Removing City Nav Europe from nuvi 270

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I think from your description that you've used CN EU on your Etrex, so it's tied to that, and CN NA is linked to your nuvi?

If so you can remove the maps from your nuvi and then move the maps across from the card to your nuvi. If you can confirm my first sentence is correct we can then explain what files to move and delete.

I'm trying to figure out what you wanted to do and what you did.

Your nuvi 270 is an older model GPS that came with both City Navigator North America and Europe pre-installed but without lifetime map updates. The etrex 20 was purchased with neither City Navigator.

What did you purchase? If you want City Navigator Europe for the etrex, you'd want to buy the full CN Europe map and if you wanted to update the North America map on the nuvi, you'd want to buy a numaps One-Time CN North America Map Update (not the full City Navigator North America). Are these what you bought or did you buy something else?

As I understand what you wrote, the newly purchased CN Europe was mistakenly installed to the nuvi rather than the etrex. A full CN Europe is a fresh map installation and can only be installed to one device. Attempting to install or transfer it to a different device will result in an 'unable to unlock map' error so if I understand what you did, the Europe map installation was already performed on the nuvi (where an earlier CN Europe map already existed) and the newly purchased Europe map can not be installed or transferred to a different device.

Regarding the CN North America map, I'm unclear as to whether you bought the full CN North America map or a numaps One-Time North America map update. In any event, with the nuvi 270 already having an earlier version of North America present, and with either an older or newer Europe map also present, and with the nuvi 270 being just a 4GB device, the new North America map (or numaps Map Update) would not have had sufficient space to install internally on the nuvi and would have been installed to a SD card for use with the nuvi.

I expect that I've made one or more assumptions that are incorrect and need you to straighten things out.

Could you tell us what you have installed right now to both devices?

In the nuvi with the SD card installed, tap Tools/Settings/Map/MapInfo, then tell us exactly what you see. Include all maps available and include all text for each map; e.g. CN North America NT 2016.20.

In the etrex (with its SD card if there is one), tell us again what maps you now see installed.

Also, please tell us which versions of the new map purchases you made: full version, update version, and whether they were the DVD, Download,or SD-card versions.

I do fear: 1) that you may have purchased the wrong version of North America if you purchased the full map and not the One-Time map update and 2), if the new map purchase intended for the etrex was mistakenly installed to the nuvi, you have already installed it to its one device and it can not be transferred or installed to a different device.

One final thought. The One-Time map update's cost is close enough to the numaps Lifetime map update that the One-Time purchase is rarely a good choice economically. the numaps Lifetime map update is generally a preferable purchase for older nuvis that were purchased without lifetime map updates.

Re-reading your first post, I wonder if you maybe already succeeded in installing the City Navigator Europe map purchase to your etrex and all is working well with it.

If so, then maybe there's some confusion only with the nuvi. Since the nuvi 270 came from the factory with both North America and Europe maps preinstalled, you may be thinking you installed the new Europe map on the nuvi while actually not having done that but you are just seeing the old original Europe map that came with the nuvi right out of the box.

If so, then you may have installed your CN North America 2016.20 map (I'm still confused if this was a full map purchase, a one-time map update, or a lifetime map update purchase) to the 270 and due to lack of space for the the full update, it was installed to a SD card to be used with the nuvi. If this is true, it may be possible to remove the Europe map from the nuvi 270 making more room internally and to then have room to move the North America 2016.20 map file from the SD card to the nuvi. Before doing this, you really need to make a computer backup of the entire nuvi 270 and the nuvi 270's SD card. Only then start looking or tinkering with files.

Once you have made the backups, look at the contents of the nuvi and its SD card and tell us the file names of all files ending in .img and .unl. Once we know a bit more, we may be able to help you in your quest. You will be moving, deleting and renaming files and we all want to be certain of what's to be done and that you have a backup on a computer hard drive in case we need to revert to an earlier configuration.

Last thoughts:

The nuvi 270 came with preinstalled maps of North America and Europe. Do you really want to remove one of these maps from the nuvi?

The 2016.20 North America map can work well with your nuvi 270 with the map files on the SD card. Do you really feel it necessary to move the 2016.20 map from the SD card to the nuvi if space is made available in the nuvi?

You are correct I purchased the nuvi a long time ago and have used to for many years and it came with the City Navigator North America, which I updated once a few years ago. Last year a purchased the City Navigator Europe as a microSD card for my eTrex which I use when traveling oversees. In January of this year I purchased an update of City Navigator North America for my nuvi. At the time I had both devices plugged into my computer as I was download info off of my eTrex from my travel this fall. As it was trying to update the City Navigator North America I received a message that I needed to insert a SD card into my nuvi because there was not enough memory to perform the update. I did this, however, after the City Navigator North America update was complete I found out I had City Navigator Europe on my internal memory for my nuvi and the updated City Navigator North America on the SD card. What I would like to do is remove the City Navigator Europe from my nuvi and simply install the City Navigator North America on the internal memory.
I hope this clears up any questions you may have. Sorry but I am still a somewhat newbie to all of this.

Thanks, that helps a lot. By the way, welcome to The Factory!

Although you don't mention seeing it before, your nuvi 270 always had both City Navigator North America and City Navigator Europe on it. Europe's map appearance in the nuvi was not something you had done. The 270 was an unusual nuvi when it came out since it was shipped with 4GB of storage and two City Navigator maps.

https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/on-the-road/discontinued/nuv...

We can probably help even though I expect none to few of us have ever owned or used a 270. To help, you need to give us some help as requested earlier:

... it may be possible to remove the Europe map from the nuvi 270 making more room internally and to then have room to move the North America 2016.20 map file from the SD card to the nuvi. Before doing this, you really need to make a computer backup of the entire nuvi 270 and the nuvi 270's SD card. Only then start looking or tinkering with files.

Once you have made the backups, look at the contents of the nuvi and its SD card and tell us the file names of all files ending in .img and .unl. Once we know a bit more, we may be able to help you in your quest. You will be moving, deleting and renaming files and we all want to be certain of what's to be done and that you have a backup on a computer hard drive in case we need to revert to an earlier configuration.

In addition to the .img and .unl files, also look for and report on files ending in .gma

My guess right now, which I don't want you to act on, is that you will have two large .img files in the nuvi, one for North Am and one for Europe. I expect that we will have you delete the one for Europe making more room for NA in the nuvi itself. We'll then either have you reinstall NA or possibly rename the NA map and unlock files on the SD card and move it to the nuvi. With luck, even with the SD card removed, you may then have CN NA 2016.20 in your nuvi ready to use. I did find one link describing the nuvi 270 and its map files:

http://www.justanswer.com/gps/5llmy-garmin-nuvi-270-eu-na-li...

We still aren't clear as to which North America 2016.20 map you purchased. It could be any of these and we'd like to know which:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001PKTFM8/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_d...

http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-n%C3%BCMaps-Onetime-Navigator-A...

http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-010-11551-00-Navigator-North-Am...

I'm guessing that you bought the second. The first would have been (and will be in the future if you plan to update your map more than 2-3 times) a better deal in the long run. I hope you did not buy the third link since that's designed for Garmin devices that did not already have North America installed.

Good luck.

PS: since you bought the City Navigator Europe card from Garmin on the SD card, you can swap the card between the nuvi and etrex as long as you use the original Garmin-made SD card. You can not make a copy of the SD card's files on a different SD card and use that card any any Garmin device.

Thank you for your reply and help. I did the search that you suggested and found the following:
On the nuvi
gmapbmap.img - 19.4MB
gmappon1.img - 1.36GM

on the SD
gmapsup1.gma - 2.53KB
gmapsup1.img - 2.32GB

none of the other files extensions were found on either nuvi or SD card.
I purchased the following: Download: nüMaps Onetime™ City Navigator® North America NT

So would the next step be to remove the files from the nuvi then try to reinstall the City Navigator?

OK. First, make sure you have backed up your entire nuvi and SD card to your computer hard drive. If something critical gets deleted from the nuvi/SD, a backup will allow you a very good chance of a recovery.

Second, accept the risk that in a worst case scenario, you will end up with a paperweight for your desk. As I've said earlier, I've never seen a nuvi 270 and it's unlikely that many users here at The Factory have either. It'd be nice to hear from others to see if they agree with what I have written below.

Third, when inserting/removing the SD card, do so only when the nuvi is powered down, and when connecting/disconnecting the nuvi to/from the computer, be sure to Safely Remove or Eject the nuvi. Also, it'd be very handy to keep a list of what you've done: deleting files, moving or copying files, renaming files. This will give you the ability to restore the nuvi to what you had before you started tinkering.

The gmapbmap.img is your global Basemap. The nuvi needs this map so leave the file. Make sure that you have stashed the Garmin-made SD card you bought that contains City Navigator Europe—you don't want to accidentally tinker with files from this SD card.

With the nuvi powered up and SD card present, go to your nuvi's MapInfo page and write down all available maps and know which are checked.

Ready? Here are my thoughts:

You mentioned that City Navigator North America 2016.20 (let's call it CNNA) was installed to the SD card and the card's gmapsup1.img is about the right size for a North America map so it's probably the CNNA map. I suggest you remove the SD card, power up the nuvi, then go to the MapInfo page on the nuvi. Tell us if the CNNA map is gone and the CN Europe map is still present. Power down, reinsert the SD, and connect to your computer.

The 1.36GB file you found (gmappon1.img) may be the Europe map. Here's a way to safely test the theory. Rename the gmappon1.img file to by adding a 2nd extension: gmappon1.img.disabled

Disconnect from the computer, power up the nuvi, go to MapInfo and see if the North America map is present (from the SD card) and the Europe map is gone. If Europe is gone, then it is the gmappon1.img.disabled file so you can go back with the computer attached to the nuvi and delete the entire gmappon1.img. disabled file. (You do still have a backup of the old gmappon1.img file safely stored on the computer hard drive, right?!) Look for any other gmappon1 files. I expect there will be a gmappon1.unl and possibly a gmappon1.sum file. These also can be deleted.

At this point, you should have a nuvi/SD device that contains only the CNNA map on the MapInfo page and if you look at the nuvi as a drive with the computer, the drive should show well over 1GB of free space in the 4GB drive and you will have succeeded in your goal of removing CN Europe from the nuvi.

Your next step is to get the CNNA map on the nuvi rather than the SD card. There are a few ways this could be done and I ask advice from others here as to which may be best:

-Use your OneTime Map Update again and try to install the map. With the extra space on the nuvi, you should now not get the suggestion that the map will need to be installed to a SD card as you did before. You may get a warning that CNNA was already installed and ask you to confirm you want to do the reinstallation. If any other error or message appears, tell us exactly what it says. If successful, you should be able to remove the SD card when the nuvi is powered down, then restart and see the CNNA 2016.20 as the sole map in the nuvi's MapInfo page and have a fully functional nuvi with the North American map.

-Instead of using the OneTime map update, you could try copying the SD card's gmapsup1 files to the nuvi placing them in the folder where the old gmappon1.img file was (but which you've already removed). The copying will include the very large gmapsup1.img file, the tiny gmapsup1.gma file, and even though you say you didn't see one, the gmapsup1.unl file. This copying of the files from the SD card to the nuvi will take a LONG time so don't panic if the computer's still copying 45 minutes later. With luck, when done and without the SD card, you should have CNNA in your MapInfo page and have a functional nuvi with a map of North America. It may be needed to rename the gmapsup1 to a different name and we can cross that bridge later if needed. If you get a 'can not unlock map' error, it means the .unl file is missing and if 'no routable maps' error arises, it may mean that the CNNA map on the nuvi's MapInfo page is not checked.

When finally successful, you should have the nuvi with only the North America map and the etrex with the Garmin Europe SD card and both work well. At this point, remember that if you ever want to, you can take the Garmin SD card from the etrex and install it in the nuvi and now have a nuvi with both the internal North America map and the SD card map of Europe.

I am using the filenames you provided. It may well be that your gmappon1 file is really gmapprom1 and if so, proceed using the latter name. You don't show any .unl files and this surprises me. I expect that both your current gmappon1 and gmapsup1 files have a .unl file (tiny) along with the very large .img files. Double check to see if you can find them now. If the .unl file is there, it's needed to avoid a 'can not unlock map' error.

Anyone else with ideas, corrections, suggestions, etc?

Craig, makes sense to me and very detailed. I agree that gmappon1 is almost certainly gmapprom1. Older nuvis were severely limited to the names that could be used so whatever the file name is is what should be used or it's likely it won't work.

I wanted to get back to you and let you know it worked! Thank you for all your help.

Thanks for the report!