A119S Stopped recognizing SD cards

Kinickie

Kinickie

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In early January I bought an A119S with GPS mount. Everything worked great, and I've been using it with the same 32 gig card the entire two months I've owned it.

On Monday, I captured an accident and needed to pull the footage. I did what I have always done previously: remove the SD card after the camera has powered off, put the card in my PC's card reader, pull the file, replace SC card in camera while still powered off.

The next day, when my dashcam powered on, the screen turned blue and kept flashing "Please insert TF card" while beeping. If I hit the menu button while the message isn't displayed, I can access the menu, but when I select "Format" it says "No card". Other devices still read the card without issue

I've tried formatting the card to FAT32 using both the Windows utility and the suggested formatting utilities with no luck.

I've also tried multiple SD cards in the dashcam and it won't read those either.

As a last resort I tried resetting the dashcam. This also didn't resolve the issue.

Is there anything else I should try before contacting the seller for a return, or is this thing really dead?
 
Last edited:
Do you have another card ? try this
 
Kinickie said:
In early January I bought an A119S with GPS mount. Everything worked great, and I've been using it with the same 32 gig card the entire two months I've owned it.

On Monday, I captured an accident and needed to pull the footage. I did what I have always done previously: remove the SD card after the camera has powered off, put the card in my PC's card reader, pull the file, replace SC card in camera while still powered off.

The next day, when my dashcam powered on, the screen turned blue and kept flashing "Please insert TF card" while beeping. If I hit the menu button while the message isn't displayed, I can access the menu, but when I select "Format" it says "No card". Other devices still read the card without issue

I've tried formatting the card to FAT32 using both the Windows utility and suggesting formatting utilities with no luck. I've also tried multiple SD cards in the dashcam and it won't read those either.

As a last resort I tried resetting the dashcam. This also didn't resolve the issue.

Is there anything else I should try before contacting the seller for a return, or is this thing really dead?
Click to expand...
It's probably not the camera. You should try another card first. Test the card with h2testw program as well.
 
CaptureYourAction said:
It's probably not the camera. You should try another card first. Test the card with h2testw program as well.
Click to expand...

I have tried several other cards, none of them work in the camera but all work fine in other devices.
 
See of these links and info may get you going again:

When using a large capacity SD Card like the 64Gb or 128Gb that you mentioned, it needs to be specially formatted in order to work fully with the camera. This may be preventing you from recording. We have a written guide available at the following link:http://support.spytecinc.com/help/64gb-sd-card-formatting-guide , along with a video guidehttp://support.spytecinc.com/help/how-to-video-formatting-a-64gb-sd-card , available on our support website. Both will give you detailed and illustrated steps to complete the formatting. Once the formatting is done, please reinsert the SD Card into your camera, and you should be able to start recording. If the issue continues though, please feel free to let us know

Sent from my XT1635-01 using Tapatalk
 
Some have had issues with Samsung in the A119. Avoid SanDisk. Transcend should be good though. Is it a 400X series? What size?
 
TxDoc said:
See of these links and info may get you going again:

When using a large capacity SD Card like the 64Gb or 128Gb that you mentioned, it needs to be specially formatted in order to work fully with the camera. This may be preventing you from recording. We have a written guide available at the following link:http://support.spytecinc.com/help/64gb-sd-card-formatting-guide , along with a video guidehttp://support.spytecinc.com/help/how-to-video-formatting-a-64gb-sd-card , available on our support website. Both will give you detailed and illustrated steps to complete the formatting. Once the formatting is done, please reinsert the SD Card into your camera, and you should be able to start recording. If the issue continues though, please feel free to let us know

Sent from my XT1635-01 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I already followed those exact guides. That's what I was referring to when I said I used suggested formatting utilities.
 
Well this is very strange. I left it alone to eat dinner, and came back to try out some other card brands (PNY and Kingston), and now ALL the cards are working, even the ones that wouldn't previously.

Literally nothing is different between the last time I tried the 32 GB Samsung, the Sandisk, or Transcend cards and now. But magically they are all working.
 
That's great. Better than not working and knowing why, but can't fix it [emoji106][emoji53]

Sent from my XT1635-01 using Tapatalk
 
Presently testing some Emtech 64Gb cards with h2testw. Is it OK to format with Windows 10 and select 32 bit format?
 
David 777 said:
Presently testing some Emtech 64Gb cards with h2testw. Is it OK to format with Windows 10 and select 32 bit format?
Click to expand...
There is no FAT32 option on windows, you can use GUIFORMAT tool to format the card.
 
Thanks will download that utility. Installed the new A119S yesterday and the microSD cards were not playing well. Tested them with H2testw and come up OK, so will now format them as prescribed.
 
Formatted 64Gb Emtech cards as per http://support.spytecinc.com/help/64gb-sd-card-formatting-guide and now my A119s plays with the microSD cards perfectly. Sometimes have issues with the microSD cards in my Android tablet with massive *.ECW files so will format them the same way. Many thanks.
Perhaps these instructions for formatting the microSD cards should be at the front of the A119S instruction manual.
 
Question about the 64GB cards, if I may.... I know about formatting with guiformat, which works well.. but when I start using the 64GB card in the cam, do I let the camera format the card? Will the camera still format it correctly, or should I take it out and do a guiformat when reminded?
 
Having trouble with Emtec 64Gb microSD cards. Use between 16Gb to 28Gb and then fail.
Does it help if you format the cards in the program Fat32 Format with a different allocation unit size See there is 8 offerings in the drop down dialogue box. Presently using the default 32768.
Would like to get these Emtec working or will have to order from eBay - my nearest and usual store.

If going to have to buy new microSD cards, are 32Gb more reliable and more durable than 64Gb?
Presently only using 30FPS
 
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