I recently purchased a 4Gb SD card for my digital camera. It works great in my camera, but when I put it in the SD slot in my computer it doesn’t recognise it. Is there something wrong with the card?

Funnily enough, I ran into this problem myself a couple of months ago when we had a guest with an 8Gb card that he was using for his video camera. There’s nothing wrong with your card, but you will not be able to read it with your computer’s SD card slot because it uses a new format.

A few years ago SD cards were all the rage, but they could only reach a maximum of 2Gb. To address this limitation a new standard was devised called SDHC, with the HC standing for High Capacity. Cards could now accommodate higher capacities, BUT normal SD card readers would not be able to read these cards. Unfortunately as the SD slot is built into your computer there’s nothing you can do to read your card; but you could always invest in a new card reader.

I came across the Kingston 19-in-1 USD 2.0 Media Reader which could serve your purpose well. It’s currently on sale for $12.95 and reads a variety of different cards, including SDHC, miniSDHC and microSDHC; all different form factors for SD cards. The added bonus is that you can also read a variety of other cards too, so it’s a good investment.