How to use SD Cards for Garmin

bill.mccart

GPS: Garmin Nuvi 260

How to use SD Cards for Garmin

I am confused about how to use SD cards. I have limited space on the GPS and want to load alternative voices, cars, POI's etc to the SD card. But there either is not an option (eg for Extra POI's) or the GPS simply does not read the card - voices, cars etc.

Can they be used as expanded memory or are they just for transfer of data?
Thanks

Bill

span2307

GPS: Garmin Nuvi 310

The SD cards are used as expanded memory, however when your gps is connected to you PC they will appear as a separate drive, not as an addition to the GPS memory.

The GPS will quite happily work with a SD card permanently inserted into the slot.

steve.weatherill

GPS: Nuvi 760

SD Card

They can also be used for storing map files. This means that different POI catalogues, maps etc can be stored on different SD cards and interchanged as required.

A WARNing - the GPS will ask you on start up whether or not you want to store your SD card contents on the main unit.
Unless you want to fill your main unit to capacity select NO !!!

curts08gmc

GPS: Garmin Nuvi 750

SD Card Reader/Writer

All you have to do is tell it where to write the files. My 750 is drive K and my SD card is drive L. When you load new ones to the SD Card, the GPS will ask you if you want to move the file(s) to the Garmin. The advice above about saying 'NO' is appropriate, but I think the best way is to say yes, then it will bring up another screen and you can checkmark the entry 'Don't ask me again' and skip the rest. You will not be bothered again until you do a complete new update.

You might want to make it a little easier on yourself by purchasing a USB SD Card Reader/Writer from the camera department in WalMart or the like. Plug it into your USB port on the computer, load your file(s) to the SD Card, and simply plug it into the GPS when you are through. In fact, you can create several different loads this way and use the one you want, when you want. You must pay attention to the remarks above.

I have one 8GB SD card and one 16GB card. Don't think I will run out of space no time soon.

HTH Curt

schmidklaus

GPS: Garmin Nuvi 5000 & Nuvi 1350T

Re: SD Cards

bill.mccart wrote:

These comments in addition to the other posts on this topic:
Regarding POIs, you should use POI loader and then you can specify whether to load to the Garmin's internal "drive" or to the SD card "drive" - you'll need to find out your drive letters in "My computer" with the GPS connected via USB cable. The SD card can have the POIs, JPEGs, music files and additional maps on it.
I found that extra voices and/or extra vehicles have to be on the internal "drive", otherwise they are not available. They are in the \voice and \vehicle folders. Vehicles don't take up much space. On a late-model Garmin with multiple languages, you can delete languages you do not use to free up space.

hatchm

GPS: Garmin Nuvi 3790T

SD Cards

They really are very useful. They can give you additional mapping capacity and great deal of space for useful POIs. My reading suggests that most new Nuvi will take up to 16 gb cards. That is a lot of capacity when most Nuvi have only a few megabytes of free space.

johmazz2006

GPS: Garmin Nuvi 765, Garmin 3950LMT, Garmin 2455LMT, Navman40, Garmin StreetPilot 3

Re: Garmin 665

gdarby wrote:

I bought and inserted a new 16GB HC card and it is causing my 665 to turn off. When I remove the card it works fine. Has anyone else had that issue?

Have read somewhere in the forums, that the Garmin doesn't like any card above 8 gig.
I would suggest messaging Garmin direct and get the correct answer there. Wink

16gb sdhc card

Guest

Re: Garmin 665

As mentioned above, most new Nuvis should take 16gb SDHC cards. Try formatting it into FAT32 format and then insert it. (Play with regular FAT format if FAT32 does not work). Make sure that you have the latest firmware. I know that older firmwares only supported SD (and not SDHC) cards or cards <=8GB.

gdarby wrote:

I bought and inserted a new 16GB HC card and it is causing my 665 to turn off. When I remove the card it works fine. Has anyone else had that issue?

pool100

Guest

Micro SD cards

I have just bought a micro SD card for the Nuvi 1460 and it works like a charm. Just create a 'map' folder and dump all the .img map files into it. Must be unlocked maps. It's that easy.

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