sxs cards not recognised by Macbook Pro w/Snow Leopard

[Bob Tompkins]

Did you try hooking the camera to your laptop and trying it that way? It would tell you if the card reader were dead.

I am assuming you don’t have the Express34 slot on your laptop.

[Craig Seeman]

MacBook Pro with Express port?
Neither card shows up using the driver you listed?

As a test put the card in and the reboot the computer and see if it mounts on boot.

[Adam Simpson]

Hey Bob, I don’t have the camera but as a test I plugged in an external card reader to one of the USBs on that side of the computer and put an SD card from my Canon 60D into it and it reads that fine. I’m not sure what kind of express card reader is in the machine, how would I find out? I bought it new in 2008 if that’s any help.

Adam

[Adam Simpson]

Thanks Craig, if express port refers to the slot that’s built into the left side of the machine then yes and neither card shows up. I tried restarting with the card in and still no luck.

Thanks again

Adam

[Clint Fleckenstein]

Try running the Disk Utility (Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility) and see if it shows up there. If it is detecting the card you will see an instance of your card reader and the card listed under it as a volume. If it shows up there, your hardware at least sees that it’s there. Try to mount it manually through Disk Utility if it appears.

Cf

[Adam Simpson]

Thanks for the advice Clint, I tried that but no sign of it in disc utility.

BUT there have been developments. The last card the cameraman gave me was a third party one that takes an SD card and my MBP read that from the internal card reader. He also told me that he’d recently taken his cards into the local sony agent and they’d upgraded them or something, they certainly used to work. Does this make sense to anyone?

cheers

Adam

[Clint Fleckenstein]

Yes. SxS cards have an internal PCI-Express architecture (or is it PCI-E? I forget) and the SD card readers have an internal USB architecture. Big difference.

For instance, I tried an MxR adapter with SD card in my Sony SBAC-US10 SxS reader yesterday trying to find a useful answer for you, and the Sony reader won’t read the USB-based SD adapter. I had to grab an actual SxS card to verify the Disk Utility idea I posted.

There’s the likely factor in your issue.

Cf

[Craig Seeman]

MacBook Pro Express port should read both USB and PCIe cards (with proper driver).
Sony SBAC-US10 only reads PCIe

Adam, Can you post exactly what type SxS cards you’re working with. Size and whether SxS Pro or SxS-1. This will help just in case the firmware (or other internals?) in the card itself is a factor.

As a test if you have an MxR/MxM adaptor with SDHC card try that in MacBook Pro Express port. If that works then it points to possible issues with:
SxS Driver
Express port itself having issue with PCIe
SxS cards have an issue.

Next test SxS cards in:
Sony SBAC-US10
Another MacBook Pro with Express port
This would confirm that the SxS cards are OK in Sony’s reader vs another MacBook Pro

Adam please test and post back or otherwise post which of the above have you tried so far and the results.

[Mark Goodwillie]

Craig,
Were you ever able to make the SxSPro card work in your macbook pro? I’m having the same problem. My friend’s card works perfectly in his 17″ macbook pro with Leopard. It will not mount in my 15″ Snow Leopard???
Thanks,
Mark

[Don Greening]

A colleague of mine had the same issue. She has a 15″ Macbook Pro running OS 10.6.6. Her SxS card wouldn’t show up as an attached device no matter what I tried. Once I repaired her startup disk using Disk Utility it started working fine. Disk Utility found issues which were repairable. Perhaps your laptop will respond in the same way. Keep in mind that to repair the startup disk you need to startup with your OS Install disk or hook up another computer via firewire and startup your laptop in target disk mode.

– Don

Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com