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SD cards have a secure encrypted area that is not accessable using normal card readers. It is not just a hidden partition or hidden sectors in the area that you can access. You really cannot get into this secure part of the card.
The i3 can access this secure area and it obviously expects to find data that Garmin has loaded on genuine Garmin cards. Your copy has no data in the secure area.
It would seem you can copy all the data in the accessable area of a genuine Garmin card and paste that data back into the genuine card. That will work because the essential security data in the secure encrypted area remains on the card.
In that case I think I'll keep a Ghost image of the card on my PC, and assume the encrypted part won't be written to by the i3 even in the event of it crashing etc.
Ah well, the SD-transflash adapter wasn't a wasted purchase, but the transflash memory card was. [scuttles off to ebay]
You can even go as far as full formatting (instead of just quick formatting) the original transflash card supplied by Garmin and then copying the original Garmin folder that you saved on your pc back to it and even then it will still work!, obviously when you do a full format of the transflash card even that dont erase the data in the secure part of the card so thats why it still works.
To be honest if you can go as far as doing a full format of the original Garmin transflash card and it still works fine, then just backing the Garmin folder up on my pc is good enough for me. :D
And before anyone asks, yes i did try this, full format of the Garmin transflash card, then reloaded the Garmin folder saved on my pc back to it, still works 100% fine. :D _________________ Garmin Streetpilot i3,
Tomtom One
_________________
Paul
It's all about the data in the secure area of the card.
What i meant to say was the data in the secure area is the important bit, the date stamp on the files and folders dont seem to affect anything, there is 1 file that the date dosent change on which is the "gmapsupp.img" file, even when you copy it back to the transflash card after a format on mine the date still reads: Date Modified 16 September 2005, will have a try in a min and see if a different date on that file makes any difference to anything. _________________ Garmin Streetpilot i3,
Tomtom One
_________________
Paul
The date modified wont change on the gmapsupp.img file anyway, on mine it now reads as follows (if you right click then select properties):
Created: 12 November 2005, 18:53:57
Modified: 16 September 2005, 15:26:18
Accessed: 12 November 2005
Still works fine on my i3 with no problems, even though the file was apparently modified before it was created!! _________________ Garmin Streetpilot i3,
Tomtom One
_________________
Paul
But a file CAN be modified before it was created. If you made an image in photoshop last week, then emailed it to me, and I save it on my hard disk, it will be created now when I save it, but modified when you last edited it.
Didn't one of the files used to have NO date on it? I remember seeing that one was blank in the modified column in windows explorer.
Didn't one of the files used to have NO date on it? I remember seeing that one was blank in the modified column in windows explorer.
Can't remember to be honest.
Either way the dates dont seem to make any difference to the i3, used mine earlier tonight, seems to be working fine. _________________ Garmin Streetpilot i3,
Tomtom One
_________________
Paul
You can even go as far as full formatting (instead of just quick formatting) the original transflash card supplied by Garmin and then copying the original Garmin folder that you saved on your pc back to it and even then it will still work!, obviously when you do a full format of the transflash card even that dont erase the data in the secure part of the card so thats why it still works.
I would be careful formatting your Garmin SD-Card.
I have noticed that SD-Card come formatted from Sector 101 not from sector 1. If you try formatting an SD-Card under windows it should format the card from sector 1, unless your card reader cant see the first 100 sectors of the SD-Card.
If you have a Toshiba Lap-top with built in SD reader, Toshiba provide a piece of Software, only works on thier laptops, called SD-Format. This format utility formats correctly from sector 101.
As a general rule you should never format SD-Cards under windows standard format utility as this can cause malfunction. I dont know exactly why this is but many people have experienced problems with SD-Cards on thier digital cameras when they formatted the cards under windows. Using the Toshiba SD-Format fixes the cards.
Before you ask, I have tried formatting my spare card with Toshiba SD-Format and loading it with the Garmin files and it is still recognised as an imposter. The Toshiba SD-Format I used formatted as FAT16. The Garmin Card is FAT32 but dont think that was the problem.
I have also formatted my spare SD-Card to the Garmin Spec under Linux, using fdisk and mkfs.vfat. Using fdisk you can format by cylinders or sectors. Toggle with 'u'. Change no of sectors heads etc. After you done that you use mkfs.vfat -F 32 on partitions. However this did not succeed in alowing me to copy the card onto another card and get it to work. I could not copy sectors 1-100 this way which I thought probably mattered.
So It is clear that SD-CARDS can use sectors 1 to 100 for special purposes and you should not format over this area.
However The Norton Ghost experiment, should have coppied all the sectors perfectly irrespective of being in a partition or not so the hidden data on an SD card if in Sectors 1-100 should have been copied under Ghost.
I would imagine that the missing link is a serial number on the SD-Card readable by software. I would doubt very much that there are further sectors completely unreachable by the card reader - Unless some of you find using your card reader that the Garmin SD-Card apears to be formatted from Sector 1. I.e. My reader is seeing the first 100 sectors but the guy who used Ghost, his reader could not see these sectors and thats why his copy failed. Its possible. Would explain maybe how it was possible to do a windows Format without damaging the card.
As it seems that it would not be possible to just buy any old SD-Card to use in an I3. This is probably a good thing. It should mean that when V8 maps come out and Garmin make them available to evey one, we should all be able to copy them onto out pucka Garmin SD-Cards without problem.
Ebay oportinists will never be able to buy cheap SD cards , load V8 maps and the latest Speed camera databases and peddle them to naive punters.
In windows my garmin card and my new blank card had slightly different sizes (about 3/4s of a MB) of partition (windows did not say there was free space to create a 2nd partition - but this could be because the free space was too small for a new partition).
Ghost copies in dos, using a dos usb driver (it warned me to not connect through a hub at this point). It may be that it did not see those extra sectors in dos, but I doubt it would be any different to accessing it in windows. I used the same card reader (an Apacer Disc Steno 100 - a battery powered CD writer/card reader). I copied it sector by sector, but the i3 told me I had no map data (you'd think it would say "ha ha you can't copy me!" or something - that's what I would have programmed it to do!!)
So it seems gcb is probably right - there is a serial number somewhere on the sdcard. Now hopefully that serial number is hardcoded and will not corrupt, so unless you break the sdcard altogether, a copy of the files you see in windows should suffice.
I just got a reply from Garmin saying that the £90 charge is so high because it covers the cost of the map data - which is a lie as I already own the map data. I would have thought I would just have to return my old sdcard to prove I wasn't getting a second copy of the map out of them (in the same way you can return a faulty Cubase dongle).
By the way - do the maps ever get updated and will it be free? I've asked the Garmin chap this too.
All this antipiracy crap came ouf of the music business, yet they haven't stopped pirate music one bit!
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