Go750 SD card not recognised

Joined
Feb 1, 2012
Messages
18
Location
Australia
TomTom Model(s)
GO750 Australia
I have been using the Go 750 Australia for about 15 months with now only the Australia maps installed. I originally had also installed the southern Africa maps but have taken them off and saved them to my system. I recently purchased the USA_Canada maps and they are sitting in my Home waiting to install but I got the "Insufficient space". OK, so I then, very foolishly, purchased the appropriate MicroSD 4gb card and adapter from Tom Tom, but my unit will not recognise it.

After many long evenings with emails to and from Support they eventually conceded that the fault must lie in my Go750, something that I could have told them five days before. Oh, and the unit is out of warranty. What?? It must have been faulty from new but I never tried to use that function before. BTW I use it very infrequently here in Aust and it is stored in my home office.

I ran every test and every suggestion that Support advised. The MicroSD card reads as formatted FAT32 & 3.6gb in a card reader. A new card I purchased here is not recognised by the unit either, but I now see that one to be a fast Class 4 card which I understand will not work, or not well, in my unit. The computer man near work was able to read the text on the card sold to me by Tom Tom and he advises me that one is a slow card.

So, I phoned the repairer advised by TT and the response was "Send $90 and the unit and we will then have a look at it and give you a quote. The $90 will go toward the repair costs." My costs so far exceed what it would cost to hire a GPS for the few days I will be hiring a car in North America, so no thank you.

I thought that I might try taking off the Australia maps (saving of course) to see if the USA_Canada maps will download to the internal memory, then take them off, saving to my system and reload the Australia maps to continue to use here until my trip, then reverse the process before I go. Anyone have any thoughts on that idea? From the system information I cannot determine the capacity of the internal disk, but the USA_Canda maps seem to be a tad over 1.7gb.

I would be extremely grateful for any hints or advice before I remove the remainder of my hair. I might also mention that I am not tech heavy at my end.

Thanks

Frommy
 
I'm not sure what they told you about speed, but "a fast Class 4 which I understand will not work well.."

A Class 4 is about the bare MINIMUM speed you want in your unit. I'd recommend a Class 6 if you don't want to reduce performance. Still, the Class 4 should have worked.

When you install the uSD into your 750, does it show up as yet another 'mass storage device' under My Computer or no? You should see both your 750's internal memory and that of the uSD card as separate devices there.

Let's start there.
 
Thanks for the prompt response. I am typing this at work (very slow day) and the device is at home.

When the Home screen is up I went to the "Devices" tab in the top menu area and that only gave me an option to disconnect (current device - the 750) with a light shaded second option for "Other devices" I think, or something like that. That second option was not active. That was what Support instructed me to do.

As I read your message it appears to me that I should also use Windows 7 to attempt to read the device. Hhhmmm. Never tried that. It will be about five more hours before I can try that.

If you can help me solve this problem I will buy you lunch when I am in your State next June. :)
 
Hey, I'll do anything for a free lunch. It's not like they pay us around here -- although there was a suggestion once about hijacking the forum owner's credit card for a vacation in the Bahamas.

Yes, please identify whether Win7 sees the installed card as yet another (separate) storage device right along with your 750's own internal memory.

If the card is properly installed physically, and Win7 doesn't see it, it would be worth stuffing any other uSD card you have at your disposal (grab one out of your cell phone?) into the 750 to see if Win7 sees it. Since you won't be storing anything to the card or asking it to snap to it for map data retrieval, speed won't be critical. We HAVE seen cards that don't agree with a TomTom but are showing up in card readers. It's rare, but it happens.

If an alternate card doesn't show up, then you've got a problem that will have to be resolved by swapping map data on and off your unit, just as Europeans must do with 2GB units already due to map size there. It's actually very easy to safely save your maps off to your PC (we do NOT recommend Home for this; we suggest you use Win7 to back up your unit and save maps) and then load another map.

Backups are explained here: https://www.tomtomforums.com/t17864-how-backup-contents-your-unit-computer.html

Moving maps is as simple as copying your existing Aus/NZ map folder to your PC, making sure it's all there, and deleting it from your unit, ready to copy back the day you need it. The least memory a 750 will carry internally is 2GB, and there are U.S. map sets that will fit into that.
 
At least on TripAdvisor I get a free trip every year as an advisor (in my dreams).

I find it hard to believe that I did not think of using Win7 to read the internal drive before, but the answer is 978 MB capacity. Where did you pull the 2GB number from as minimum capacity for a 750???? Now you really have got me stuffed. The North America file is 1710.9 MB as it smirks at me daring me to download it.

I read the 750 with Win7 installing both the TT supplied MicroSD card and the class 4 I bought, and no reading for separate storage for either. I rebooted the 750 each time I changed the cards. I think that confirms the fault is in the unit. Oh, and don't knock that things are a bit slower here. We have to convert everything from being upside down that you lot tell/sell us. :)

I last night replied to the most recent advice from Support with a bit of a rant (very rare for me) setting out the history and my dissatisfaction in line with my original post here, but perhaps a bit stronger, and then asked the same question as above about internal capacity. I received a reply tonight that the problems could not be resolved by email and to phone a number in Oz during business hours to discuss further. Today was a rare day when I had a bit of spare time at work, but tomorrow that is not the case, and I cannot connect the TT up to the work servers if I need to in answering questions. Who knows though, a phone call might help. Nothing to lose.

I can't shout you lunch if I cannot find you with my TT. Nearly forgot. The Senior Partner at work mentioned that he was off tomorrow on his annual skiing holiday, I inquired as to where this year and he advised Colorado. I asked him if he could take my TT with him for you to have a look at for me. :D

Thanks for the link to the backup instructions. I had seen something like that when surfing the forum trying to find answers to the current problems without reading the details. Now printed.

Frommy
 
Last edited:
Oh, I see that this forum must have an edit timer operating.

Just to clarify, Win7 reads the 750 as "685 MB free of 978 MB".
 
OK, let me be sure I understand what is happening.

No recognition by Win7 of any uSD card you install into the 750. Not good. We'll have to write that one off as a crappy deal, but at least you may still have the ability to do what needs to be done, if not as conveniently.

Nuts -- I just DID spot a model of 750 with only 1GB. I need you to tell me the first two letters of your unit's serial number so I can figure out which one you have.
 
mvl's chart shows this:

GO 550: 1GB
GO 750: 2GB
GO 950: 4GB

But I think that's the European version. TomTom, to confuse everybody uses the same number in Oz but with different hardware. For example, the 720 in Australia is only 1 gb, I think........ not 2.
 
dhn -
My 'mystery chart' shows something quite different (first 2 chars are the serial prefix). Note that all I am reporting are the non-Live models, since the OP would not have had Live services in his market.

W8 = 1GB
W6 = 2GB or 4GB (conflicting data)
 
OMG - it is W8.

My Secretary reckons that my unit may only take a 2 GB extended memory card, not 4 GB. Any thought on that now that the model no is revealed?
 
Yes, TomTom shows that model as : GO 750 / 550 - 1GB

and if like other models with that size internal and a sd card slot, the max indeed is a 2 gb sd (NOT a sdhc) card though I thought all 750 models could deal with sdhc cards. Maybe not.

For what it's worth, when you go to visit canderson :))), you can get a USA map that is < 2 gb in size.

I'd probably wait for canderson to appear in this thread again with good advice. Mine tends to be worth what people pay for it sometimes .......:attention:
 
Without the TT working I won't get to find canderson, and I already have the maps ready to install. I think I will be OK finding Radisson Harbourfront from Billy Bishop Field though. :lol:

I will wait to hear back from canderson, and if you are correct about the 2 MB, then TT have sold me the wrong card and I am in a very strong position to phone the number that TT asked me to contact.

Meet me after the Blue Jays/Red Sox game Sun 6/3 and I will buy you a drink if you are correct. :cool:
 
@dhn
... SD? 750 takes uSD.

@all
I can think of no reason at all that the OP's 750 would be limited to 2GB 'external' memory. The old issue of using SD (vs. SDHC) was a problem of interpretation by the firmware, and that was limited to units with firmware prior to 8.302. Even then, the unit would see the files on a 4GB card, but it would not successfully write to it. Current firmware for a 750 should be 9.061, long past the problem period. FWIW, those with European 750s report using as large as 8GB uSD cards in their units.
 
No reason to be confused. It simply sounds like your unit is behaving very badly with respect to any installed uSD card. And with only 1GB of available internal memory, there's not a lot of room to do anything about it.

That said, we have a handful of 'generic' things to try in the event that unexplained stuff happens to these units. These include something called the Clear Flash Tool and removing and reloading firmware. However, as the manipulation of the uSD card really occurs at the lowest level of code (your unit could in fact BOOT of the uSD card if you had a system loaded on it), I don't hold out a lot of hope.

I need to absent myself for the rest of the evening, but if dhn is around, he can guide you through the Clear Flash and firmware reload steps.
 
Which is why I said to wait for canderson. He's probably correct in that your unit can handle the larger (micro) sdhc card with aplomb (,---don't get to use that word too often).
 
Before I use the Clear Flash Tool tonight or tomorrow, could you please satisfy my curiosity as to how that may affect the ability of the 750 to read an external card, with aplomb.
 
Running the tool does no harm or change any settings. It may not work but running the tool has been known to fix strange behaviour in the units.
 
OK. Have done that tonight after reading your last message. Run it thrice (first time I have used that word) and no difference. I rebooted the 750 again afterwards and the SD card is still not detected by the unit, nor Win7 as installed in the unit.

I phoned the TT support line today as suggested in the last email from them, and a nice bloke worked through the problems with me. "You need to send it to be repaired, but as it is over 14 months old there is no warranty." So no joy there. I was offered a refund on the USA_Canada map if I wanted it.

I am getting quite p***ed off with this whole exercise which all leads to seemingly end at only one conclusion - the 750 unit is faulty and needs to be repaired, at my cost. As I will not be driving in your area of Canada, with Calgary resident daughter, previous long term resident of Montreal, doing that, and only driving a couple of days in canderson country, I am prepared to surrender and hire a SatNav (GPS) with the car for Colorado and accept that I am beaten. It will be a far sight cheaper than what I have already expended, and the 750 works perfectly for me in Oz.

Unless someone can come up with some other suggestion, I think that this thread is now dead. Sincere thanks canderson and dhn for your perseverance in trying to solve this problem for me, and I am truly looking forward to visiting your respective regions in June.

Regards from Australia

Frommy
 

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