PowerShot SX20 IS Problem with memory cards

[Emersonlaibe]

I have some new memory cards that aren’t working and whenever I put them in it keeps saying at the top of the screen memory card error with my power shot SX 20 IS I know that some memory cards work because I have some old ones that work and I can see the pictures on them and take pictures and I have a 3-D printer SD card that also allowed me to take a picture but I bought two separate new SD cards after the first one which was a micro SD card with a converter to a normal SD card and it kept saying “ memory card error“ so I went and bought a second memory card and it gave me the exact same error yet I’ve not been able to fix them I’ve tried everything to get them to work like formatting them on my camera and trying to format them on my PC and neither of the pieces on them are messed up and I know that the camera works and I’ve read a lot of articles but I still haven’t gotten to work and the SD cards that I bought were micro SDXC by onn and SDXC from sandisk

[Tronhard]

Hi Emerson, and welcome to the forum:
You cannot use micro SD cards via an adapter on cameras - that introduces another dry connection into the system:  the circuit power is too low and does not behave well. You must always use full-size SD cards.  If you check in your manual, there is a list of compatible card types that work with your camera.
Always buy from a reputable camera store, beware of eBay and Amazon - there are lots of rejects and counterfeits being hawked as quality units.

[normadel]

Besides what Tronhard said, this 16-year-old camera predates the existence of SDXC cards. It will very likely not work with cards that are too large. Try to find cards no larger than 8GB, maybe 16 GB., even used ones. 

[rs-eos · Accepted solution]

The PowerShot SX20 IS cannot work with SDXC cards.  It can only work with SD, SDHC, and a few other cards.  Where "SD" in this sentence refers to the original SD card.  See page 17 in the User Manual for a list of all the compatible cards.

Completely agree to avoid micro-sized cards at all costs.