How can I determine if my internal card reader is compatible with sdhc cards?
 

Hi everyone,

Does anyone happen to know how to find out if an internal card reader is able to read sdhc cards?

I'm on Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-21. I can't find any information on the internet on my internal card reader (Neodio ND3266-LA), nor on the card reader itself.

'lsmod | grep usb' states:
scsi_mod 151436 6 sbp2,sg,sr_mod,sd_mod,usb_storage,libata

but that still isn't very helpful.

Ask

It does not appear that the NioDio products are well supported. I would not worry about it when you can pick up a new 65 in 1 card reader (2.5" USB internal) that will replace the floppy drive in your case. These will read nearly any type of card around today.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...on=Card+Reader

My preferred model is:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...=Card%20Reader
which reads and writes the SDHC without problem in Linux

October 31, 2008

Hi

I spent quite a bit of time researching this product.

The manufacture's site was http://www.neodio.com.tw/
and is no longer accessible.

I cannot find any technical specs for this device.

According to Wikipedia:
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital_card)
there is only one way to distinguish a SDHC card from an SD card by visual inspection, and that is to see if the card carries the SDHC trademark. The SDHC trademark is licensed (refer to sdcard.org, SD Specifications Part 1 Physical Layer Specification, version 2.00 - Wikipedia has a link to a PDF of this document in the above article).

Logically if the internal reader does not show the SDHC trademark then it may not be SDHC compatible (or perhaps the manufacture decided not to license the use of the trademark?)

As a matter of interest do you have the Windows driver for the internal card reader? I ask because a SDHC card reader would require an SDHC capable driver. Perhaps you could Google the Windows driver name to see if you find any matches referring to the driver's SDHC (and hence the internal reader's) capability status. That's a long shot of course.

So given the results of my searching I tend to agree with the other posted advice that, since internal card readers relatively inexpensive, you should consider replacing the device with another device with known Linux compatibility.

Further I found an interesting thread in the Ubuntu forums
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-438998.html that identifies problems with readers using the ND3266-GA chip (I know that's not the same as yours - but looks like it may be in the same series/architecture of devices). It might be worth your time to read through this thread.

Hope that helps a bit

Regards

Chris

PS. I would caution you AGAINST trying the SDHC in the writer without confirming it's compatibility first. Even though both cards have the same physical spec, the SDHC is a later development, and there is NO guarantee that a SDHC card will not be destroyed if inserted into a SD slot.

Logic would dictate that with the SD spec being around for quite a while prior to SDHC, if they made SDHC cards fit into a SD slot it should not be damaged or cause damage. It probably won't work, but nothing should get fried.

But then again, when was Logic ever worth anything when it comes to electronic design, and common sense..

I think it's just a software difference between sd and sdhc. For example the sansa e200 family supports only micro sd cards, but if you install rockbox software they support the micro sdhc cards as well. I could be completely wrong and those devices might have been wired for sdhc support and it just hasn't made it to the software yet.