Hey Tacit (or any other photogs!)

[beacher]

I just got a "new" (for me) Sony A100 DSLR, and I've taken some shots, but when I put the CF card (8 gig) in my card reader, neither my Mac nor my PC would "see" the card reader.  When I put in a 2 gig card from my old Fuji S602, the Mac saw it and mounted iPhoto, immediately.  Is there some sort of size limit on the old card readers?  This one must be about 6 or 7 years old.  Oh yeah, and there is one other difference in the cards beside size; the 8 gig card is a high speed read/write, and the old one isn't.  Any comments/advice would be much appreciated!

[Xairbusdriver]

Is the 8GB card one that came with the camera?
Or was it purchased separately?
Are you positive that it is capturing images?
Are they both Type I?
Can the card reader accept Type II cards?

[beacher]

In order of the questions:

No
Yes
Yes
Ummmmmm. . . Not sure about this one.  Both are name brands, but the 2 gig is a 60X and the 8 gig is an "ultra fast 133 X"
Last, but not least. . . I don't know!

Thanks, JIm.

[Texas Mac Man]

Several years ago, I bought a larger capacity card that was 4GBSDHC (High Capacity). My card reader, that was several years old would not read HC cards. I had to buy a new card reader. I suspect that is your problem.

[Paddy]

Talking about a couple of different things here.

1. SD card readers will NOT read SDHC (secure digital high capacity) cards.
2. Beacher has a Compact Flash card. It will be a Type 1 card, Jim - Type II are the thicker, (usually) micro drive type cards. They're expensive - don't even know if they actually work in your average P&S, though they will work in some DSLRs, Hassablads etc.

It's possible that the card reader won't read anything that is formatted FAT32. Newer cameras and cards are using FAT32 - older ones use FAT16. See the section in the Wikipedia article on Filesystems. Or it's the size that's tripping up the old reader - not sure.

At any rate - try connecting the camera directly to the Mac to make sure that works ok - it should, and you should have received a cable (probably mini-USB to USB) with the camera.

Luckily, card readers are cheap. I've got this one (in black) and it's great:

http://www.amazon.com/Transcend-Flash-Memo...9550&sr=8-1

[beacher]

Thanks, guys; I appreciate the help!

[tacit]

Coming in late to the conversation, but...

Yes. Old card readers will not always read new, high-capacity cards correctly.

It's a firmware limitation in the old card readers; they do not have the ability to address the larger amounts of storage in the newer cards. It's essentially no different from the way that very old computers can not see hard drives bigger than 2 GB, or some older computers can not see hard drives bigger than 127 GB. The same basic limitations are at work, for many similar reasons.