tomTom Go 750 Live will not recognise Micro SD card

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Jul 31, 2010
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In the past few days I have purchased a new TomTom Go 750 Live, to replace my TomTom Go 510. I soon discovered in Home that new maps are available, and under the terms of the purchase, free for 30 days.

I noticed that the map size was far and away larger than the remaining on board memory. solution buy a Micro SD card, so I purchase a 4 Gig card from TomTom as recommended with the adaptor.

Followed the instuctions from TomTom website:
Switching between internal memory and memory card and Installing maps on a new memory card.

When opening the Devices dropdown menu in Home the Change Device facility was greyed out. Opened My Computer the 750 was there but the Micro card was not recognised.

Went change maps, likewise no sign of the micro card. Then placed micro card into the adaptor and inserted it into the appropriate card reader, opened My Computer no sign of the card, which should have been abeit empty as I understand by default it is formatted to Fat 32.

I then took the SD card from my HD camcorder and inserted it into the card reader, lo and behold it was immedietely recognised in My Computer.

I emailed Technical Support on 28th July 2010 with like information, and later received an autmated mail which included:


Your question has been received at TomTom Customer Care.
You can expect a response from us within two business days.
It is not possible to reply to this email.

By my reckoning the time scale has well passed and no sign of a reply. Not what I call good customer service.
 
As you have done everything recommended by TomTom including the purchase of a 4GB card (which I find rather strange, a 16GB card would have been a better bet to make sure you could still have the same country coverage as provided on the device when you purchased it) please contact them by phone on Monday 0845 161 0009 is the support number from the UK.

The European devices with V850 maps are nothing more than a mess with zonal restrictions in comparison to what you were supplied with pre-loaded on the device when new - Mike
 
The first step is to get your card readable by a card reader in windows. Try formatting the card again as fat32. Disable quickformat in the process. If the format doesn't succeed and you can't seen an empty card in windows, then something's wrong with your card/computer.

Once you confirm a working fat32 card, turn off the tomtom, insert the card, and turn back on the Tomtom. This process creates identification files on the card.

Once the Tomtom is on, plug into the computer, choose "yes" on the Tomtom to connect, and choose external when prompted in HOME. Then you can run "add maps" to install the new map.
 
Thankyou mikealder and mvl for your replies. The reason I purchased the 4Gig TomTom card and not an alien 16 Gig card, was to conform to TomTom advice on a new purchase,, and avoid critisism should this kind of error or others occur with an alien card.

Your description of the downloadable maps as a mess is somewhat disturbing. I will contact support as you suggest. In the event that there is no satisfactory conclusion forthcoming, I will return the 750 to the retailer for a refund as 'not fit for purpose' on the grounds it does not conform to what is stated. That is a last resort.

I have used my card reader as previously stated without success, and proven it is in good working order. I have since borrowed another SD card reader (different brand) when used i get the same non-function with the TomTom card.

It is my understanding that to format the card or indeed any other device, firstly it must be recognised in Windows, thus far this is not possible, so i can only assume it is the card, as I see no other working problem with my computer. I have also searched in Administrative Tools-Computer Management-Disk Mmanagement where unformatted drives generally show up and can be worked with, but the TomTom micro card does not show. I would dearly love to format the card and proceed with your advice, but need to pass the stumbling block.
 
Thankyou mikealder and mvl for your replies. The reason I purchased the 4Gig TomTom card and not an alien 16 Gig card, was to conform to TomTom advice on a new purchase,, and avoid critisism should this kind of error or others occur with an alien card.

Your description of the downloadable maps as a mess is somewhat disturbing. I will contact support as you suggest. In the event that there is no satisfactory conclusion forthcoming, I will return the 750 to the retailer for a refund as 'not fit for purpose' on the grounds it does not conform to what is stated. That is a last resort.

I have used my card reader as previously stated without success, and proven it is in good working order. I have since borrowed another SD card reader (different brand) when used i get the same non-function with the TomTom card.

It is my understanding that to format the card or indeed any other device, firstly it must be recognised in Windows, thus far this is not possible, so i can only assume it is the card, as I see no other working problem with my computer. I have also searched in Administrative Tools-Computer Management-Disk Mmanagement where unformatted drives generally show up and can be worked with, but the TomTom micro card does not show. I would dearly love to format the card and proceed with your advice, but need to pass the stumbling block.

It looks like the Micro SD card you got from Tom Tom is a defective one. May be you need to return only that to them.

Why not buy a new 16GB Micro SD card from a different source (Amazon?) as suggested on this forum, try that and see what happens - and then return the SD card you got from Tom Tom back to them - but retain the 16GB new one?

In my view Micro SD card from any reputed brand should be ok.

I have a Transcend 8GB - Class 6 Micro SD HC card and it is working very well in my 940 Go Live device. I bought it from Amazon. (Class 6 means it is a high speed device).
 
I just noticed something - does your card reader say it supports SDHC? SDHC is a new format that older card readers cannot read.

Is the camcorder card (that does work) 2gb or less in size? Since no SDHC cards are 2GB or smaller, perhaps that might be evidence that your drive doesn't support SDHC.
 
I just noticed something - does your card reader say it supports SDHC? SDHC is a new format that older card readers cannot read.

Is the camcorder card (that does work) 2gb or less in size? Since no SDHC cards are 2GB or smaller, perhaps that might be evidence that your drive doesn't support SDHC.

I think the 750 is a more recent device and hence in my opinion probably does support SDHC although I might be wrong.

But if the card reader the OP is using to connect the device to the PC is an old one this problem would still affect the user.

So may be the OP needs to buy a new Micro SDHC card for use on the Tom Tom and a suitable new Reader that can read SDHC cards - these are available as USB readers on Amazon and often are promoted as being bought together and as the postage gets combined would be slightly cheaper to buy together when you want both.

But I thought when the device is in the Tom Tom and the Tom Tom itself is successfully detected by Windows, the SDHC card would show up as another removable drive and it must be possible to format an unformated drive and use it.

All of this actually suggests that the device the OP got from Tom Tom shop is a dud one.
 
I think the 750 is a more recent device and hence in my opinion probably does support SDHC although I might be wrong....

All of this actually suggests that the device the OP got from Tom Tom shop is a dud one.

Yes, the 750 supports SDHC. It's the last gasp guess, but I agree the SDHC from Tomtom is probably a dud.
 
Thanks for all your input. The SD card reader is compatible to SDHC as the card I tested with from my HD camcorder is a Panasonic 16Gig class 10 SDHC card. So I think we can safetely eliminate that.

I have today ordered from Amazon a Transcend 8GB - Class 6 Micro SD HC card, and paid extra for next day delivery....getting rather impatient. The one I ordered last week from another company still has not arrived.....phoned them, sorry it has not been posted yet, maybe a couple of days. Noooo Cancelled it.

Hopefully tomorrow I will have glad tidings of a fully functional TomTom. fingers crossed.

Ah nearly forgot no reply yet from TomTom Support. Rang the number listed above by mikealder, all morning on and off.....must be on hols no one answered the phone.
 
Well I will try to keep it short. The Transcend 8 Gig card from Amazon arrived yesterday. Tried it the card reader...yipee, windows recognised it, now for the TomTom. Yipee again I now have a choice of two memory sizes. Odd both classed as internal, not hard to choose the right one. Into Home selected the Micro SD card and away we go. And............hell and damnation, its overwritten the internal meory and just installed Western Europe. And nowt on the card. By now I cannot be bothered with anymore, I have a map to use. So have to ring Customer care for info to return duff card.

Well the chap I spoke with wished to know why I was requesting the return, no problem there. he then enquired if I was now happy with the new map....Are you sitting comfortably? In short with the 750 there is a problem with Home, it recognises the card, allows you to select it and does not aportion the download to it but reverts to the true on board memory. Its a known glitch and its being worked on. Cant argue with him..as I am not versed in TomTom technology.

But in total he spent about 3hrs on the phone (he rang me back) where we had to manually load the 4 zones on the card, so its not seamless. There was more but thats it in essence. He rang me again this morning to check all was well, and sort out the returns.

That was 11.00am......by 1.00pm it had been authorised had printed out a Returns label prepid for APS, then an email with a tracking number. Packed it up, went to APS on line, arranged pickup.....and it was collected at 1.40pm. On its way. So now I will have to get out and about and prove all is well.
 
Well I will try to keep it short. The Transcend 8 Gig card from Amazon arrived yesterday. Tried it the card reader...yipee, windows recognised it, now for the TomTom. Yipee again I now have a choice of two memory sizes. Odd both classed as internal, not hard to choose the right one. Into Home selected the Micro SD card and away we go. And............hell and damnation, its overwritten the internal meory and just installed Western Europe. And nowt on the card. By now I cannot be bothered with anymore, I have a map to use. So have to ring Customer care for info to return duff card.

Hi mangrove-jack,

I hope you followed the instructions at: https://www.tomtomforums.com/genera...4-how-backup-contents-your-unit-computer.html and have a full back up before you did all of that.

Though I have a 940 with me, I had to do something very similar today - I was offered a Map update for Central and Western Europe and the HOME software said that there is not enough space on the device - so I took a full back up and then, from the device I moved the US maps onto the SDHC card and then allowed HOME to update my maps. I then had to take care of my 'favourites' which I had backed up elsewhere and re-instate them.

One important point to note is that for taking back ups, I do not use HOME software at all - in fact I use a Linux machine, connect the Tom Tom to it and take full backup of the device onto that machine.

Even to move the US maps to the SDHC card, I used a standard file manager rather than this HOME software.

The HOME software is good for simply plonking the Tom Tom on the docking station every day and let it synchronise and be up-to-date - but I am always careful to go through the list of changes every such syncing is going to do and take appropriate action if necessary. But the moment the list contains some important files, I would cancel the sync process before it starts, make a proper back up and then repeat the sync process.
 
Well I will try to keep it short. The Transcend 8 Gig card from Amazon arrived yesterday. Tried it the card reader...yipee, windows recognised it, now for the TomTom. Yipee again I now have a choice of two memory sizes. Odd both classed as internal, not hard to choose the right one. Into Home selected the Micro SD card and away we go. And............hell and damnation, its overwritten the internal meory and just installed Western Europe. And nowt on the card. By now I cannot be bothered with anymore, I have a map to use. So have to ring Customer care for info to return duff card.

Well the chap I spoke with wished to know why I was requesting the return, no problem there. he then enquired if I was now happy with the new map....Are you sitting comfortably? In short with the 750 there is a problem with Home, it recognises the card, allows you to select it and does not aportion the download to it but reverts to the true on board memory. Its a known glitch and its being worked on. Cant argue with him..as I am not versed in TomTom technology.


The steps below allowed HOME to properly see internal vs external with my 740, don't know if it applies to the 750 too:

Delete any files named "internal.dat", "external.dat", and "ttgo.bif" (if present) from the root of the SD and internal memory. Then disconnect the Tomtom and turn off/on and let it start up until you see the map. (This rewrites identification files on the device). Then try connecting to HOME.
 
I have just been informed by Tom Tom that the Go750 cannot take a SDHC card greater than 4Gb capacity and that this explains the problems I have had getting the map download to work (insufficient space available). I know this is an old thread, but it is still getting read - at least by me.
 
I believe they are wrong. I think that unit can take up to a 32 gig sdhc card -- the faster the speed (classs 6+) the better. and make it from a reliable company, not some junk found on ebay.
 
I usually have an 8GB or 16GB micro SDHC card in my Go940 (older than the 950) and that has always worked fine.
I can also take it out and put it in my Go950 and the 950 can access stuff that's on it OK....
 
Thanks for the quick responses.
I went ahead and bought an 8Gb Sandisk based on that assumption. Things went badly from the start.

It was initially not possible to select the card as the device. Eventually after I copied everything from the internal drive onto the SDHC card manually via my computer I could then switch the device to either internal or the SDHC card. I could delete files off the SDHC card using Home, but when I tried installing the new map, the same old message regarding insufficient memory capacity came up. I could update with the regionally divided map, but it loaded it onto the internal not the SDHC card even though the card had been selected as the device. Interestingly (perhaps) in Home, I could delete from either memory as both copies of the two sets of files were visible. I expected I would only be able to see the files on the selected device (i.e SDHC card or internal, not both).

I read somewhere this is a quirk of Home and GO750s. I expect if I can get the map file downloaded onto my computer I will be able to copy it across manually, but I have no idea how to get the file downloaded on to my computer in the first place..

I found it hard to believe that something as simple as a map update could be so difficult and so accepted TomTom's explanation regarding card capacity as the most likely reason i.e it was my fault for not reading the product spec. If I buy a 4Gb card and end up back where I started, I will be quite irritated.
 
On my Go940 I was able to download a map straight onto the SD card, simply by moving the old map to the card first.

But.. if Home is being bolshy and insisting on installing to the internal memory, play the game it's way....
You say you've already copied EVERYTHING to the SD card, yes?
Well, no map is going to be bigger than 4GB so do this:

1. Using Windows Explorer, delete EVERYTHING off the internal memory - check the device still runs OK from the card.

2. Using Explorer, MOVE just the map folder you want to update, back onto the internal memory

3. Update the map using Home - it will see the complete map and will calculate there is enough room for it on the internal.

4. Once it's downloaded and installed and everything is working properly, you are then at liberty to either leave things as they are, or you could swap things over by moving the map folder onto your PC while you move everything else back onto the internal, and then copy the map back to the card.

A bit Heath Robinson, but sometimes it's easier than battling with Home!
 
It is a Class 2 card (2Mb/s).
2.3Gb would take quite a while to download at that speed.
Not the smartest choice.
 
Use Class 6 minimum.

Anything lower won't just be slow, it simply won't work reliably.
 

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