For the last 5 hours I have had hell with my sd card I redid my phone with JF new build and wiped out my 8gb class 6 a-data sd card but all of a sudeen it been acting weird
one thing is in paragon it shows the partitions still there (ext2) which takes up the whole card and should not, while windows shows its fat32, and i can access it in windows but it wont show up in in partition program nor delete
while when i mount it into the g1 (where it ask to mount or dont mount when plug it into pc) it instantly unmounts and i click mount again but just makes a noise and unmounts also saying its blank
now my 2gb chip seems to work fine (sometimes well if i unstall the drivers and let them re install then it works for a great amount of time), but this 8 gb,...well
what do you guys think? is it fixable? I can record video of it all (errors and stuff included) if u want
idk if its my chip, my phone or my pc can anyone help?
i think this has something to do with the way windows handles sd cards with no partition table. i assume you formatted the whole card to fat32 using a third party utility? that will totally confuse the system, because it cached a version of the partition table and now there's nowhere to find the new one. a quick solution is to use the build-in format tool to format your sdcard (right click on sdcard's icon and select format...). this should force the system to recalculate the size of the partition. then you have to unplug the card reader and plug it back in. now paragon should work.
billc.cn said:
i think this has something to do with the way windows handles sd cards with no partition table. i assume you formatted the whole card to fat32 using a third party utility? that will totally confuse the system, because it cached a version of the partition table and now there's nowhere to find the new one. a quick solution is to use the build-in format tool to format your sdcard (right click on sdcard's icon and select format...). this should force the system to recalculate the size of the partition. then you have to unplug the card reader and plug it back in. now paragon should work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
after a long while, finally got windows to format the whole thing to fat32, but yet still acting weird
what kind of card reader are you using? certain card readers has their own controller and do not allow you to partition properly.
but i am sure mountd in android will allow you full access to the sdcard when it's mounted.
also how much total space do you have in that fat partition after format? a full 8gb sd should have approx. 7.45GB actually space. if your partition table is correct, windows should only format the fat partition and give you a size smaller than 7.45G.
I strongly suggest you try again under Linux using the phone as reader. any livecd with a partition manager will perform much better than windows.
Well i try it both on my phone and a mem card reader, but once I put it on my phone it does not detect a sd card (my 8gb im trying to fix) while detects my fat32 2 gb chip
on my laptop and pc cant format nor delete that ext2 8gb sd card
BUT that 8gb ext2 card im trying to fix loads perfeclty and can access it on ubuntu so im guessing its not physically broken
tanner2007 said:
but once I put it on my phone it does not detect a sd card
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you mean by "it", the GUI. How about doing an ls on /dev/block from the terminal on the phone to see what linux sees?
tanner2007 said:
on my laptop and pc cant format nor delete that ext2 8gb sd card
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, what do you mean by delete the card? You can delete a partition, but not a card: I'm not sure makes sense.
tanner2007 said:
BUT that 8gb ext2 card im trying to fix loads perfeclty and can access it on ubuntu so im guessing its not physically broken
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You say ext2, but yet above you claim to have reformatted as FAT. What does your ubuntu machine think it is? One way to tell is to mount it and try to set permissions on a file, if you can, it is not FAT.
What is your objective, do you want a FAT partition, an EXT2 partition, both?
Well I got it working guys, I dont know what was happening as I said before different programs where detecting different file systems, but soon as I found out how to do it ubuntu I saw it was working and erased the whole card (all partitions and everything)
and now it works again thanks guys ur tips helped
Related
Hi,
I have sucessfully moved my apps and caches to my 1.6gb ext2 partiton on my 8gb sd card.
I would like to back up the ext2 partition in case my sdcard fails.
How do I do this in windows xp?
Thanks
I'd love to find out how to do something similar. I just got an 8 GB card that I'd like to replace my 2 GB card with, basically, I'd like to clone the whole thing over.
Anyone have any ideas? I can do XP or Linux, just curious what software would be able to do the best job of replicating the card from one to the other.
Attach the card to your computer with an adapter (not the phone as it will be mounted by android). Download and install ext2ifs from here. You will now be able to see the files on the ext2 partition and can copy/paste them to where ever you would like.
Thanks, but I've had no luck with ext2ifs and memory cards. They even address it in their troubleshooting section:
I have a device with a removable media, for example a USB memory stick, a Compact Flash Card, a magneto-optical drive etc., which has a partitioned format and has more than one partition. When I insert that media, a drive letter appears for the first partition, but not for all the remaining partitions of the media. When I open "IFS Drives" of the control panel, the considered device appears as a hard disk drive, but there is no partitioning scheme shown for it. How can I create drive letters for the remaining partitions of that removable media? (USB hard disk drives are not affected.)
There is an unsatisfactory answer only: it is not possible.
Windows creates (and deletes) all the drive letters for pure removable devices or removable medias itself. Because the Ext2 IFS software need not to create them, it intentionally does not show any partition scheme for that drive.
Windows creates a drive letter for the first partition of the considered media, but not for the remaining ones. (Windows NT4, 2000 and even XP behave the same way in that regard).
You will run into the same problem if you have a removable media partitioned with two partitions of the FAT type on a computer, which has not installed the Ext2 IFS software! So there is one straight advice only: do not use removable media with more than one partition with Windows.
I'm guessing (someone else could correct if wrong) that if I were to just do the basic copy from one card to another - that would suffice?
If I just took the card, created two partitions (FAT32 and EXT2FS) on the larger card, then copied over all the files in both - that would work just fine?
Strange, I've never experienced any issues with ext2ifs, but yes a simple copy paste of both partitions has been all i needed. Just make sure to copy any hidden files as well.
Can we back it up using Ubuntu Live CD and just upload them to a new sd cards ext2 partition?
yes, but you would need multiple card readers.
andonnguyen said:
yes, but you would need multiple card readers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why can't you save it to the hard drive, replace the sd card, access the ext2 partition and upload the files that you backed up?
Although I'm not very familiar with Ubuntu, when I tried it last time it didn't even allow me to have access to the app and app-private folders within the partition.
What do I need to do to be able to back it up to the hard drive so I can try to upload it to another SD?
Hi,
Thanks for the suggestion.
But when I installed the driver, I can still see just the fat32 partition not the ext2 partition.
I am using a sdhc usb card reader so it is not connected to the g1.
It is like the ext2 partition does not exist through windows xp.
But when I put the card back in the g1 the files are taking up space through ternminal emulator. So the ext2 partiton does exist but still not accessable through windows.
Any other ideas?
jsunkist146 said:
Attach the card to your computer with an adapter (not the phone as it will be mounted by android). Download and install ext2ifs from here. You will now be able to see the files on the ext2 partition and can copy/paste them to where ever you would like.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
bestwebs said:
Hi,
Thanks for the suggestion.
But when I installed the driver, I can still see just the fat32 partition not the ext2 partition.
I am using a sdhc usb card reader so it is not connected to the g1.
It is like the ext2 partition does not exist through windows xp.
But when I put the card back in the g1 the files are taking up space through ternminal emulator. So the ext2 partiton does exist but still not accessable through windows.
Any other ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what comes up when you use
"busybox df -h" in the terminal emulator?
make sure you see something like "/dev/mmcblk0p2 (partition size) (used) (available) (used %) "/system/sd"
If not then that's the problem.
Hi,
In my phone , I do have that ext2 line /dev/mmcblk0p2
size 1.4gb - used 49 meg - free 1.3 gb
sdcard line /dev/mmcblk0p1
size 6.2 gb - used 5.2gb - free 981 meg
Thanks for the reply.
Binary100100 said:
what comes up when you use
"busybox df -h" in the terminal emulator?
make sure you see something like "/dev/mmcblk0p2 (partition size) (used) (available) (used %) "/system/sd"
If not then that's the problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you're on Linux it is trivial to get the files off, if you'd like to make an exact image you can use the dd command. I suggest grabbing a live CD, as it will be a much easier process than making windows see ext partitions.
crater said:
If you're on Linux it is trivial to get the files off, if you'd like to make an exact image you can use the dd command. I suggest grabbing a live CD, as it will be a much easier process than making windows see ext partitions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the Live CD, but can you elaborate on the "dd command" exactly. I'm a Linux noob and wouldn't mind backing up the partition. Last time I tried, I couldn't even get permissions to open the files no less copy them.
Thanks.
Insert the two SD cards into USB SDHC card readers. Launch the free MiniTool Partition Wizard program. Copy the ext2 partition you want to transfer on the first SD card to an unallocated area on the second SD card. MiniTool Partition Wizard under Windows does "see" multiple partitions on a USB drive even though Windows doesn't assign letters to those drives and they are invisible in Windows Explorer.
To increase the size of the ext2 partition on either SD card, use the Linux program GParted. Boot up with the GParted Live CD/USB iso file. Run GParted to resize the ext2 partition. (MiniTool Partition Wizard can move but not resize an ext2 partition.)
*I've spent a lot of time searching...all the answers I come up with involve copy and paste the folders...which is what I did...but windows doesn't show me my ext3 partition.*
I recently rooted my G1, formatted my 2 gig SD with a 32mb swap and 500mb ext3 and flashed cyanogen 4.0.1. I quickly realized that a 2 gig card was just not enough (now that I'm left with 1.1 gig...) so I purchased a class 6, 8 gig card
I plugged the phone in to my computer, copied all my files, put cyanogen recovery 1.4 on the 8 gig and booted to console, formatted the card to my 7200, 500 and 32mb partitions. Shut the phone down, stuck the card in my card reader and moved all the files that were on the 2 gig onto the 8 gig. Booted the phone...damn it...no apps!
Took a few minutes of head scratching before I remembered that cyanogen 4.0.1 does the apps to the ext3 partition! all my apps are on the 2 gig! *arg*
Is there a way to clone the 2 gig card to the 8 gig without messing up the partitions? or just copy everything from my ext3 to the new ext3?? I really don't want to go through and download all the apps I had again
I found some SD card clone software (sprite? IIRC) but that looks like its specifically for WM devices.
As I understand your SD are formatted to ext3. Best solution is download any live linux distribution (live = run from cd into ram without installing and changing anything) and copy files normally.
yeah all ubuntu iso's include a live os you can boot up in without it installing anything to your harddisk there you should be able to read ext3
Hadn't considered that...
Thanks for the help
unfortunately, even just sticking the 2gig card back in the phone none of the apps work the phone boots and I get a long list of "xxxxx encountered an error and must force close"
looks like its off to the market for me...
*sigh*
tsiah said:
unfortunately, even just sticking the 2gig card back in the phone none of the apps work the phone boots and I get a long list of "xxxxx encountered an error and must force close"
looks like its off to the market for me...
*sigh*
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just for future reference....how does one go about backing up the ext partition of the SD card so if your current card has an issue you can stick the backup card in and keep running without having to download all your apps again??? I mean...if removing the original card, then turning the phone on with a new card in there caused it to "forget" the location of all the apps when the original card was installed...how does a backup card do you any good??
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=4397141#post4397141
This thread appears to be the answer...If I ever have to get another card, I'll give this a try.
I use HDD Raw Copy, just use a partition manager to resize old partitions
http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool/
Greetings
I've used GParted from Live USB Linux (I use PuppyLinux, but any other Live Linux with GParted would do) to copy partitions between sdcards / usb drives / hard disks. It's GUI based, very simple and does the job.
Just plug both the sdcards into your computer before opening GParted,
Once open, GParted would ask option to use only one device or all devices - make sure you select all devices.
After it loads all the devices, you can select the 2GB card, right click each partition, copy and select 8GB card and paste the partition there.
Please follow the partition order so that you don't change the order in the 8GB card.
Once all the partitions are done, you can resize the partition you want to make bigger on the 8GB to fill the card.
After configuring everything, click Apply and wait for GParted to do all the magic!
I used the recovery partition to create FAT32, ext2, and swap partitions on my sd card.
1) What size does it make each of these partitions?
2) What is each used for?
3) When loading the MoDaCo update.zip (and rebooting after first boot) after creating these partitions, what does it do with each of them? My free space on each seems to change, and I think it's loading some apps to the SD card? But not others?
4) How do you see how much space remains on the fat32 and ext2 partitions? Which one is shown in the SD card info settings page, and which one is used for USB mass storage mode? Neither seems to change much even after I install a bunch of >1MB apps.
Thanks for any help.
Also, what's taking up all my internal phone space? If the update.zip moved apps to the SD card, why do I only have 50 MB left of internal space?
jonnythan said:
I used the recovery partition to create FAT32, ext2, and swap partitions on my sd card.
1) What size does it make each of these partitions?
2) What is each used for?
3) When loading the MoDaCo update.zip (and rebooting after first boot) after creating these partitions, what does it do with each of them? My free space on each seems to change, and I think it's loading some apps to the SD card? But not others?
4) How do you see how much space remains on the fat32 and ext2 partitions? Which one is shown in the SD card info settings page, and which one is used for USB mass storage mode? Neither seems to change much even after I install a bunch of >1MB apps.
Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
32 mb swap, 500mb ext2 rest fat32
swap is for linux swap if its used in the rom, ext2 is for your apps, and fat32 is for your storage
yes it loads all of your /data/app and /data/app-private apps on your sd card, your /system/app stays there
you can do a df -h under adb to see your free space
jonnythan said:
I used the recovery partition to create FAT32, ext2, and swap partitions on my sd card.
1) What size does it make each of these partitions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe it makes a 32MB Swap partiton, a 500 MB Ext2 partition and the rest fat32.
jonnythan said:
2) What is each used for?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Fat32 is normal files like music, pictures, etc. The ext2 is used for apps2sd. Don't worry, 500MB is more than enough for this. The swap is used for bakcground applications so they run better without slowing the phone down as much.
jonnythan said:
3) When loading the MoDaCo update.zip (and rebooting after first boot) after creating these partitions, what does it do with each of them? My free space on each seems to change, and I think it's loading some apps to the SD card? But not others?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Fat32 it shouldnt do anything. Obviously you will have less space because the other partitions are taking some of it's space. It loads the apps onto your ext2 partition but not all of them. System apps such as the calculator, browser, phone, etc stay on the system partition because it's faster.
jonnythan said:
4) How do you see how much space remains on the fat32 and ext2 partitions? Which one is shown in the SD card info settings page, and which one is used for USB mass storage mode? Neither seems to change much even after I install a bunch of >1MB apps.
Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have Windows, Linux or Mac. I don't know about Mac but I know Linux can view ext partitions natively (obviously, it's the native filesystem). For Windows you might be able to load the disk management application but if that doesnt show it you need a partitioning application or any other application that can read ext partitions off an sdcard. Don't know any off hand except paragon partitioning manager 9.0 (8.0 never seemed to work with my sd cards)
jonnythan said:
Also, what's taking up all my internal phone space? If the update.zip moved apps to the SD card, why do I only have 50 MB left of internal space?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See the above explanation.
nelson8403 said:
32 mb swap, 500mb ext2 rest fat32
swap is for linux swap if its used in the rom, ext2 is for your apps, and fat32 is for your storage
yes it loads all of your /data/app and /data/app-private apps on your sd card, your /system/app stays there
you can do a df -h under adb to see your free space
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That answers my questions, thank you.
I found another though. I unmounted my SD card via Settings to see if the apps would fail to work in an effort to try to figure out if they were actually installed there. Predictably, they failed to work, but the system didn't pick the card back up after I reinserted it. So I rebooted the phone with the SD card in.
Then everything died. The apps didn't come back, but the phone still had them listed and tried to launch them, resulting in force-closes. An ext2 repair didn't fix it, so I just went back to my last Nandroid backup and reapplied update.zip.
I learned that this is a Bad Thing to do, but I'm wondering if this was a fluke or is it generally inadvisable to unmount the SD card for this reason?
im a noob to the whole android thing.but how do i partition the sd card and create ext2?????
jonnythan said:
I learned that this is a Bad Thing to do, but I'm wondering if this was a fluke or is it generally inadvisable to unmount the SD card for this reason?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since this is a simple symlink, if you reboot the phone without the target of the symlink being there, and the phone tries to use it...
The results are left as an exercise for the reader.
Now for anyone who asks why it isn't smart enough not to break... that's like asking why your car doesn't run if you take half the spak plugs out.
posguy99 said:
Since this is a simple symlink, if you reboot the phone without the target of the symlink being there, and the phone tries to use it...
The results are left as an exercise for the reader.
Now for anyone who asks why it isn't smart enough not to break... that's like asking why your car doesn't run if you take half the spak plugs out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, but I'm asking why it still doesn't work once you put the spark plugs back in
It's not a big deal, I certainly learned not to do it.
jonnythan said:
Ah, but I'm asking why it still doesn't work once you put the spark plugs back in
It's not a big deal, I certainly learned not to do it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because booting the phone with it thinking the app was installed but it not able to find it trashed other data structures.
BTW, people trying to do stuff with the SD card removed after putting the apps on the SD card is probably one of the main reasons it currently is root only.
The OS needs to be modified to handle removable app storage gracefully (not something that happens in a standard phone.)
So should you format the card prior to flashing Modaco's ROM so the system knows to install all the apps to the ex2 partition. Or can you format the card AFTER you have already flashed Modaco's ROM and still have the apps automatically install on ext2 partition? I only ask cuz I formatted after flashing the ROM and wanna make sure it's installing it on the ext2.
I formatted mine afterwards and it moved all my apps over to the sd card automatically.
to lee droid hello.
i am a "silent admirer". i have a rooted desire and i use only leedroid roms for more then a year. as always i never had any problems with any of the roms and install them all without wipe at all.
about a month ago i installes v. 2.3.
today i saw the thread about the new version 3.0 gb and downloaded the following files: 1. 3.0 gb leedroid rom.
2. the new radio ...56....
3. the ext3 file.
after downloading i checked the md5 of the first two files and found it OK.
i backed up my 16 gb sd and tried to install the 3.0 tom via rom manager.
the thing is that i believe that the rom was install OK but the rom did not go up and my desire got stuck with the dumb green "htc".
thereafter i restored the system which went well and tried again - this time with file and cach wipe.
again - all seems to go well but did not load.
tried to install the ext3 file - went ok but did not load.
from that moment i got really worried but nothing i tried (deleating the sd card and copying from backup) or thought i know didnt work and now i am the proud owner of stupid green "htc" screen.
please help
erezinna
p.s. i couldt read all the 53 pages of your thread so if anybody already got an answer - please send me there.
I had this same issue.
It seems that although I originally partitioned my SD card as ext3 at some point without me knowing the partition got changed to ext4 I really can't explain how as I never messed with partitions after I initially set them up.
if the EXT3 fix is not working for you try booting into gparted and checking the partition there. as soon as I did that and realized it had been changed to ext4 I deleted the partition and made a new ext3 patition and it worked flawlessly after that.
"try booting into gparted and checking the partition there"
where? when? who?
can you you be more gentle? i booted milion times and never heard of "gpart" (it is a secret socaity)?
it's a live cd that you boot into on your PC to partition the SD card with a ext3 partition.
just google gparted live cd
You need to verify that the second partition on your sd card is in fact ext3 or leedriod will not load
i have to burn it or ghost-burn it or just download it and transfer to my desire?
like i said in my previous post you need to boot into on your PC.
I have to ask how did you originaly partition your SD card?
dear larkspeed:
i did all you have suggested but the gparted (or the regular win 7) was unable to recognize the sd card at all.
i did recognize all the other harddisks on my computer. it is probably because of the ext4 and now i cannot delete it. (also i hardly can operate the phone - only basic functions).
what sould i do now?
Windows will not see ext4 at all but it will see the partition itself so you can delete and remake it.
Gparted should have seen it just fine and let you reformat it to ext3
However if neither windows or gparted can see the partitions on the card then it's very possible the card itself has a fault.
Stupid question but when you loaded gparted you did use the drop down in the upper right corner of the window to actually select your sd card right?
if not then you were looking at primary hard drive only
yes i did several times. you have to move with "tab" and keboard because the mouse does not work there.
if the sd card have a fault, should i format it or erase it totally or something?
if you are totaly sure you have a ext partition on that card you will need to delete that partition either with windows **** manager or gparted
if you just format the card it will only format the partition it can see which will be the fat32 partition.
Now I assume you are putting the micro sd into some kind of adapter to plug it into the PC.
Now I have 2 options for this a USB stick that the micro sd plugs into or a micro sd to sd adapter plugged into an internal card reader which plugs into a USB header on my motherboard.
both of these systems work fine for me.
if gparted is not seeing the card at all then I would think whatever system you are using to plug the card into your PC is not supported.
I have to ask when you plug the card in when in windows what size does it say the "removable drive" is?
1. i gparted the sd card into main fat 32 partition about 12 gb and 1.6 gb ext3 partition
2. i cloesd the program after compleating that and the device informed me that the sd card is damaged and needs formating
3. i formated it and moved the leedroid 3.0.
4. it refused to go into recovery because lacking .update.zip file so i copied that too.
5. i installed the 3.0 but i won't go.
6. what to do? give it up?
all I can suggest is to try a different SD card and see if it works then.
A week or so ago, I flashed this ROM onto my phone. ([ROM] (v1.2.6_r2) Nexus AOSP Gingerbread 2.3.4 - Faux123 [Jun-26-2011] - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1068367&page=189)
I had to end up switching back to stock ROM. Ever since the flash back to stock, my memory card has been "locked"
In the process of flashing my phone back to stock, my external Micro SD card became locked to "Read Only". I cannot format or erase any of the content that was stored on my card during the flashings. It literally seems to be "LOCKED" onto the card.
I've tried the windows format option in the Device Manager. I've also tried the Windows Command prompts. NOTHING has worked. Formatting the card in my phone does nothing. No data gets erased.
With the card in my phone, I can access all my files (movies, music, pics, etc). But I cannot modify, delete, or add any new content! (Example, I cannot select my External SD as a valid storage location for new pics in the camera.)
Does anyone have any ideas on how to reformat this card to get it working for me again. It is a 16gig card. I hate to throw it out.
Thanks.
I would recommend trying Panasonic's sdcard formatter. It seems to be pretty good at formatting sdcards that other programs have trouble with.
http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/sd_formatter20.html
Another thing you could try, you can format your sdcard inside clockwork recovery mod. (Under the mounts and storage section if my memory serves)
mstrk242 said:
I would recommend trying Panasonic's sdcard formatter. It seems to be pretty good at formatting sdcards that other programs have trouble with.
http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/sd_formatter20.html
Another thing you could try, you can format your sdcard inside clockwork recovery mod. (Under the mounts and storage section if my memory serves)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes thats good one ! +1
avetny said:
yes thats good one ! +1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for the suggestions
That did not work. I ran the SD formatter and the windows formatter and my content is STILL on the card.
CWM won't format the card either.
Any other ideas?
Did you try partitioning the card? Just one 16GiB FAT32 partition?
Joe-retired said:
Did you try partitioning the card? Just one 16GiB FAT32 partition?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Joe -
That is officially over my head.
How would I go about doing that?
Can you get the card replaced under warranty?
Since you tried formatting the sd card, I am assuming you have backed up everything on it.
As easy way is in Clockwork recovery mod choose -> advanced; then choose -> partition;
when prompted for a partition size for the ext partition choose the smallest, also the smallest for swap (I think you can choose 0 for this one) continue to follow prompts and the card will be partitioned.
One more thing to try if that doesn't work:
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php
Go to this site, download the cd or usb disk version and boot off it. Now, plug your card into your computer (NOT through the phone, use a usb reader. If you don't have one, you can probably pick up a cheap one for around 10 bucks.), you may need to rescan the disks after you plug the card in, to make sure gparted sees it. Now, delete the entire partition, so there is no partition at all on the card.
Boot back into windows, plug the card in, try to format it again. I've seen this happen when you have a damaged mbr on the sdcard. Also, when you format in windows, (if your system will allow it), id try to format it to a 64k cluster size instead of 32k. (on a 16gb card 32k is the default cluster size.) It'll speed it up a bit. (not really needed, but a nice boost.)
The last thing you can try, if all else fails, boot into clockwork recovery (assuming you have it installed) and format the sdcard through there.
If all that fails, I'd say you have a bad card. But try those steps first, hate to see you throw the card away if it's still good. )