How to check if micro card is working

**laurence ped** · 20th August 2017, 09:13 AM

Hi everyone. I have just bought my first GPS device, a Garmin GPSMAP64 , so I'm a complete beginner.
Since the device did not come with any GB maps, I bought a cheap Garmin GB Discoverer on ebay.
It's from Germany and is on a micro SD card.
The card works in the sense that it registers on both the device and on Basecamp on my PC.
But I cannot do anything with it.
On Basecamp, for instance, I click on 'East England', say, expecting a 1;25000 OS map to display on the Basecamp screen, but nothing happens.
The same with the device if I choose 'East England' from ' setup maps'.
What do I have to do to get the maps to open?
Are they locked in some way? Is the card faulty, which is why it was so cheap?
Any advice or instruction would be much appreciated.
Thanks, Laurence

**dasilvarsa** · 20th August 2017, 02:46 PM

Is the card formatted to Fat 32 or FAT ?
Copy a GPI file to the card to see if it works.

**laurence ped** · 20th August 2017, 04:30 PM

Hi Dasilvarsa. Thanks for your reply.
As I say, I'm a beginner, so I don't know what a GPI file is or how to copy it to the micro SD.
I'd be grateful if you could just tell me whether, if the card works, I should be able to actually open the maps and see what i would see with a paper map.
When I connect the device to the PC and the micro card maps appear in the Basecamp map list and I click on 'East England', for example, is the map supposed to open on the screen to show East England?
What I'm asking, really, is whether there is some way I can check whether the micro card is as it should be, so that the problem lies with my ignorance.
Is there something I should be doing, like unlocking the maps or using map installer, or whatever?
If the card is faulty then I need to know so that I can send it back.
I don't know if it's relevant but the card when plugged into the PC shows 15 files, three for each of East England, North England, North Scotland, South Scotland, West England and Wales.
For each of these there is a GMA file, An IMG file( about 3 GB) and a UNL file.
Cheers, Laurence

Thanks again, Laurence

**Boki** · 21st August 2017, 09:00 PM

GPI:

Code:

Please Login or Register to see the links

how to

Code:

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or just download it from somewhere

Only, when you buy from unofficial sources, there is a big chance that content on it is fake. Even card could be fake.
But, first, setup your PC to show both of hidden and system files, then check content on card.

**osiris4isis** · 21st August 2017, 11:55 PM

Originally Posted by laurence ped

Hi Dasilvarsa. Thanks for your reply.
As I say, I'm a beginner, so I don't know what a GPI file is or how to copy it to the micro SD.
I'd be grateful if you could just tell me whether, if the card works, I should be able to actually open the maps and see what i would see with a paper map.
When I connect the device to the PC and the micro card maps appear in the Basecamp map list and I click on 'East England', for example, is the map supposed to open on the screen to show East England?
What I'm asking, really, is whether there is some way I can check whether the micro card is as it should be, so that the problem lies with my ignorance.
Is there something I should be doing, like unlocking the maps or using map installer, or whatever?
If the card is faulty then I need to know so that I can send it back.
I don't know if it's relevant but the card when plugged into the PC shows 15 files, three for each of East England, North England, North Scotland, South Scotland, West England and Wales.
For each of these there is a GMA file, An IMG file( about 3 GB) and a UNL file.
Cheers, Laurence

Thanks again, Laurence

.gpi are Garmin user's POI or alert compiled (binary) file. It has nothing to do with the map data on your card; it's just small so I'm guessing it's an easy test to see if your card format is correct.
The map data on the card might not be unlocked. Those .gma and .unl files are needed to use the map data with a particular device (which probably not yours) I would recommend you first make sure that your card is in correct format, then check if the map data are unlocked.