in a Pandigital Planet and this is why the sd won't mount.

So everyone: If you have a 4 GB in an Android tablet,it's possible you too should change it to a 2 GB. Try it and see if it works.

2GB sandisks for tablets can be bought at any Best Buy. Get the 'PNY; Make It Simple' brand. It's about 12.00 and comes with the regular size micro also,so you can insert the tiny into it if you need to connect it to your pc.

I'm new at Android and these tablets,b ut not even the user guide directly explained that I would need a 2 GB sd card, and not a 4GB.

NOTE. I am using a 4 gb in my Pandigital Novel and it works fine

remarquee · October 6th, 2011, 06:54 AM

You have been wrongly advised. I am now using a 4 gb in my Pandigital Novel and it works great. I do intend to upgrade the basic 1 gb mini sd card to a 4 gb also.

nickconforti · October 10th, 2011, 10:24 AM

I upgraded my 2gb to a 16gb. It only reads 8gb. Disappointing, but not the end of the world.

I may try the above method to see if I can get the other 8 gigs.

clockmac297 · November 1st, 2011, 12:29 PM

I bought my Pandigital Planet yesterday and I was also thinking I had a problem since it would not mount my 4 gig microSD. They say misery likes company so I felt better when I saw the post that another person was seeing the same issue. Stopped at Staples this AM and picked up a 16 gig SD card and low and behold it was recognized in seconds. I have not had much time to delve into what is going on but it seems the Planet does not like 4 gig SD cards. From what I see I have a bit more than 14 gigs available.

carlechols · December 18th, 2011, 07:01 PM

I bought a new Planet from Kohl's and a 16GB PNY SD microcard from Best Buy. My problem is slightly different. When I boot up the unit recognizes that card and I was able to load lots of books using Aldiko ereader load from SD Import feature plus various apk's. Everything fine so far. But after a while I noticed that the SD card had dismounted. The only way I've found to get it started back is to reboot. This has become a constant nuisance now. Reading an ebook and suddenly it's just gone.

fonejac · February 10th, 2012, 12:18 PM

Try using a higher Class micro sd card. most are Class 4 (slower speed) I have a 16 Gb Class 10 (faster speed) in my PDP running build PR72_ 12192011 FW and it works great. Device shows 14.3 gigs available with several apks and jpegs on the card. Give your device time to completely load and mount the SD card before opening an apk... this generally makes things run smoother. Watch the top line of your screen to view the progress.

areilly111 · August 22nd, 2012, 11:45 PM

I was wondering why my 8 gb showed as a 3.8 gb when i found out that the pdn uses the full 8gb but it cuts in in half for apps. if you want to see both partitions just plug into a linux os like ubuntu and it should show both. hope this helped