Twice now I've purchased a 2GB MicroSD card for music storage on my Sandisk Sansa E260. The first card (Kingston brand) would only write out to about 1GB of storage reliably. Thinking it faulty, I ordered the second 2GB card (Transcend brand) and finally got around to filling it two months later.

Well darn if this new card is labeled "1GB Media" when I insert it in Ubuntu. Yet Nautilus indicates available storage of 1.9GB. Sure enough, as I fill the card just past 1GB worth, writes become unreliable.

Are these MicroSD cards just horrible on quality control, or is there some mislabeling going on? Or do I just not know how to use them?

I just tried again, and got a successful write. Windows 7 RC claims that the card is an invalid media type and offers to format the card (which I declined). WinXP shows the same 1.9GB total storage as Ubuntu.

The old card was hit and miss at writing above 1GB... so I guess I'll see how this newer card holds out.

Where you bought the card from? I have a 8Gb and a 16Gb microSD, both work as expected.

I bought both from Amazon (actually sold by Amazon).

Still haven't added further to the card, so can't comment further on reliability.

I own two Sansa players including an e250 2GB and e260v2 4GB. I needed to update the firmware a few months back to get all the features to work right. Getting the flash in was not straight forward (I forget the details). I have not tried the micro-SD card since flashing the firmware. Moreover, I'm no expert on this. So, I don't know if any of that applies to you. Just a FWIW if you haven't updated the firmware.

Be that as it may, both work great and well worth the relatively low price I paid at the time. One in our ballroom connected to the sound system provides all the music there, the other for the exercise cycle (was for my wife's 12 year old car -- but the old car broke a few months back -- the new one has satellite radio and all the "period" music she needs).

Thanks Allen. Last I looked at the Sansa website, I had the recommended firmware, though that's been a while now.The cards never give problems in the Sansa, when I've got a good write they just play as expected. It's just trying to get a reliable write to them on the desktop.

Next time I try to write to them I'll update this thread on the results.

I bump this old thread to post the solution to my problem. It was the memory card reader. I was unable to properly handle card sizes above 1GB. I had bought the reader 8 or so years ago, and apparently it just couldn't handle newer cards. It also ran at USB 1.0 speeds.

The new USB 2.0 HiSpeed card reader arrived yesterday, and all the cards listed above seem to be working correctly now.