My iMac won't recognize SD Card

I just bought my first digital camera—I know welcome to the 20th century. I am using an iMac that is about 2 years old or so, without a built-in SD slot, running OS 10.6.8 and I cannot get it to recognize a SanDisk 8gb SDHC card. I am using an external card reader which lights up, but I can't find it anywhere on my computer, it's not on the desktop or in Utillities. I have tried restarting with and without the card in the reader. I have zapped the PRAM. I don't quite know what else to do except start screaming—which may or may not help. I've searched the web and this seems to be a somewhat common problem, and I've tried much of what other people said helped them, but no luck. Any ideas????

Put the card back into the camera. plug the camera into the mac. Turn it on.
It should show up on the desktop.
-rob

I don't know about the efficacy of your iMac's SD slot, but if all you're genuinely interested in is reading from the camera's card, you can try to do what I have to do with my no SD slot, non–Intel iMac G5 (10.4) doorstopper. Leave the card in the camera, connect to the computer with a USB cable. The camera should mount on your desktop, as any other drive would, after a few moments. Drag the files (raw and/or JPG) over to your iMac's hard drive, brown and serve.



P.S. DAMN, Rob beat me to it. Just ignore everything I've said.

It does not show up on the desktop. Instead it opened Bridge-Photo Downloader, and I got the message "This device does not contain any supported media". I am trying to update firmware and need to copy a file to the SD card.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Robert Skeoch

Put the card back into the camera. plug the camera into the mac. Turn it on.
It should show up on the desktop.
-rob

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I might be stating the obvious, but make sure your Finder prefs say show Cds, Dvds and iPods on Desktop.

Peter

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Richard Wasserman

it's not on the desktop or in Utillities.

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Does it show up in the Finde? If you open iPhoto does it see it there?

Already checked that, thanks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Peter Mounier

I might be stating the obvious, but make sure your Finder prefs say show Cds, Dvds and iPods on Desktop.

Peter

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No to both

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Light Guru

Does it show up in the Finder? If you open iPhoto does it see it there?

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Check that your card reader firmware is SDHC compatible. Some older (and current cheaper) readers are only SD capable. Check if there's a firmware upgrade available. I had the same problem, and with no firmware upgrade available I simply bought another cheap SDHC capable reader on ebay.

Well, I just tried again for about the 1000th time and it worked perfectly. This makes no sense to me as I didn't change anything, but I suppose I shouldn't complain. I upgraded the camera's firmware and I'm happy, at least until I need to do this again.

Thanks to all for your suggestions!