Garmin Nuvi 1210 Won't See/Accept City Navigator Europe SD Card

Welcome to The Factory

Just checking--the 1210 was sold only in Europe and you don't say where you're from or where you are now. Please confirm you have a 1210.

I assume you've gone to the Map Info page on your nuvi where you see the current map that's installed to the nuvi itself. With the SD card installed, do you not see the new SD CN Europe being offered? If it's there, you may just need to uncheck the map built into the nuvi and check the new CN Europe map that's on the SD card to be able to use the new map.

Since the SD works in a friend's nuvi, this probably isn't an issue but can you confirm that this SD card with a Europe map is a genuine Garmin-SD card with map? (A Garmin SD card is designed to work in anyone's nuvi since the map is linked to the card while a map installed to a SD card will not work if it's a copy of a Garmin SD card or if it's a map installed to SD for a specific nuvi device and is trying to be used on a different device.)

Is your 1210's firmware up-to-date? (Use WebUpdater or Garmin Express to check and if needed, to update your device.)

Does your nuvi see any SD card inserted? If not, there could be a defect in your nuvi or its SD socket that needs to be resolved.

The Nuvi 1210 is sold exclusively in Europe according to Garmin so I assume that is where you're from.
Straight from Garmin:
"Sold exclusively in Europe, the ultra-thin nüvi 1210T comes with preloaded maps for a specific region or country on the continent and includes free traffic and hands-free calling."
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=30982&ra=true

I'm not familiar with the 1210 so it may be quite old. Some of the older Garmin units are unable to read maps larger than 2GB. If the Europe map you have is the full version, it would exceed the 2GB limit of your Nuvi. It may have worked in your friends Nuvi 200 since it doesn't have the same 2GB map limit.

Hi there I bought the nuvi 1210 on my last visit to the UK the map I have is 2013.30 which I purchased of ebay for my trip the map currently installed on the unit is UK and ireland 2009 I have tried 1 other map which I have for the unit garmin 2013.30 North America which seems to be on a 2gb sandisk card the europe map is on a 4gb sandisk is there a way to check if this 1210 can view maps over 2gb in size?
forgot to say I have also updated the firmware to the latest version

I don't know of any way you could check if the 1210 is capable of reading maps over 2GB. Garmin does not include that in any of their specifications.

You can check the gmapprom.img file on the 1210 that has the UK and Ireland (2009) to see if it larger than 2GB but I doubt it is that large for the area that is covered.

You say the Europe map you bought on Ebay is recognized by your friends Nuvi 200 works but not on your 1210. I would assume it's not the card and that your 1210 can't read the map because of it's size.
Not a good idea to purchase maps on Ebay, best to buy from a reliable vendor.

The North America map is definitely not larger than 2GB, so if you have a legally purchased map your 1210 should read it as long as you have it in the correctly named file and folder on the SD card.

The size of the SD card does not matter if 2GB or 4GB, if the map fits on it your Nuvi should read it.
I don't know the file structure on the 1210, but you can try creating a folder on the SD card named Garmin, naming the map to gmapsupp.img, then copy the gmapsupp.img into the Garmin folder.

Maybe somebody else on the forum is familiar with the European 1210 can give some better advice.

P.S. It would be helpful if you updated your profile to indicate where you are from and the Garmin units you own. It makes things easier when responding to posts.

Good idea, muell9k. movieboy, first check the ebay SD card to see if any file is over 2GB. If not, then there's no need to worry about the 1210's ability to read large files. And if there is a file over 2GB on the ebay SD card, then we really need someone with knowledge of whether the 1210 with latest firmware can read these large files.

PS--movieboy, it'd make things a lot easier for us to read if you used an occasional period or other punctuation mark or even some paragraph breaks between your thoughts in a post.