this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2024
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Is the SD card reader in an older (c. 2011) laptop able to read SDHC and SDXC cards? (hexbear.net)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by TheronGuard@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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I have an older laptop that I'm in the process of turning into a Linux machine (thanks, Microsoft). It's got a full-size SD card reader that I've never used but that I figure could come in handy in transferring files from the current Windows HDD to the future Linux SSD and later as extra storage.

I'm not just sure how compatible it is with modern microSD cards. I have some SDHC and SDXC cards that I use in my Android phones, and I tried putting them in a microSD adapter and opening them in Windows, but all I get is a "You need to format the drive in E: before you can use it" pop-up. Unfortunately, all of my cards are currently in use on my phones so I can't format them to see if that would make Windows recognize them.

Apparently SD cards that are setup as Internal Storage on Android are encrypted, which could be what's giving Windows trouble, but I'm not sure. I guess try booting into a Linux live USB and see if I have better luck there.

Does anyone have any experience with SD card readers on older laptops? Have you gotten higher-capacity modern SDHC or ideally, SDXC cards to read? I saw a mention somewhere that as long as the system in question supports exFAT, it should be fine with SDXC, but I don't know how reliable that is.

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[–] trompete@hexbear.net 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Anything used for internal Android usage will be formatted completely differently from the standard FAT32/exFAT, which is most likely what's going on. It it wasn't detecting the SD card it probably wouldn't ask you to format it.

A reader from 2011 is almost certainly SDHC (spec from 2006) compatible and likely also SDXC (2009) compatible. Also I vaguely remember something about being able use bigger cards on older readers in an out-of-spec sort of way some situations.

Edit: Also looked this up SDHC readers can read/write SDXC cards, only slower it seems. And I think what I remember was that 4 GB cards worked in many devices that only supported OG SD standard, which was only 2 GB.

[–] Strayce@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Really hard to say. Not officially supported in the standard, but I'm fairly sure I've used at least SDHC cards in older laptops. Probably depends on the individual device, reader, firmware, etc. At a guess I'd say linux is more likely to have limit-removing drivers where possible. Android encryption probably doesn't help tho.

[–] TheronGuard@hexbear.net 1 points 2 weeks ago

Windows did at least sort of recognize them, at least enough to say they needed to be formatted, right? Reminds me of when I insert USB drives with live Linux installations, Windows does the same to Linux-specific partitions.

This'd be much easier to get to the bottom of if I had spare cards lying around. I'd love to see if Windows could use them after formatting