Will Alerts work from the SD Card

if the proximity is set on the best buy poi and you pop within the proximity, it will alert whether on the card or internal mem.

The answer is yes, the alerts work on a proximity so when you are near, the alarm will go off. One solution (lol) would be to have a "Best Buy sd card" and only insert it when you are going to Best Buy.
Note also that in the past, several users (myself included) have reported that with traffic and red light cameras, the alarm seemed to be delayed compared with running it internally. For that reason, I keep my traffic alerts internal to the unit and my other POI's (without alarms) on the sd card.

Was tring to find out why people here was saying to put alerts on the internal drive over the sd card.. I just thought it did not work on SD.. Thanks for clearing that up.. That makes sense.. I am sure that the gps unit reads internal first then external..

If you put the poi's on the unit then does it not get confusing doing updates where you wnat some files on the SD card and others on the unit. When you do updates the total file is replaced, is it not.

If you want to keep a particular custom poi file from being over-written, just rename it after you load it, from poi.gpi to (whatever).gpi then it won't be overwritten since they always load as poi.gpi

Your nuvi will read anyname.gpi and they will show in the extras / custom poi's

Also the POI Loader lets you pick whether you load to the nuvi or sd card.

No, they do not get replaced. Using POI Loader (beta) you go through a separate load for the internal or SD cards. It prompts for the name of the folder. On my PC, I have two folders, one named internal and the other external which contain the appropriate files.
You can further extend this with additional SD cards, so that you have different SD cards with specific files.

The reply was very helpful. I did try it and it works well on my Nuvi 660.

I load POI files in SD card but my unit does not alert me. I did go to proximity points set up audio alert -continous all alerts. Please help!

I have been fighting this alert thing and finally figured out with the help of horn. Here is the deal. The prox. alerts go by road, not by "as the crow flies". I had mine set for 1/2 and it never alerted. I figured out why. The location (according to the GPS) was on the other side of the 4 lane hwy and you had to do a U turn. So that made it more then 1/2 mile. If something isn't alerting, check the directions from the GPS and see how far it is from your location. I bet it is higher then your threshold for alerts. Also, I couldn't figure out why it would do some schools and not others. Well the school in question is in a middle of a field with no road access (according to the GPS) so I am figuring that is why it never alerts.

Bottom Line: You may have to adjust your POI's Lat and Long to correct the position, or you will have to increase the distance. I have increased mine to 3/4 and it works.

I agree with what mkahn said.

I will add that with a my Nuvi still has about 600 MB free memory after maps (YMMV), so I'm putting things that are actual GPS things like POIs internally and keeping my things like MP3s and JPEG photos (except a few for the splash screen) on the SD card.

FYI I currently have an approx. 1.3 MB POI file -- Airports, VORs, and red light cameras. I still have a lot of room for my own waypoints and for POI files. When I run out of room, I will probably adapt mkahn's scheme, but that will be a while.

I realize that not all GPSs have such generous internal memory for essential POIs but my theory is that if I have the memory those are exactly the kinds of things I want in internal memory and not on the card.

Hi all - I just bought my first GPS - a Nuvi 350.

I just inserted a new 1 gb SD card in the Nuvi and the POI loader is not recognising it. More specifically, it shows up in POI loader as "Removable Disk" but I get an error after it tries to write to the card.

I have 3 questions .... 1) is there a specific folder structure and/or a name for the SD card? 2) is there a config somewhere on the Nuvi that tells it to read/format a new SD card? 3) once I get the new card to be recognized, can I also put pictures and MP3 on it that the Nuvi will recognize?

Also, with teh SD card in the Nuvi, Windows Explorer sees a "removable disk" but does not allow me to open it and save files.

Any help or direction will be much appreciated.
Thanks.

Create a folder named Garmin.

If you have the SD card locked, you can not write file to the card. There is a small tab on the card, slide it forward to unlock the card.

The SD is unlocked. I can write to it using Win Explorer when I use the SD card with an external reader/writer.

UPDATE - i created 3 folders "Garmin", "JPEG", & "MP3".
POI loader works by writing the poi.gpi file to the SD when connected via an external writer but NOT when the SD is in the Nuvi. Also, inserting the SD in the Nuvi after POI loader is successful still does not work in the Nuvi (that is, I do not see the "Custom POI" option). Also, pictures and MP3 files from the SD are not list in the menu in the Nuvi.

Sounds like a bad card. Try reformatting it to FAT32.

turns out you may be right ... sort of. The SD card I was using was a microSD/TransFlash in the full SD sleve. Turns out that the Nuvi does not like that. I know the card works well because I can use it in my phone and on the PC just fine. I put in a 2GB regular SD and it worked right away.

Thanks all for your suggestions, etc. Along with info from others about using the SD for external storage, I'm gonna enjoy the flexibility.

Cheers.

Glad you got it worked out.

For everyone else reading, you need to be sure to use the proper card in your unit. A microSD card in the adapter won't take the place of a regular SD card.

Here's my question regarding the StreetPilot C330, if i want to write to the SD card, do i have to do it with a external reader/writer connected to a computer or can i insert it into the GPS and write to it through the USB?

Thanks in advance

Check out the info here c330 under related links.

The c330 cannot read custom poi from the sd card. It won't show up on your computer as a "mass storage device".

The gps models that are "seen" as a mass storage devices, can receive the poi data via the poi loader to the sd card.

You can put the new NT2008 maps on the SD card for your c330 via an external card reader/writer. I have done that. However, have not found any way to put POI's on it as some have suggested is possible. I put the Alaska and Canada maps on mine with the lower 48 being on the c330 itself. There is no way, I've found, to access the SD card when it's in the unit and attached to the computer.