Nuvi 200 and SD card

You can use POI Loader to LOAD them onto the SD card. Just select it as the DESTINATION when POI Loader asks for that. The unit will read them just fine from there.

However, you can't just copy them (the CSV and GPX data files) to the SD card. The GPS unit will not read them as Custom POIs from there.

Ok, that makes sense. I knew the software had to compile them into a poi file. Thanks a bunch!

When you bring up POI Loader on about the 3rd screen it asks you about the target device. This is a drop-down box, so if an SD card is installed, you can select the SD card.

Once you have POI on the SD and turn on the Nuvi, a screen will come up telling you it has found new POI on the SD and ask if you want to load them into the device memory. Answer YES, then select DO NOT ASK AGAIN and SKIP. The POI will remain on the SD and you will not be prompted again until you load new POI on the card.

Clear as mud?

Looks as though MM was answering at the same time - same stuff, only different.

Slight error, a_user should have said 'Answer NO, then select DO NOT ASK AGAIN and SKIP."

Not on my 200.

I have to tell it I want to load the new POI otherwise it just exits and asks the next time I turn it on if I want to load the POI found on the SD card.

Cool, thanks for the help, guys. I haven't decided if I am going to buy a microSD card for my 200 (POIs don't take up that much space), but this is good information.

In general I would not rush to do it. I already had a spare microSD card, so I slipped it in my ne nivi. Put a bunch of POIs on it. But it was a pain to see the "want to download those new POIs to the nuvi?" message, and a little experimenting showed that if I did let it do that it would overwrite and delete any custon POIs that I already had in the nivi if they were in the standard named poi.gpi file. So I soon just put all my POIs on the nuvi, put a few photos on the SD card but that was about it. It's not even still in the nuvi, sitting in a desk drawer instead.

My suggestion would be to fill the nuvi first, then remove extra foreign language speech and text files and fill it again, remove the few built in photos that Garmin included if you have not done that already, and only then bother to get an SD card. That will also give you plenty of time to keep your eyes open for a killer deal on a card, no point in spending $20-30 for one at a local store when you can very likely get one from Newgee or Frys for around $4 with free shipping if you are patient.

Are you saying that seeing the question even one time bothered you, or did you not know how to tell it to quit asking?

I wish my Zumo had that option.

At first I didn't know how to make it quit asking me. by the time that I did I had decided that POIs were small, I had plenty of free megs of space in the nuvi (based on the "properties" data as seen by Windows) and I had not even bothered to clean of the foregin stuff yet, so I really saw no advantage to using the SD card this way.

Maybe if I had a huge number of POIs that I only wanted on the system when I traveled I would consider doing this (it does seem unlikely), but in general I have no reason to use the SD card.

If my unit supported mp3 playback then I certainly would use a SD card for that. And I'm glad the slot is there, if I had gotten the Tom Tom 125 that lacks the slot I would always think that I was missing some capability (although be very glad that I could correct maps myself and for free), but now that I have the slot and an available micro SD card, I just don't use it.

I think there is one big advantage to using a card for all add-ons, jpg, gpi, mp3, etc. With a card, you eliminate all the reported problems of deleting wrong files from the unit, corrupting files on the unit by disconnecting during a write. This is especially true for the novice user -- he can't get into trouble if he is only working on the card.

Does Garmin acknowledge that as a bug along with the mp3-alerts-and-mp3-song problem, the currency calculator problem, and the lightning bolts? Surely they didn't purposely delete that option just for the Zumo series . . . As long as people aren't refusing to buy their new models until they change their attitude about fixing stuff they broke, I suspect these problems have a pretty low priority.

Nice potted plants you have there.