{"id":2355,"date":"2013-12-26T13:45:01","date_gmt":"2013-12-26T04:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2013-12-26\/2355"},"modified":"2013-12-26T13:45:01","modified_gmt":"2013-12-26T04:45:01","slug":"recovering-from-an-osx-format-of-your-garmin-device","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2013-12-26\/2355","title":{"rendered":"Recovering from an OSX Format of your Garmin Device"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 70-200mm f\/2.8 @ 200mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>800 sec, f<\/span>\/22, ISO 5600 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nStill Searching<\/span>\nfor a Garmin product that doesn't suck\nat the Shogunzuka Overlook (\u5c06\u8ecd\u585a),<\/span> Kyoto Japan<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

I hate to have any negative articles on my blog, much less two in a row,\nbut wow, it's difficult to count how many ways Garmin's products are so\nmuch worse than they need to be, from devices designed for the pocket but\nwithout a way<\/span> to lock the buttons from being\nbumped in pocket, to worse-than-nothing “<\/span>features”<\/span> you can't\nturn off<\/a>, to memory-card slots buried behind batteries (really? How does one<\/span> screw up something as simple as a memory<\/span> card slot? Ask Garmin.), to any number of\nadditional “<\/span>what on earth are they\nthinking<\/i>?”<\/span> observations.<\/p>\n\n

From hardware to software to support, they have mediocrity covered.\n It seems<\/span> apparent that you don't have to bother\nwith common sense or quality when you don't have much competition.<\/p>\n\n

Anyway, this blog post is for the search engines, to help folks with the same problem I had.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

In short:<\/b><\/p>\n\n

If you formatted your Garmin flash drive on a Mac,<\/span> and now you get\n“<\/span>The update file is corrupted<\/b>”<\/span> when using Garmin's WebUpdater, even\nthough you've borrowed a Windows<\/span> box to redo the format with FAT32, and\neven placing a new<\/span> GCD file seems to be ignored... the solution is to\nformat using the method described here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 24mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>500 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 360 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nBell<\/span>\nat the Nishi Hongwanji Temple (\u897f\u672c\u9858\u5bfa),<\/span> Kyoto Japan\n<\/div>\n\n\n

As per that page, I used the “<\/span>rmpresub”<\/span> program, but finding the download link\nis difficult among the waterfall of ads. The download<\/span> link I\neventually<\/span> got to is this\none<\/a>, but to find it yourself visit http:\/\/www.rmprepusb.com\/<\/a> and then in\nthe left-hand nav select “<\/span>Latest RMPrepUSB versions + downloads”<\/span> then\nscroll down a bit<\/span> until you see a list.<\/span> It's the second<\/span> one.<\/p>\n\n

Find a Windows box and run that program while your unit is plugged in,\nand adjust the dialog as per the\nmethod description<\/a>. Then unplug the Garmin device and plug it back in,\nand now you can run WebUpdater.<\/p>\n\n

If this doesn't work, additional help can be found here<\/a>\nand here<\/a>,\nbut not here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 45mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>100 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 3200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nTemple Bridge at Dusk<\/span>\nat the Chion'in Temple (\u77e5\u6069\u9662), Kyoto Japan\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Garmin just sucks so bad<\/span>. They advertise their products as working with Mac, but\nthey can't handle being reformatted on a Mac,<\/span> as if they don't truly understand how to work\nwith flash memory as a disk.<\/span> (It's not “<\/span>as if”<\/span>, it's pretty clear that they don't<\/i>.)<\/p>\n\n

A web search shows an ocean of folks suffering this same problem, across\na wide<\/span> variety of Garmin products. Yet, when I contact<\/span> Garmin to ask how to\nfix it, they don't know what to do. At first<\/span> they sent me a Windows<\/span>\nexecutable to run, and when I told<\/span> them that hello, I'm on a<\/span> Mac, they sent\nme a “<\/span>you need a Windows<\/span> machine”<\/span> reply.<\/p>\n\n

I borrowed multiple Windows machines and tried their procedure, but it simply didn't work.\nDetermined not to reward them with an $80 fee to fix a problem<\/span> that arose from their ineptitude, I continued<\/span> digging until I found<\/span> the must-reformat-in-this-special-way procedure linked above.<\/p>\n\n

If Garmin had the slightest clue, the unit would do it itself the moment it discovered that the internal\nformat wasn't to its liking. Or, at least, Garmin's fix-it script would do that. Or, at least, Garmin\nwould have seen the multitude of folks running into this problem and have figured out the same procedure I found.<\/span>\nBut no, they're just idiots.<\/p>\n\n

I hate Garmin's inept design, but I haven't<\/span> found any other location logger that does what I want<\/span>\n(1Hz logging for 12+hours, and a display<\/span> that clearly shows the time and the current accuracy). Sigh.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>800 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 100 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nBackyard<\/span>\nat the Seifuso Villa (\u6e05\u98a8\u8358), Kyoto Japan\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hate to have any negative articles on my blog, much less two in a row, but wow, it's difficult to count how many ways Garmin's products are so much worse than they need to be, from devices designed for the pocket but without a way to lock the buttons from being bumped in pocket, to worse-than-nothing \"features\" you can't turn off, to memory-card slots buried behind batteries (really? How does one screw up something as simple as a memory card slot? Ask Garmin.), to any number of additional \"what on earth are they thinking?\" observations.<\/p>

From hardware to software [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,2,4,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2355"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}