SD card won't read on my Mac.

Hey (I'm not sure really what category to post this in, so sorry. Don't report me plz). I recently got a Nintendo 3DS, and it came with an SD card inside the system itself. I want to put music on the card to put in my 3DS to play music with. I get out my SD/MMC card reader, and hook it up to my Mac with the card inside. So, when it says that I need to initialize the card and go to Disk Utility, when I try to make it into a readable DMG, this shows up: Unable to attach *name of DMG file here* (No mountable file systems). I was able to make it into a DMG, but I can't verify or repair it. I just get the same message. And when I downloaded Stellar Pheonix, the DMG file I'm trying to open wouldn't even show up, while other DMG files did! To prove it's not the card reader, I put another card in the reader that belongs to a camera of mine (I can't keep the SD card for the 3DS because of the camera) and hook it up. Then I put the music on the card and played it on my 3DS, no problem. And I know it's not the original SD card's fault because I put it on the 3DS and the games I accidentally put on the card showed up fine! I don't get what's wrong! Can someone please tell me what I should do?

So, when it says that I need to initialize the card and go to Disk Utility, when I try to make it into a readable DMG, this shows up: Unable to attach *name of DMG file here* (No mountable file systems). I was able to make it into a DMG, but I can't verify or repair it.

Click to expand...

It's telling you that you need to format the card with Disk Utility. Did you try to format the SD card? You do not need to make a readable DMG.

I'm not familiar enough with Nintendo to be sure, but it certainly sounds to me like the Nintendo SD card is formatted in a proprietary way, which (unsurprisingly) the Mac (and for that matter probably a PC) can't read.

Most SD cards are formatted for DOS or Windows, and of course Macs can read those.

Reply to chscag

No. How do you format an SD card?

Format the SD card with Disk Utility. Choose to erase it first and format it as MS DOS (FAT-32). But be careful of the partition scheme. Select MBR. Do not let it be formatted as GUID or it will create a small EFI partition on the SD card which you do not want.

Im having a similar problem with an SD card. It has been working fine for ages but all of a sudden my Mac struggled to read it and now even the disk utility times out whilst trying to erase or partition it. Any advice?

Cheers

Stuart

It sounds like the SD card may be defective if it won't allow erasing and a re-format. Try it on another machine if possible to make sure.

Cheers, will give that a shot.

Hi Guys
I had the same problem. Turned out to be the internal SD card reader in the MacBook Pro. When I tried an external reader there were no problems.

The reader contacts may be dirty. Try a can of compressed air - blow a few short blasts of air into the slot to see if that restores it so that it will read the SD card. I've also noticed that certain SD cards, especially the cheap variety don't always read or read properly in my 2013 iMac. Better cards all read OK.