G1000 SD cards backup

The ramblings of our community of aviators.

Moderators: Rick, Lance Murray

User avatar
Kent Shook
2 Diamonds Member
2 Diamonds Member
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Mar 20, 2012 5:08 am
First Name: Kent
Aircraft Type: DA40
Aircraft Registration: N569DS
Airports: KMSN
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: G1000 SD cards backup

Post by Kent Shook »

I've just made a new set of cards using this procedure, with modifications as below. I have not tried them in the airplane yet (2006 DA40, 40.648).
Kai wrote:Bad news is that you will have to create the backup SD card from scratch and you cannot backup your currently installed databases if they are expired or if you don't have access to the Garmin account where they were created. Especially buyers of used Diamonds with G1000 should make sure to get a decent backup made by the seller if they can't take over the Garmin account.
A new basemap only cost $100, so I just created a new Garmin account and bought it. Pretty cheap, in aviation terms.
1. login at https://fly.garmin.com/fly-garmin/
2. select "Aircraft" from the horizontal menu bar
3. select the database you have already purchased and would like to restore
4. click on "Install..."
5. now it looks like you had to install the GARMIN communicator plugin or so. You don't have to. Personally, I like to keep things simple and I don't know what it does. So just click on the alternative download on the right hand side, see arrow in screenshot.
6. You will now see the actual download link. Download and save to a safe location. Also copy and paste the unlock code and system ID to a textfile or so and save to a safe location.
7. Have as many new SD cards ready as you want to produce and stick the first one into your PC's SD slot. Run the downloaded executable file and enter the codes when prompted to do so.
You can now theoretically produce as many SD cards as you want to simply hitting the "Program Device" button each time you inserted a new SD card.
I did download all the installers and saved the unlock codes to a text file. However, I'm on a Mac and my Windows 7 VM doesn't appear to recognize the built-in SD card reader, so I ended up installing the Garmin Communicator plugin on Firefox. I went to Basemap and clicked "Install" and it happily programmed two cards so far.

I decided to get a PilotPak, so in addition to the basemap, I had US/Europe Obstacles, Nav data, SafeTaxi, FliteCharts, Airport Directory, and worldwide 9 arc-second terrain. It took around 40 minutes per card to download and program all that data!
smoss wrote:1) When did you actually try this process, recently or in 2010 as the basemap cycle suggests? I don't recall having an option for manual download, and I didn't think they used unlock codes at all anymore.
I did it just now, and the option for manual download is still in the same place it was in Kai's screen shot. They don't use unlock codes if you use the Garmin Communicator plugin, but if you download as Kai did they do provide unlock codes to use with the installers.
2) Did you try it with only the basemap, or also the terrain and obstacle databases?
I did it with pretty much the entire list of databases, and it appears to have at least written to the card successfully.
3) I assume you verified that it actually worked in you plane? (although not sure possible without the other databases also there)
Not yet. Will follow up when I actually get to that.
4) Did you use a totally blank SD card, or one with your airframe info file copied on it. If copied AF info file, what did you do with SN?
5) Did you first format the SD card in FAT?
6) Did you have the communicator plugin already installed and still had the option for manual download, or did you never install the communicator and we'd need to uninstall ours first. (update-after trying myself, yes, you must uninstall the communicator ad-odd or you will not be given manual option).
I used plain old SanDisk blue SDHC cards, 8GB, off the shelf at Walmart with no formatting - Just as they came in the box. I did not copy the airframe info file to them. I did install the communicator plug-in first, and still had the manual option.
Rick wrote:The G1000 in my '04 DA40 would not recognize SDHC format cards, but would handle standard SD cards, including the 4Gb SD cards, just fine. I'm not sure if that has changed since then or not - I'm guessing not.

Does anyone know if getting an SD reader to support SDHC is just a driver change, or is the hardware somehow different, too?
I was using a 4GB SDHC card to update the databases before, so ours is definitely capable of reading them. We have a 2006, 40.648 with the latest G1000 software (0321.23 IIRC).
acyr wrote:Where was this info when I needed it. I ended buying 2 cards from Garmin for over $1k. They would not budge, after the software for my g1000 was updated to the lastest, i could not get any updates on the old cards.
That's odd - We've done two updates since we bought our DA40 in 2010, first from the 0369.xx to 0321.22 and then 0321.23 when it came out, and I think we're still on the original 2006 cards.

If you've added FliteCharts, SafeTaxi, or any of the other optional features, it may be that you simply didn't have enough room on the cards after the update was applied to hold the additional data those features require.
User avatar
rwtucker
5 Diamonds Member
5 Diamonds Member
Posts: 1283
Joined: Thu Feb 21, 2013 11:24 pm
First Name: Rob
Aircraft Type: DA40
Aircraft Registration: N831BA
Airports: KFFZ KEUL
Has thanked: 100 times
Been thanked: 110 times

Re: G1000 SD cards backup

Post by rwtucker »

My cards are OK, so far, but I treat them with kid gloves and I worry most about the TAWS and Chart unlock cards going bad.

If you know what you're doing, you might be able to change the serial numbers of your new backup SD cards to match the numbers of the source cards. I have performed similar operations on hard & floppy drives using Linux sector editors. SD cards may be a little more difficult. Just in case, I would look for redundant serial numbers and clone every byte of the header data. I looked around the web and saw various utilities claiming to work on SD cards but I can't vouch for any of them in this application. I recognized a couple of trusted low level editors that might work on SD cards.

The procedure I would follow is to write an image of each source SD to labeled folders on my my hard drive. To be safe, read the SD serial number into each folder in which the IMG file is stored. There are quite a few good image creation utilities on the market. Then, using a low level editor, edit the serial numbers of new backup cards to create a backup set. Finally, copy the stored images from your hard drive to the new SD cards.

I have already created and stored backup images of all of my Garmin cards, databases, etc. Maybe another DAN member has already solved the header editing challenge.

All of this is speculative but, if you have the time, you might protect your investment and you can do no harm as long as you don't try to write to your source cards.

Even if you do not end up writing low level serial numbers to new cards, SD cards are equally likely to fail at any of their memory junctions. Since 99% (guesstimate) of the memory is allocated to data, they are much more likely to lose data than header information. In such cases, you can write your stored image back to the original SD card with a high probability of recovering an otherwise lost card. (I can give you a few tips on how to do this to bypass bad memory junctions so long as the header data are intact.)

NB: You are in no man's land when you scour the web for these low level editors. Your chance of picking up a virus or even nastier code is a lot higher than reading the news on Yahoo. Make sure you have the latest in malware protection. My system detected two infection attempts when I was poking around a few minutes ago in preparation for writing this post.
User avatar
Chris
5 Diamonds Member
5 Diamonds Member
Posts: 935
Joined: Sat Jun 19, 2010 3:34 am
First Name: Chris
Aircraft Type: DA42NG
Aircraft Registration: N449TS
Airports: KHIO
Has thanked: 1050 times
Been thanked: 481 times

Re: G1000 SD cards backup

Post by Chris »

rwtucker wrote:If you know what you're doing, you might be able to change the serial numbers of your new backup SD cards to match the numbers of the source cards. I have performed similar operations on hard & floppy drives using Linux sector editors. SD cards may be a little more difficult. Just in case, I would look for redundant serial numbers and clone every byte of the header data.
This is not necessary with newer versions of the G1000 software. Even the Garmin support guy admitted this to me over the phone, although he also mentioned it wasn't technically legal to use off-the-shelf cards rather than the $250+ TSO'd versions that they sell. You can take blank SD cards and use the Garmin installation software to create perfectly useable PFD and MFD cards as long as you have purchased the appropriate databases and maps from them.

Older G1000 hardware might not be able to read higher capacity SD cards, but the newer ones can read them just fine. I believe the older G1000 software versions used to check for specific S/N and data hidden on unused sectors, but they must have finally realized it was easier to simply key the databases to the System ID.
Chris
N449TS / DA42-NG / 42.AC049
KHIO
User avatar
rwtucker
5 Diamonds Member
5 Diamonds Member
Posts: 1283
Joined: Thu Feb 21, 2013 11:24 pm
First Name: Rob
Aircraft Type: DA40
Aircraft Registration: N831BA
Airports: KFFZ KEUL
Has thanked: 100 times
Been thanked: 110 times

Re: G1000 SD cards backup

Post by rwtucker »

Chris,

I'm not clear on a couple of points.

Do you mean that you can copy your existing PFD and MFD data to new SDs cards and that the new G1000 software versions (321.23) will recognize the cards? Or, do you have to start over with Garmin and purchase new files like Basemap, etc. and, thereafter, you can create cards that will be recognized by the G1000?

Does this apply to our aging TAWS and Chart unlock SD cards? I wouldn't see how since we purchased them one-off from Diamond or, at least, those of us who purchased our aircraft new from Diamond did. My unlock cards are more than eight years old, first generation SD.
Post Reply