Garmin Express not offering to use SD card for map update

could Garmin Express be complaining about the memory on your computer C: drive and not about the memory on the unit? We have seen other reports about Express refusing a map update because of insufficient space on the C: drive (Windows computers obviously). This has been a thorn about Garmin Express for a long time especially for folks with limited space on C: SSD drives on their computer. Have you by any chance tried the update on a different computer?

It is a good idea alandb, because I too know issues like that can happen (such as with Windows updates), but my computer's C: drive is only about half full.

But there is good news for me and everyone who has helped with this issue in my next post...

I'm turning blue. Hurry!

My guess is that you've done a clone.

I predict that when the battery was charged, the map update ran perfectly!

dobs108

I like that idea.

My problem was that I was unable to update to the latest North America maps on my Garmin Drive 50 LMT GPS's internal drive, because I had only two *megabytes* of free space on an internal drive with 3.3 GB even after deleting my custom POIs. For this reason, Garmin Express would not update and also balked at accessing a microSD card I added to the drive to do the update. This problem is now resolved, and following is a solution that worked for me.

It is very possible that my problem would have been resolved if I had cloned a map update onto the microSD card, or if I had only renamed the map file, as suggested. I did not get to test those solutions before I resolved it by removing the previous version, 2 GB map file from the internal memory of the GPS. This freed up enough space on the internal hard drive so that Garmin Express would perform the update.

In more detail for any later lurker having this same issue, I needed to do the following to resolve my issue:

I added an aftermarket microSD card to the tiny card slot in the back of the GPS, no more than 32 GB as allowed for my Drive 50 LMT GPS. (Maximum allowed capacity of other GPS models' card slots can vary. Search Garmin customer support for your model before buying a card. Actually as you'll see below, even a 2GB microSD card may have been big enough for my GPS model map update, though I didn't test that.) My 32 GB microSD card was reformatted in Windows 10 File Explorer with Quick Format **unchecked,** File system set to FAT32, and Allocation unit size changed to "Default." This reformatting takes maybe 15 minutes for a 32 GB SD card, not a few seconds. It is possible no reformatting or a Quick Format would still work, but if not, consider using the Format settings above.

For safety before proceeding, since I was going to edit files on the GPS internal drive, I performed a full system backup of the Garmin internal drive to my Windows Desktop, which I could recover in the event my GPS stopped working. Note that using the Garmin Express backup feature does NOT perform a full GPS system backup. Search page 1 of this thread for "jgermann FAQ" for complete instructions on doing a full system backup. My instructions above for a full system backup omit a key step, and I can't edit that post now to fix it; but my omission is "step 6" as detailed on page 1 of this thread.

On the Garmin internal drive, in its .system folder (if you can't see that, search page 1 of this thread for "step 6" instructions), using Windows File Explorer, right-click and Cut the file named gmapprom.img (careful; there are other similarly named files; on my GPS, this file was 2 GB big), and Paste this file to another location such as the Windows Desktop. This frees up enough space on the GPS internal drive to satisfy Garmin Express.

It was also key to have a mostly-charged internal battery on the Garmin GPS. Garmin Express will refuse to try to update a GPS with an almost-depleted battery, even if the GPS is being charged simultaneously. (Note that this was NOT my only issue; I had to do all of the above first, and by that time, my battery was depleted enough to stop an update. Charging the battery for a few hours enabled the update to finally get done.) However if Garmin Express says it is unable to perform a map update and you can see your GPS battery is mostly depleted, try charging it FIRST before trying all the above, because it is possible that is the only thing blocking your update.

So I went from Map Lower 49 States and FourSquare 2020.20 to Map Lower 49 States and FourSquare 2021.10, and GPS "Software Version" 5.90.

Oh most of the update was added to the internal hard drive of the Garmin GPS. How much of that 32 GB microSD card is being used by the current version of software and maps? 300 MB. After the usual overhead and unusable space on the card is subtracted, I still have over 29 GB free space!! Well the good news is I might be able to load every POI Factory POI file here on that card.

Many many thanks to all who offered assistance in getting this fixed!!

Good to know, and well done for persevering. Often the problem in resolving these issues on forums is when there are multiple issues like you appear to have had, so there often isn't a one shot fix

In addition to perseverance, Lost Anyway's responses were very helpful in being so complete. Lost Anyway could be called the poster child of being helpful: when suggestions are made by others, address all the questions, what you've done, and what your results were; when discussing the issue at hand and what's been attempted so far, be thorough; etc. (I wish we had a Thumbs Up Smiley which I'd post here.) Ah, maybe Lost Anyway could be this week's COW.

Have you tried,
Create a folder on SD card called "GARMIN" all caps
Then copy map file to Garmin folder
Insert card, then change where gps looks for maps in system
Uncheck other versions of maps or it may conflict
Just a thought!

Did you read the entire discussion or just read page 2 at the very least?

Great to know. Thanks