joellg

This is my intro post, as well as a question. I recently went to Vancouver, and found out my Garmin only had the 48 states on it. Im finding a bunch of Garmin users are loading free maps, and I think Ive found the map I want of Canada to use to drive around for my next trip to Montreal in a week. How the heck do I get the map, and load it onto my SD card in my Nuvi using my mac. Ive done a little research, and searched a little here, but Im hitting a bump here. Im sure this gets old having people ask this, Im sorry, but Im getting frustrated searching.
My goods
Garmin Nuvi 200 with a new 2 gig SD card
Macbook
and the map ( i assume its what Im looking for) that I want to load-Canada south
Map details

Any help is greatly appreciated.

HumVee

joellg, what earlthepearl suggests is illegal. I cast no judgements on anyone who goes that route - I know that maps are expensive & not everyone can afford the honest route. But I just wanted point that out, and also state that torrents are a major source of virus & worm infestations (for PC based computers...most of the payloads won't touch your OS X operating system, since the code is entirely different from what they were written for), so anyone using them should be aware of this and take appropriate measures. User beware.

On the other hand, what you found appears to be open source (or at least freely distributed). The Canada South road map that you want to use is simply an map image file compressed into a zip file to make the download faster. You need to use a file decompression program that will unzip the file and give you access to the contents. I'm not familiar with the Mac OS, so I can recommend any programs for you. The OS itself might be able to do it.

Once you get the files unpacked, copy '10000001.img' to a flash memory card. Insert it into your Garmin nüvi 200. Power the device on, and go to your map settings in your device and see if the map is being seen by your nuvi. You'll want to make sure that there's a checkbox next to the map.

I haven't done this myself, to be sure that it works - but that looks like the way it's supposed to work to me. Give it a try & report back. If you have problems, I will be happy to try loading the Canada South map onto one of my Garmin GPS units.

earlthepearl

Yes OS X can unzip a .zip file on its own.
The way HumVee mentions above will work.
With your Nuvi 200 with the card in it....
Plugged into your USB cable...
The both will show up on your desktop.
One will say Nuvi....
Other should say Untitled.
Untitled is the one you want to copy the image file (10000001.img) into.
You do need a Folder in that Untitled card named Garmin first tho.
Put the (10000001.img) file into the garmin folder.
Eject the Garmin&Untitled disk images off the desktop after it's done copying.
Give it a shot.

Or try my other post to get USA, Canada, Mexico in that one card.

P.S.
Another good Application for opening compressed files on OSX is the UnArchiver.
It's free.

http://wsidecar.apple.com/cgi-bin/np...hiver1.6.1.zip

HumVee

Thanks for the input, earlthepearl! It's always good to have someone who has actual Mac experience involved in answering Mac related questions!

earlthepearl

I've been using a Mac since 1994.



I do run a PC... Dell Dimension 2400 with XP for the operations of garmin GPS most the time tho....

joellg

Yeah, thanks for that, it worked well with the bitorrent. As for the other map I got from the free site, mapcenter2, I still couldnt get it to work. I also have a older PC at home I may use to try to get other maps from that site to work on. Thanks again for the help.

earlthepearl

Glad that worked out for you....