GPS Information.net Forum >

I loaded my TOPO 2008 DVD, and selected my areas I want, and transferred to my Vista HCx. But when I look at the maps, they look boring like the basemaps it came with, thought it was more detailed. How do I check what is on the microsd card?

what were you expecting? what's missing?

You can go to the garmin site and look at the maps with their map viewer.

Did you load more than 2 GB of maps or more than 2025 map segments? You can only load more than 2 GB of maps if you have the latest firmware version (3.00 as of May 12) link, and if you load more than 2025 map segments, they won’t display properly. Same thing with the file size larger than 2 GB if you don’t have the latest firmware.

If you put the unit in Mass Storage mode, you can look in the Garmin folder on the card, but all you will see is one file named gmapsupp.img. That means that you have some maps loaded, but that’s all you can tell. The best way to check what you have loaded is to open a new (empty) MapSource file and select Receive From Device with the Maps checkbox checked. After receiving the data, MapSource will show what maps were received from the unit, and that’s what was loaded. You can see them in the map display, shaded pink, or as a list on the maps tab. Chances are, you have loaded what you intended to.

There are a couple of settings to check on the unit. I don’t have an eTrex, so I don’t know the exact instructions, but I believe it works similarly to my 76CSx. So here are the general steps:

Go to your map page, pull up the menu and select Setup Map. Find the page where it shows the names of the maps loaded. On the 76, I select an icon that is a circle with an “i” in it. Pull up the menu again and see if you have an option to Show Topo 2008. If you do, then select it. If you have other map sets loaded, you may see an option to Hide them. You may have to do that in order to see the Topo maps. On Garmin units, only one map set can show at a time and which one shows is determined by a Garmin hierarchy. So sometimes you have to hide some maps to see others.

Also in the map setup, find where you can set the level of detail. On the 76, I select an icon that has an “N” in it. Make sure Detail is set to Normal or higher.

HTH