Read-Only MicroSD cards suck! - Android Software/Hacking General [Developers Only]

Ok, been fighting with my G1 phone for over a month.
First it was the phone shutting down because the battery life was a whopping 5mins of any use. That was killing the OS, so kept having to reinstall.
Now that I got a replacement battery, it seems that something is causing my 8GB MicroSD card to stay 'read only' when I plug it into my usb-flash reader on my Ubuntu system.
I severely need to reformat my whole phone and start fresh but seem to be kinda screwed at the moment because of this damn card issue.
I have scoured the web and it seems this is some sort of stupidly common problem and I am just stunned at the sheer lack of solutions that work.
So, I am hoping that someone here can help and direct me to have a decent phone once again and not feel totally worthless and ashamed when I tell people I am a tech but can't fix my own damn phone.....

30 year-old trick does that job!
http://www.camerahacker.com/Forums/DisplayComments.php?file=Storage/memory_card_locked.html

This is just a guess, but I remember back when I was using linux (Gentoo or Ubuntu I think) FAT32 partitions were mounted read only, it was a limitation of the OS. I remember the documentation saying it was possible to mount it read/write but strongly discouraged.
This was a long time ago though, and to be honest I'm not sure if it was a FAT32 or NTFS partition that I had that problem with.

That's NTFS. Hasn't been any problem writing to FAT32 in a looooooooooong time. Also it has been safe to write to NTFS for some years now.
Are you using a MicroSD to SD adapter? There's a little switch on all SD cards making them read-only. Flip it and you should be good to go.
EDIT: Just saw you just noticed it

Actually wasn't a switch. A poorly designed adapter that broke at some point where the 'switch' is supposed to be. Cheap plastic.

Related

Corrupted memory card format

Hello, recently my micro sd 16gb sandisk memory card got corrupted. i rescued some files, but i can't format it. it says windows was unable to format. my phone don't even recognizes the card and it can't format it. i tried some other software, but no success. maybe it has bad sectors or something. i don't know.
Please help me!
Thank You!
terzer said:
Hello, recently my micro sd 16gb sandisk memory card got corrupted. i rescued some files, but i can't format it. it says windows was unable to format. my phone don't even recognizes the card and it can't format it. i tried some other software, but no success. maybe it has bad sectors or something. i don't know.
Please help me!
Thank You!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Terzer,
Sadly, you'll probably have to get a new one. If you try to get it to work, you'll most likely lose even more data! The same thing happened to me only three weeks ago. My card was at most six months old.
Basically, microSD cards are very delicate. As if by fate, I had just read an article about that right before my card went belly up! My new card even has a notice recommending that the card be inserted and removed as few times as possible, for this very reason.
Given this, and given that, for the most part, when they're in good condition they're very reliable, when you start having problems with a card like this, it's FAR more likely that the card has gone bad in some way.
When mine went bad I tried everything I could think of to get it working again. And I succeeded! Trying all different block sizes, I got it to format in the flash drive on my desktop system.
It died again within 48 hours!
I know these things are expensive. Unfortunately, this one is probably a loss. Sorry!
-geo
so the damage is physical?
Thank You!
terzer said:
so the damage is physical?
Thank You!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's no way to tell what the problem is. Basically, though, all problems with flash cards are physical in one sense or another. It's extremely unlikely that it's a driver or card reader error if it was working before. It could be a filesystem error, but if you've already tried to re-format it and failed, well, that doesn't really leave much else.
I don't have your original post in front of me. Did you try formatting it in a computer? If not, then you should definitely try that. (You'll need a microSD to full SD adapter or a microSD to USB.) Also, try doing a full format. (In Windows that means not doing a Quick Format.) A Quick Format just tries to create a new File Table. A full format will try to make a new filesystem. I don't know if there's a way to do an actual hardware format. (Actually, I don't believe that has any meaning on a solid state device.)
Anyway, even if you do get it to format successfully, be very careful what you put on it. That's exactly what happened to me. As I said, after finally getting it to format, it died again in less than two days.
This is about all I can tell you to try. (BTW, I'm a system administrator. ) Basically, and I am really sorry, it's probably dead. I'm guessing they're pretty [email protected]!n expensive in Bulgaria? I know they are here. I almost cried when my first one died!
Although, looking at it in a positive light , when I got my first one they only had Class 2 devices. My new Adata card is Class 6. The difference is amazing. Whatever you wind up doing, my suggestion would be to limit how many times you take it in and out of your phone.

WTF - Warning - SD Card contents

I haven't searched but saying that I've never seen anything like this on Desire or Sensation threads before.
I went to copy something over to the phone (using Windoze Explorer) and when I looked at the contents. I saw the attached. The phone, when I use Root Explorer, and PC agree :-((
For reference I've used Linux, PC (Explorer) and ADB 100% to copy files over successfully before, so no posts about using one or not using one.
All the Filenames etc. have been completely screwed up. Looks like they've been converted to DOS 8.3 format.
I have never ever seen this before. I think I must have run something on the PC when the phone was USB connected. It's about the only thing I can think of, the phone/SD Card/ROM have been 100% reliable so far.
LUCKILY, I made a rare backup of my SD Card yesterday. I usually remember to make one once in a blue moon.
All I can think is to recommend folks to disconnect the USB drive when not needed and do Backups (of the Phone and also the SD Card).
Anyone seen this before ??
sorry to say this to you but your memory card has gone corrupted.
i know this because this has happened to me alot of times.
this happens if you use unbranded memory cards but this also happens to branded memory card.
the only solution i can give to you is buy a new memory card. and the main reason this happen when you connect your phone to your pc/laptop and use it as diskdrive and take the wire out while transferring data.
the only way to prevent is to use a safe remove usb and than change your diskdrive to charge only and wait till everything is loaded and then disconnect your usb wire.
also if you fornat your memory card it will work but i can tell you this that this willhappen again and this could happen without connecting your phone to computer. so to only prevent data loss buy a good new memory card.
Shery4life said:
sorry to say this to you but your memory card has gone corrupted.
i know this because this has happened to me alot of times.
this happens if you use unbranded memory cards but this also happens to branded memory card.
the only solution i can give to you is buy a new memory card. and the main reason this happen when you connect your phone to your pc/laptop and use it as diskdrive and take the wire out while transferring data.
the only way to prevent is to use a safe remove usb and than change your diskdrive to charge only and wait till everything is loaded and then disconnect your usb wire.
also if you fornat your memory card it will work but i can tell you this that this willhappen again and this could happen without connecting your phone to computer. so to only prevent data loss buy a good new memory card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm 99.8% sure it still works and he doesn't have to buy a new memory card yet .. I don't know where you get the idea that his memory card is completely dead! It looks like he still has his files, there's just all that junk in there! Worse comes to worst, he has to reformat it which I think may not even be necessary
Anyway, I've had a similar situation as yours and "repairing it" fixed those issues up. I didn't even reformat it, just repaired it. Try that! (Assuming you haven't already reformatted it anyway)
KAwAtA said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm 99.8% sure it still works and he doesn't have to buy a new memory card yet .. I don't know where you get the idea that his memory card is completely dead! It looks like he still has his files, there's just all that junk in there! Worse comes to worst, he has to reformat it which I think may not even be necessary
Anyway, I've had a similar situation as yours and "repairing it" fixed those issues up. I didn't even reformat it, just repaired it. Try that! (Assuming you haven't already reformatted it anyway)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Update:
Card is fine. Just the filenames/pathnames got screwed.
As I said luckily I had done a backup of it yesterday, only by accident. I mounted the card on the PC directly (USB adapter) and deleted / copied stuff back.
It must have been something on my PC I ran as it changed the filenames/pathnames to 8.3. I did run something (can't remember the name) as I had problems doing the copy (SD Card to PC) for the backup. A few (4 if I remember) files were too long, exceeded the 255 limit. I D/L something to see what was the issue, turned out to be some book preview I'd accidently down loaded from the market.
All good and working now....
As I said just a warning that **** on the PC can screw the SD Card on the phone.
Backups (Nandroid and SD Card) are a pain but can be life savers.
KAwAtA said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm 99.8% sure it still works and he doesn't have to buy a new memory card yet .. I don't know where you get the idea that his memory card is completely dead! It looks like he still has his files, there's just all that junk in there! Worse comes to worst, he has to reformat it which I think may not even be necessary
Anyway, I've had a similar situation as yours and "repairing it" fixed those issues up. I didn't even reformat it, just repaired it. Try that! (Assuming you haven't already reformatted it anyway)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i don't mean that he should buy a new memroy card because after formating/repairing it the memroy card will work but this corruption can happen again. if this happens again the onl;y thing he can do is buy another memroy card. this has hapened to my unbranded memroy card which was 16 gb class 10 and it happened atleast 5-6 times. since i couldn't take another corruption i have ordeered class 10 32gb lexar memory card which is working fine and its hasn't gave me any problem since i've been using it
Man that's what happened to one of my other 4 gb cards I don't use anymore. It was kinda funny. I ended up reformatting it, but an odd thing has happened... 3gbs went down to 1.7gbs... I can't even access the remaining 2gbs... no matter what I've tried.
I didn't buy a new card since it works just fine. Been using it as a "mini" file storage card for 4 months and no issues yet. =D
You sure everythings fine? A lot of files on that card read "0KB" which is definitely not a good thing.
Best of luck.
Anyone with any issues with an SD card should first attempt a low level format.
I'll leave you all to Google that one.
Sent from my MyTouch_4G_Slide
It's fine.
Just that something I used, never used it before, to check filename/pathname lengths (due to FAT issues), seems to have converted everything to DOS 8.3 format. The ones that didn't conform to that were created after a phone re-boot.
This was only as a warning that **** does happen and backups, while a pain in the arse to do, can save a load of pain.
Off to try some ICS ROMs now so expecting a load more pain, d/l, CWM, Wipe, Swear, revert back to CM7. ;-)))) Just need to make sure that nothing updates my HBOOT..
Try .. A Full format of the SD Card
You need to do a Full format and wipe of the SD Card .. I have " fixed" a few this way.
I use: HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - Seems to work for me

Your SD card likely isn't the problem

I was going to post this in response to a couple of people in the development sections but my post count is too low so I'll post it here instead.
The SD slot in this phone seems to have an issue with corrupting SD cards, I've had to format both my old and new SD card multiple times with this phone as it becomes unusable every few days. I'm not versed enough in hardware to know if this is a bad connection between the SD slot and the "motherboard" of the phone. I've seen a number of people have their SD cards go bad with this phone and I assume that means we had a manufacturing issue. It would be really cool if a hardware hacker experiencing this issue could take a look inside and confirm whether or not the hardware is connected correctly.
Well, perhaps there's a high number of bad readers....
I've had the same card in my Q since the day I got it (mid-September), no issues.
Mine wouldn't read the day I swapped up from My Epic 4g Touch to This phone, So I popped in an sd reader backed up my data then let the Moto format it, no issues sence
Curious to know what class of card you guys are running. I've been running a Patriot class 10 but my previous was a class 4 without branding that came with my old Transform.
I'm really hoping that I just had my old SD card die at a bad time and that my newer SD card was just sent bad. Today I couldn't get the card to read from the SD slot in my computer, and it would not be cool if my phone caused it to become that way.
Solust said:
Curious to know what class of card you guys are running. I've been running a Patriot class 10 but my previous was a class 4 without branding that came with my old Transform.
I'm really hoping that I just had my old SD card die at a bad time and that my newer SD card was just sent bad. Today I couldn't get the card to read from the SD slot in my computer, and it would not be cool if my phone caused it to become that way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Class 10 Maxell
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2074251
No issues here. I tossed the crappy class 2/4 that shipped with my Epic long ago.
Well I found an extra class 4, 2 GB SD card lying around the house when I was cleaning today. It may be that the local shipment of phones was bad, so if this SD card goes on me then I'll try exchanging the phone in another town just to be safe.
Just out of curiosity does anyone know whether Sprint orders enough phones for replacements with their original shipments? I'm not from a very large town so I'd imagine they would keep replacing with phones from the same batch.
I've got a Samsung 32GB class 10 mSD.
Nearly everytime I reboot my Photon Q it says "SD Card is damaged".
Go into settings, Mount SD Card once or twice and it works.
I've read, that other Android Devices have also problems with that size of SD Cards. (Google)
I had also problem in recovery restoring a backup, the restore process didn't went correctly
(said that everything was fine), had to use my 2GB mSD, which worked nicely and the backup also.
So I think it's an android/kernel issue than a hardware issue.
I have noticed that I get the corrupt sdcard error everytime I try to use the "mass storage" or "media device" setting with Windows.
I use Ubuntu 99% of the time and leave it connected in "camera" mode, have never had that pop up like that...
I usually just use ADB to copy everything anyway so I do not miss the "mass storage" mode at all.
Just had a 16gb class 10 microcenter branded card go belly up on me. Phone just all of a sudden said it was removed and now nothing seems to recognize the thing. The mount option is completely greyed out, and does the same on my note 10.1 if i pop it in there.
When your cards have gone did they completely disappear and refuse to read?
Sent from my XT897 using xda app-developers app
I wonder if it's the c10 cards...
You guys really shouldn't be using high class cards in a phone - there's really no benefit, as phones use SD card's very differently from camcorders or cameras...
On my ooooold phone, anything above Class6 was bad juju. I have always had class4 or lower cards, no fried cards (yet... lol)
kinda what I am feeling too. Not sure what class card I have but it was just a cheap 32gb from wallmart... Only had that error pop up once with this one though, and that was after trying to use usb storage.
Sent from my XT897 using xda premium
arrrghhh said:
I wonder if it's the c10 cards...
You guys really shouldn't be using high class cards in a phone - there's really no benefit, as phones use SD card's very differently from camcorders or cameras...
On my ooooold phone, anything above Class6 was bad juju. I have always had class4 or lower cards, no fried cards (yet... lol)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Class 10 shouldn't make a difference to a device. The class/speed only comes in to play when transferring data from/to a computer, which will be faster on Class 10 vs Class 4 or 6.
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2
arrrghhh said:
I wonder if it's the c10 cards...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As best as I can tell, thats a negative. Ive been running with a 32GB class 10 since around when the phone was released, and Ive had no issues. Quite surprising on its own, seeing as I abuse the poor thing. True that class 10 arnt useful for the phone specifically, but some shops only carry class 10 cards.
@hfase
I dont seem to have any issues with mass storage, with ~1GB written a day. Im quite curious as to why some people have this issue.
ADegtyarev said:
As best as I can tell, thats a negative. Ive been running with a 32GB class 10 since around when the phone was released, and Ive had no issues. Quite surprising on its own, seeing as I abuse the poor thing. True that class 10 arnt useful for the phone specifically, but some shops only carry class 10 cards.
@hfase
I dont seem to have any issues with mass storage, with ~1GB written a day. Im quite curious as to why some people have this issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe it's all down to the quality of the actual card itself?
Perhaps the cheaper no-name / off-name brands have a much higher failure rate....?
I'm not really sure, short of actual hardware issues on the device.
AW: Your SD card likely isn't the problem
Well here is my experience:
I am using a new san disk 32GB class10 micro sdcard. It was never format ed/ used before. The q itself formated the disk.
I have had no problems until using the twisted asanti prebuild
Version. Since then I only got problems with the qu saying the sdcard would be corrupt, after reboot. ( I expected some additional wired things, like the currents widget, which I deleted before reboot reappeared). So I would suggest it is an error in un mounting the sdcard before shutdown, which causes this failure.
Since I usually do not reboot the phone expect for flashing new roms, I had no trouble since then.
Hope this might help to further circle the problem, and maybe find a solution for this.
Sent from my awesome XT897
Since CM10 I haven't noticed any SD-Card issues, but I have the feeling, that there are some issues, which aren't detected.
In the last few days my CM10 was acting weird.
1. The gallery (together with the camera app, 2in1 app) disappeared in the App Drawer (was still in /system/app) and didn't appear again after overwriting gallery2.apk again.
2. The Google Weather App had a graphical issue, so I was sure, that there was a flash issue by restoring ASA14 and flashing CM10 (from SD-Card!).
I solved this issue in copying the nandroid backup and CM10 to the phone and flash it from there.
I have tested my SD-Card in my external cardreader, it had no issues in doing so.
My guess is, that the SD-Card needs more power than the Photon Q can give and is losing some read/write commands.
arrrghhh said:
Maybe it's all down to the quality of the actual card itself?
Perhaps the cheaper no-name / off-name brands have a much higher failure rate....?
I'm not really sure, short of actual hardware issues on the device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think This may have hit the nail on the head. I have had a couple cheap discount cards die but they really died. Cant even read in the PC and one even got really hot when plugged in. Got a good branded card from amazon and havent had a problem since.
Mordannon said:
I think This may have hit the nail on the head. I have had a couple cheap discount cards die but they really died. Cant even read in the PC and one even got really hot when plugged in. Got a good branded card from amazon and havent had a problem since.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've used better Samsung and Sandisk cards and have had this issue. It just randomly wipes all my data and creates the LOST.DIR with it all in there, but file names are all renamed and would takes years to sort through and try to figure out what is what. All my photos, music, etc.. were basically gone then. It didn't matter that the card was a name-brand or not. I've had the issue with several cards.
I constantly have this problem as well, and I've found that mounting the SD card with a reader or in another phone in a Linux environment fixes it for the most part. I think files still get lost, but you get most of what you had back.
I got a 32GB UHS1 card last week and it hasn't had a problem.

exFAT or NTFS?

Hi, I just bought a new SanDisk Ultra microSDHC 32GB Class 10 for use with my Surface RT and I'm wondering if I should format it to exFAT or NTFS? Any advantages and/or disadvantages of both file system? Thank you!
If the SD card is to last years, exFAT, otherwise NTFS. NTFS has more read/writes for its journalling feature (which only runs when the card is otherwise idle) and NTFS has little in the way of wear limiting for flash devices but is otherwise the superior filesystem, SD cards are particularly prone to flash wear but should still last a rather long time with NTFS.
Journaling also means less risk of data loss if the card is jostled or the tablet loses power in the middle of a write, of course.
Also, NTFS will allow you to apply security ACLs, which may be needed for running (store) apps off the card to work (just a guess, since many people seem to have problems doing this).
On the other hand, while legacy NT systems should be able to read NTFS just fine, many other devices (cameras, etc.) will not; for them, you'll want exFAT or similar.
... I now wonder whether my phone can read NTFS-formatted cards. Probably not important, though.
Mine was exFAT and kept "disappearing". Reformatted it to NTFS and it's been fine.
Even if it doesn't last as long now, there's no critical data on mine and they're cheap as chips anyway.
hotphil said:
Mine was exFAT and kept "disappearing". Reformatted it to NTFS and it's been fine.
Even if it doesn't last as long now, there's no critical data on mine and they're cheap as chips anyway.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Although NTFS won't last as long, overall it probably wont make a huge amount of difference as chances are it will be upgraded or something before it dies, and yeah, they are cheap to replace at any rate.
If you want to use it with devices that aren't running Windows, you should use FAT.

Discussion of SDcards used on any device

Moving the intent of a few posts on LineageOS thread to here.
rb1979 said:
Hi everyone,
Some of you reported that SD Card stopped working. This happened to me too today after about 20 hours after the latest update. The case with me is it doesn't fix itself even after a restart. I'm kind of stuck, whatever I want to do with the SD Card it wants me format it. I always had it as internal storage with apps and other things there. I have the the backup from the before the update. Will that fix if I restore it? Just want to mention that I update every week and never missed one. I had very minor issues up until now. Week in and week out everything has been fine and I started using the rom with the first release, all clean, full format and then weekly over the air updates every single week.
If anybody know any solution please let me know, if nothing works or I don't hear anything I'll probably try the backup restoration. BTW, to be specific about SD card no working I always get two notifications, one is "Unsupported SanDisk SD card" and the other is "SanDisk SD card missing"
Thank you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
KrisM22 said:
Use a card brand other than sandisk and size 32GB or less.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
rb1979 said:
Thank you for you help, I really appreciate it. The problem I see, right or wrong, is that I had this card for a year with no issues, first under stock rom, then under CM, and now under LineageOS up until the latest update with no issues at all. So it's just hard for me to take the card as the problem. Especially after seeing other people reporting it too lately. Do you have more information than just that? Meaning LineageOS and won't ever get along with sandisk or size larger than 32GB because of some external hardware limitation or something like that. Or this is just general knowledge what works best with LineageOS? In the first case I can think about case I can go and invest into a new card but in the second case I can just wait it out until codebase improves. It would good to know more so I can make better decisions.
Thanks for your help again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
KrisM22 said:
In my experience, most folks presenting SDcard problems have sandisk. I personally have had problems with sandisk that has led me to avoid them. I prefer samsung. There are many others. edit currently using a pny U3 32GB, but it's an old one and only does 56/29MBs R/W.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
adityak1303 said:
+1 @KrisM22. I agree that almost all the users that state that there's a problem with their SD card were using a SanDisk SD card including myself. @rb1979, if you really think that your card isn't faulty, then try using it in some other phone. If you face the same errors then your card is faulty. If it works fine on the other phone, only then can it be considered as a problem with the ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
rb1979 said:
Thanks both of you, I'll do some testing around and get back to you with my findings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
KrisM22 said:
I just ordered one of these because I want to test the 64GB thing as it keeps coming up.
Samsung 64GB 100MB/s (U3) MicroSDXC EVO Select Memory Card with Adapter (MB-ME64GA/AM) - $23 + some silly $3 thing to get free shipping over $25. There are faster ones out there but I'm a cheapskate and don't use it enough to justify it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's most of it - then it goes verbose and wobbly.
I welcome any and all comments about SDcards!
There is no OT here but remember the XDA rules and try to be nice to folks. You can learn without trying to control others' behaviour.
No need to pretend you are TD. (allusion to Alice in Wonderland - Top Doormouse)
Thanks for creating this thread. There are surprisingly few other recent threads that discuss this topic on XDA apart from the one I've previously linked to (https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/help/micro-sd-write-access-format-exfat-t3358275). Also, I'm bringing over the well informed SD related comments that you left behind.
---------------------------
I've got to push back on the apriori assumption that these are specifically Sandisk brand card issues without knowing the specific details of the issues and seeing actual logs, and also without knowing the history of the individual cards in question (details of every device it was connected to and how it was connected, what OS and what file management methods were used, and how full the card typically is, and how frequently it might be disconnected in the middle of a file operations, among other things).
We must be mindful of the fact that the majority of SD cards in circulation are Sandisk cards which means that the majority of reported problems will be on Sandisk cards but this does not mean that the Sandisk cards are experiencing proportionately more issues than other brands. I don't doubt individual experiences, but it they may not speak to a larger picture. For example: Having supported large systems (>300 devices) running Linux directly from SD cards I did not see more problems with Sandisk cards than others. We've not seen enough evidence here to declare that this this is a Sandisk problem.
rb1979 said:
...I had this card for a year with no issues, first under stock rom, then under CM, and now under LineageOS up until the latest update with no issues at all.So it's just hard for me to take the card as the problem
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The fact that a card has been used for a long time under different circumstances does not support a logical argument that the problem is in the ROM, in fact that supports the logical argument that the problem is with the card.
adityak1303 said:
....if you really think that your card isn't faulty, then try using it in some other phone. If you face the same errors then your card is faulty. If it works fine on the other phone, only then can it be considered as a problem with the ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good advise since, if the cards is having problems it should bring the problems to the other devices. Testing a different card in the first device on which the problem was noticed is also a good test.
--------------------------
Here is some supplemental information specific to Sandisk SD cards' built in data protection on cards experiencing failure. https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/help/micro-sd-write-access-format-exfat-t3358275. To summarize what is there: An SD card may begin to fail unknown to us, and then when the built in data protection is invoked it "breaks" the card with a dirty bit at beginning of drive so it cannot be written to or formatted but still allows us to copy data. The symoptoms when that data protection is invoked are similar to those bing reported by people who can no longer mount the card in Android devices (Android devices require read and write access to mount the card, unlike when the card is access via card reader on computer).
Just an update. I tried to format the card as portable storage (after this failure as internal and being burned I have hard time trusting it now) but it fails. I didn't do any testing with other phones just went straight for format. I might just buy another card. I think the phone specs say it's 32 GB max, is it still the case with different OS or not (meaning it was due to software not hardware) if I could get something higher than 32 (the current broken one is 32) I would go for it.
Thanks
rb1979 said:
Just an update. I tried to format the card as portable storage (after this failure as internal and being burned I have hard time trusting it now) but it fails. I didn't do any testing with other phones just went straight for format. I might just buy another card. I think the phone specs say it's 32 GB max, is it still the case with different OS or not (meaning it was due to software not hardware) if I could get something higher than 32 (the current broken one is 32) I would go for it.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe after you use it as internal, and then try to use it as external, you first have to write an MBR on it and a partition formatted FAT32. i use a bootable stand-alone GPARTED to do that.
http://gparted.org/
Moto says it's limit is 32GB. Folks have, I believe, used much bigger cards on it. Don't know what is the limiting factor - be it software (ROM) , hardware, or licensing (exfat for Microsoft). I have ordered a 64GB Sammy which I should get in 1/2 week so I can test. Course I wouldn't be doing exactly what you would be doing so the test would only show that the G3 could read/write to it. I will only use it as external storage. I don't really "need" 64GB but it will allow me to be a bit more sloppy vis a vis nandroid backups.
It could be that after you format yours, that it will suddenly work just fine. Then again I just had a thumb drive go belly-up from I/O errors - once in a great while, it happens.
KrisM22 said:
... Moto says it's limit is 32GB. Folks have, I believe, used much bigger cards on it. Don't know what is the limiting factor .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've got a 128gb in my Moto G (3rd - XT1540 2GB), and I have used the card for a long time. It works just fine for me, and the space is obviously fantastic to have. Every now and then (every few months or so, I'd say - maybe 3 times in the 18 months I've had it), it does become corrupted, though, and I get those same error messages. A backup, wipe/re-format, and restore, and I put it right back in my phone and it works just fine again. Seems like that's happened in other devices, though, too.
The card is a SanDisk Ultra SL128 (Class 10/UHS-1, man'd Jan 2016). I've only ever used it for external storage, never adopted, and I've only ever formatted the card as FAT32, using my PC. I'm running stock Android 6.0 24.24.1 at the moment, with TWRP.
beachfl said:
I've got a 128gb in my Moto G (3rd - XT1540 2GB), and I have used the card for a long time. It works just fine for me, and the space is obviously fantastic to have. Every now and then (every few months or so, I'd say - maybe 3 times in the 18 months I've had it), it does become corrupted, though, and I get those same error messages. A backup, wipe/re-format, and restore, and I put it right back in my phone and it works just fine again. Seems like that's happened in other devices, though, too.
The card is a SanDisk Ultra SL128 (Class 10/UHS-1, man'd Jan 2016). I've only ever used it for external storage, never adopted, and I've only ever formatted the card as FAT32, using my PC. I'm running stock Android 6.0 24.24.1 at the moment, with TWRP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks - Becoming corrupted every 6 months seems excessive, but with heavy use...? So what do you use it for? Also it sounds like you are using something other than the phone to format it...?
At least you are ready for it and just re-format it!
beachfl said:
I've got a 128gb in my Moto G (3rd - XT1540 2GB), and I have used the card for a long time. It works just fine for me, and the space is obviously fantastic to have. Every now and then (every few months or so, I'd say - maybe 3 times in the 18 months I've had it), it does become corrupted, though, and I get those same error messages. A backup, wipe/re-format, and restore, and I put it right back in my phone and it works just fine again. Seems like that's happened in other devices, though, too.
The card is a SanDisk Ultra SL128 (Class 10/UHS-1, man'd Jan 2016). I've only ever used it for external storage, never adopted, and I've only ever formatted the card as FAT32, using my PC. I'm running stock Android 6.0 24.24.1 at the moment, with TWRP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That may not be drive corruption but rather a corrupted file or files. If it is localize drive corruption it may still be there without having any impact until some data is written to that part of the drive. Unlike platter based hard drives, when these drives actually start to fail they may invoke a built in data protection (dirty bit) which resembles being locked in read only mode preventing the drive from being formatted which is obviously not your case. Have you ever done a sector scan of the drive, eg chkdsk <driveletter> /f /r or done a full format (as opposed to quick format)? Either of those things may flush out localized damage and the scan might fix it but they would take a long time.
KrisM22 said:
Thanks - Becoming corrupted every 6 months seems excessive, but with heavy use...? So what do you use it for? Also it sounds like you are using something other than the phone to format it...?
At least you are ready for it and just re-format it!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I guess it is kinda a small PITA lol. Could just be from me starting and cancelling or moving too many things at once, I don't know.
I've never actually come close to needing all that space to TBH. I could probably do just fine with a 64, but it's nice to know I could record or store hours of HD video, for example, if I need it. I got nearly 30 gigs of music on it. I keep tv and movies on there, too, in case I get caught bored somewhere. Full Nandroid and Titanium backups are on there, as well.
I use a microSD adapter and a small (76 kb) utility for Windows called FAT32Format (Ridgecorp).
---------- Post added at 22:00 ---------- Previous post was at 21:45 ----------
IronTechmonkey said:
That may not be drive corruption but rather a corrupted file or files. If it is localize drive corruption it may still be there without having any impact until some data is written to that part of the drive. Unlike platter based hard drives, when these drives actually start to fail they may invoke a built in data protection (dirty bit) which resembles being locked in read only mode preventing the drive from being formatted which is obviously not your case. Have you ever done a sector scan of the drive, eg chkdsk <driveletter> /f /r or done a full format (as opposed to quick format)? Either of those things may flush out localized damage and the scan might fix it but they would take a long time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've had that problem before, too, but not on the 128 I have in my phone now. That is very frustrating. One of my 32 gb cards suddenly went into "read-only" mode as you describe, and nothing I can do will get it useable again. All the files are still readable from it (except the part of one huge video file that is on the bad sector that seems to have caused the problem).
So right, my 128 card doesn't have that problem, and seems to be corrupted files, as you say, not the drive itself. I do actually do what you talk about - when I do find I have to re-do the 128 sd card in my phone, I run a Windows chkdsk /r before I re-format it, and a chkdsk /f afterward, as a check. The chkdsk /r does take quite a while, yeah .. a few hours.
Cheers
beachfl said:
Yeah I guess it is kinda a small PITA lol. Could just be from me starting and cancelling or moving too many things at once, I don't know.
I've never actually come close to needing all that space to TBH. I could probably do just fine with a 64, but it's nice to know I could record or store hours of HD video, for example, if I need it. I got nearly 30 gigs of music on it. I keep tv and movies on there, too, in case I get caught bored somewhere. Full Nandroid and Titanium backups are on there, as well.
I use a microSD adapter and a small (76 kb) utility for Windows called FAT32Format (Ridgecorp).
---------- Post added at 22:00 ---------- Previous post was at 21:45 ----------
I've had that problem before, too, but not on the 128 I have in my phone now. That is very frustrating. One of my 32 gb cards suddenly went into "read-only" mode as you describe, and nothing I can do will get it useable again. All the files are still readable from it (except the part of one huge video file that is on the bad sector that seems to have caused the problem).
So right, my 128 card doesn't have that problem, and seems to be corrupted files, as you say, not the drive itself. I do actually do what you talk about - when I do find I have to re-do the 128 sd card in my phone, I run a Windows chkdsk /r before I re-format it, and a chkdsk /f afterward, as a check. The chkdsk /r does take quite a while, yeah .. a few hours.
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great that you're running chkdsk on it. May be caused if you cancel or something happens in the middle of a move. Only other thing I could suggest is to do your format on the phone itself, after you've done everything else on the PC. Don't know if that would make a difference. Shouldn't but I've run across vy experienced folks saying to do that. But... Yeah you've got me hankering to put a 128GB on it...
edit: for read only cards before you trash them I would run them by gparted just to see if re-creating the MBR and partition would change its mind. I have successfully done that with thumb drives but not with cards/adapter/reader.
KrisM22 said:
Great that you're running chkdsk on it..
edit: for read only cards before you trash them I would run them by gparted just to see if re-creating the MBR and partition would change its mind. I have successfully done that with thumb drives but not with cards/adapter/reader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, thanks for reminding me about fixing the errors, IronTechmonkey. It's kinda an important step I forgot to mention.
I not sure I have the bad card still. I didn't think about GParted, should have. I tried Paragon, among other things, but to no avail.
What speeds are folks getting from a U3 SDE card? I bought what I thought was a 100/60MB/s card and it does about what my old PNY card did - R=40-50, W=34-40MB/s. Is the phone the limiting factor or did I get a bum card?
KrisM22 said:
What speeds are folks getting from a U3 SDE card? I bought what I thought was a 100/60MB/s card and it does about what my old PNY card did - R=40-50, W=34-40MB/s. Is the phone the limiting factor or did I get a bum card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AFAIK the the phone hardware/OS is unlikely to meet the advertised speeds of the cards. Likewise and perhaps more so for USB 2.0 ports and anything using MTP.
I dont know how this compares but for what it is worth: With a Sandisk Utra SDHC (Class 10 - Video, Ultra High Speed Class 1 - whatever that jargon means) touting 80 MB/s read speeds and 40 MB/s* write speeds; the read speeds did consistently approach the rating (getting hot enough to scorch the logo) and the wite speed occasional did. Another factor is the size of files being copied, larger quantities of smaller files taking more time per MB, unless using some dedicated test utility I've never actually done a test of SD r/w speeds on the device. What are you using to measure those?
* In re write speed ratings: Digging into the small print of the specifications may reveal that the manufacturer uses different size cards each for the reed and write speed ratings, effectively padding the write speeds by citing test results from smaller capacity cards.
IronTechmonkey said:
AFAIK the the phone hardware/OS is unlikely to meet the advertised speeds of the cards. Likewise and perhaps more so for USB 2.0 ports and anything using MTP.
I dont know how this compares but for what it is worth: With a Sandisk Utra SDHC (Class 10 - Video, Ultra High Speed Class 1 - whatever that jargon means) touting 80 MB/s read speeds and 40 MB/s* write speeds; the read speeds did consistently approach the rating (getting hot enough to scorch the logo) and the wite speed occasional did. Another factor is the size of files being copied, larger quantities of smaller files taking more time per MB, unless using some dedicated test utility I've never actually done a test of SD r/w speeds on the device. What are you using to measure those?
* In re write speed ratings: Digging into the small print of the specifications may reveal that the manufacture uses different size cards each for the reed and write speed ratings, effectively padding the write speeds by citing test results from smaller capacity cards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks.
Interesting - so you were testing it on windows (?) I did test them on linux and got W=74 on the PNY and 77MBs on the Samsung. That's through a USB3 cardreader.
On the phone I used A1 SD Bench, SD card test, and disk speed test.
Off to try windows...
I was just going to boot up a WinPE and test it there. What prog did you use to test it?
Yes, both of these cards test at about R=81 , W=66.
KrisM22 said:
Thanks.
Interesting - so you were testing it on windows (?) I did test them on linux and got W=74 on the PNY and 77MBs on the Samsung. That's through a USB3 cardreader.
On the phone I used A1 SD Bench, SD card test, and disk speed test.
Off to try windows...
I was just going to boot up a WinPE and test it there. What prog did you use to test it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, Windows 7, which reports file data transfer speeds in the copy process window so I did not use a utility. I've done this enough times in geneal, and a few times specifically with large files and a stopwatch, so I know the speed in the file copy window is relatively accurate (for single large files). The speeds you get on linux seem reasonable. I'll test A1 SD Bench on Osprey when I have a chance. Thanks.
---------- Post added at 11:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:08 PM ----------
KrisM22 said:
Yes, both of these cards test at about R=81 , W=66.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also seemingly reasonable.
My card seem to be working just fine on my Lineage OS. I rebooted by device and now it says it's corrupted. Is there any way out? Will I be able to get my data back?
jay.bhadra1995 said:
My card seem to be working just fine on my Lineage OS. I rebooted by device and now it says it's corrupted. Is there any way out? Will I be able to get my data back?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My suggestion would be to copy whatever you can off it and re-format it asap. If you can't read it via phone, try PC.
EDIT: I am assuming you are using it as external. If you are using it as internal, I believe you have lost everything. I know of nothing that can read it. GPARTED can only re-add an MBR and a partition and make it usable again, but all data is lost.
KrisM22 said:
My suggestion would be to copy whatever you can off it and re-format it asap. If you can't read it via phone, try PC.
EDIT: I am assuming you are using it as external. If you are using it as internal, I believe you have lost everything. I know of nothing that can read it. GPARTED can only re-add an MBR and a partition and make it usable again, but all data is lost.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah. I copied everything and made a backup. Luckily I use it only as a storage device and not an internal drive for apps. But how do I re-format it? I tried using the format option that my phone gives me but to no avail.
jay.bhadra1995 said:
Yeah. I copied everything and made a backup. Luckily I use it only as a storage device and not an internal drive for apps. But how do I re-format it? I tried using the format option that my phone gives me but to no avail.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have a little card reader so you can plug it into your PC?
KrisM22 said:
Do you have a little card reader so you can plug it into your PC?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. Sadly I don't. Is there no other way round to format it?

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