Changing SD cards in the SDS100 and 200

[shansmi]

Hey folks, I took yet another plunge after reading another thread. It mentioned the units being fast to load and boot when using a higher class SD card. This is true and it is noticeable. Now for me the 100 has always loaded faster than the 200. Just watching the units boot ignoring everything but the favorites loading up, the 100 loads faster and always has. The 100 being faster in general I have always chalked up to the extra features on the 200 that are not there on the 100 like LAN and extra USB ports - post just takes longer, fact of life.

Now I did not run to the store and purchase more cards. I had 2 house brand cards from MicroCenter. 16G class 10 cards is what I had so that is what I used. It was harder getting the entire card into one volume within Windows than doing the Uniden stuff. For some reason on 200MB on each card was allocated. Just a "format" did not correct this issue. I had to use disk management widget in Windows. To find it in Win11 and Win10:

Right Click on this PC and choose Manage. Under Computer Management look for Storage then select Disk Management. Now be careful here as ALL disks on you machine will be listed. In the bottom area look for the external USB drive, it will show at least one volume that may or may not be the size of the entire card. If it is the size of the entire card you are good to go. if it is not, right click on each portion of the disk and select "delete volume" after all of them are done the drive should consolidate into ONE full sized un-allocated volume. All you need to do now is format that volume and follow the prompts. Be sure to delete the volume name in the first prompt. Now you are ready to to the Uniden stuff in Sentinel.

Here is what I did:

SDS100/SDS200: - How to Copy OEM SDS100 SD Card to other SanDisc 32gb SD Cards for multiple spare backups?

Will appreciate some Three Stooges caveman comprehension level "slowly I turned step by step" instructions or link to YouTube video, if any exist. How do I copy what was on the OEM SDS100 SD Card, that also had some local programming done to it by the seller, > to a new formatted 32gb card I...

forums.radioreference.com

Insert the SD card into a SD card reader on your PC.

If necessary, format it. If using windows to format it un-check the quick format box. Don't change anything else. By un-checking the quick format you don't need the SD card formatter utility.

Launch Sentinel
Go to Scanner menu
Select Clear User Data
Browse to the SD card you want to put a copy of your scanner files on (have to click display all drives)
Click OK.
Now go to Scanner menu again
Click write to scanner
Browse to your SD card
Click OK



Hope this helps other interested in making this same change. For me yes it was a noticeable change. Load a fav list is the easiest way to see the difference.

 

[RandyKuff]

If you want to copy your scanners SD card to a new card...
Using the scanner in Mass Storage mode or a card reader with the scanners card...
Locate it in Windows Explorer...
Open the drive and right click on the BCDx36HP folder and click Copy...
Swap in your new card and Paste it to the new card... It's that simple...

If you need to reformat any of your sd cards you should use this...

SD Memory Card Formatter for Windows/Mac | SD Association

www.sdcard.org

New cards are already preformatted...

 

[shansmi]

New cards are already preformatted...

My cards were previously formatted but incorrectly for whatever reason. My guess is they were in a camera and the camera format option did what it did to both cards... put a 200MB volume on each card leaving teh rest as an un-allocated volume. Strange but it is what it is. No need for the Memory Card Formatter as Windows handles it just fine. Just make sure you use exFAT and not FAT or NTFS. I agree with the draq and drop though IF all you are doing is changing cards. If corruption is suspected this is the best way assuming the corruption is not in or caused by Sentinel.

 

[RandyKuff]

 

[RandyKuff]

By the way, I have USB flash drives that I reformated to NTFS because of video file sizes I deal with sometimes...

I didn't say it wouldn't work with windows formating it, just said it is not advised...

 

[shansmi]

hmm... we shall see. no difference in disk size after another format with that tool. other than formatting with that tool the remainder of the procedure is the same...

Also I am not sure how that tool would deal with the unallocated volume issue I was faced with. that may remain the same as well then format once the disk space is in one contiguous block.

 

[RandyKuff]

If you have a corrupt card... You can try reformatting it... The whole card, not a quick format...
That can be done in the scanner or card reader...
If the card is in the scanner or card reader open Sentinel and Clear User Data... All that does is clear the card and give it the files needed to run...
Then wright to the scanner and your done...

 

[RandyKuff]

Just sayin, there is no reason to have to go into "Disk Management"...
That partition does not hurt a thing... The scanner won't even see it... And your not gaining that much by removing it...
The size of the card (32gig max recommended by Uniden) is overkill anyway... unless your doing a horrendous amount of audio recording...
And I mean weeks of recording... With a 32g card...

 

[ofd8001]

Agreed. Unless there are no other options, any formatting/clear user data I do is with a card reader. It goes much faster. The only exception is with portable scanners and going to that level. It is a "delicate" process to remove SD cards from them. But I've never needed to reformat one.

Load times also are impacted by the number of Favorites Lists opened.

 

[shansmi]

Agreed. Unless there are no other options, any formatting/clear user data I do is with a card reader. It goes much faster. The only exception is with portable scanners and going to that level. It is a "delicate" process to remove SD cards from them. But I've never needed to reformat one.

Load times also are impacted by the number of Favorites Lists opened.

Agreed on load times but what really matters is scan time and that is dependent on the number of departments/sites not systems.

I run the same favorites lists on 2 scanners with only one of them active on boot. this makes it easy to watch them load for comparison purposes. much faster on class 10 card as one would expect compared to a class 6 card.

Just sayin, there is no reason to have to go into "Disk Management"...
That partition does not hurt a thing... The scanner won't even see it... And your not gaining that much by removing it...
The size of the card (32gig max recommended by Uniden) is overkill anyway... unless your doing a horrendous amount of audio recording...
And I mean weeks of recording... With a 32g card...

I found 2 more 16G class 10 cards. for giggles I started with the cards in the scanner - WAY too long for a full format. after 2 hours it was like at 30% so I aborted it and inserted the card into the laptop where a full format was done in 20 minutes. On top of that the formatter app dealt with the unallocated space just fine vs doing it in Windows. these new cards also had been in a camera with a 200MB partition and the remainder was an unallocated volume.

no change in volume size with this tool compared to when Win11 did the other 2 cards.

 

[ofd8001]

Load time is more of a total Favorites List size rather than just number of Departments/Sites. One could have a lot of Unit IDs with a large statewide system, which increases the size of the Favorites List file.

 

[JoeBearcat]

It is also based on what is /enabled/ for scanning. You can have 100 FLs, but if only two are enabled, only those two will load which will be much faster than loading all 100.