Hello, need some help. I have a sd card that is 16gb. I am putting it in my Roku 3 and it is not being recognized by it in order to format. Not sure what to do next. I have restarted the roku several times, also. If you can help that would be great! Thanks in advance.
Roku devices are designed to work with 2 GB cards. Depending on the particular card reader in the device -- Roku buys parts and they must meet minimum requirements; larger capacity readers are above the minimum of course -- it may or may not read the card. And, even if it reads the card, it will only use 2 GB of the capacity, with the remainder (14 GB in your instance) being wasted.
It could also be that the card reader has gone bad, since the Roku 3 is a really old device (2013, if it's model 4200), so a smaller card may not make a difference.
DBDukes
Roku Community Streaming Expert
Note: I am not a Roku employee.
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In addition to @DBDukes' reply ...
It may also be a formatting issue with the SD card itself such that the Roku does not recognize a card is in place.
You may be able to salvage this. Try formatting the card in your computer, if it has a card reader that can handle SD cards. After formatting, see if the Roku will detect and reformat the card successfully.
Windows instructions (don't know what would differ on other systems):
Do a slow (i.e. don't use the "fast format" option) format of the card via your computer. Select FAT32 and select it to use the default allocation size.
Back when I was using a Roku 3, I had to do this several times as the card would get corrupted and not let the startup process proceed beyond the "Bouncing letters" stage. Eventually I decided the small benefit provided by the card was not worth the trouble of maintaining it.