How to format a micro SD card.
I had a HTC Touch Pro2 16gb micro sd card that has about 14gb on it. It was starting to get really slow to copy any size file to it. so i copied off the full contents to my pc (with the micro sd in a card reader) and in windows explorer, did a right click, format, format fat32. I seem to remember the size wasn't exactly correct but cannot remember exactly. format went really quick and i started coping back over my file. the copy stopped saying there was not enough room. tried another format and now it says that there is just 241kb of size (my only option in the drop down), File Systme Fat is my only option, and Allocation Unit Size FAT is my only option. I do not have a Volume label. Any thoughts? Would love not to have to buy a new card.
Try to format in FAT32 once more and do full format, not Quick. preferably via PC
Dancer-Sk said:
Try to format in FAT32 once more and do full format, not Quick. preferably via PC
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True that. Had the same problem once. What I did was to use a different SD Card reader and delete off the contents first before trying format (non-quick).
If that doesn't work, google for an alternative sd card formatter.
Download Ubuntu Live CD and run it w/o installing. Connect your Cardreader and start the Program "Gparted".
Now you can format your SD-Card in many Datatypes, maybe Windows is faulty at your Cardreader, but with Linux it should work fine.
Ubuntu Download: www [dot] ubuntu [dot] com/download/ubuntu/download
P.S.: If Gparted is not listed in the App Drawer, get it from the Ubuntu Softwarecenter by simply searching "Gparted".
Hi,
Here is a tool what will make formatting a SD Card easy. Just download this tool and select Full erease. Then it will be okay. Also partitions which are hidden are now ereased try it and let me know!
Tip: Search in google SD Formatter 3.1 and select the first link!
The SDFormatter 3.1 did the trick. Windows XP formatter had no options for Fat32 and only saw 224kb of my 16gb micro sd card. The SDFormatter 3.1 recognized the full 16gb. Not really sure about the options. Even though there are only three the FULL options did not seem to work at first but after the quick my card was formatted, windows saw 16gb, copied my data back and now my phone is good. thanks.
Flash memory just gets slower when it get fuller, formating doesnt help that.
Dark3n said:
Flash memory just gets slower when it get fuller, formating doesnt help that.
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Formatting deletes every thing so it was to speed it up?!? ;/)
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium
Related
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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
Hi
Just wondered how i completely wipe all my data from this disk?
I can boot into clockworkmod restore factory defaults and clear cache. I just need to know how to wipe the SD card.
Trying to revert the phone to the beginning.
Sent from my HTC Desire HD using XDA App
Settings/ sd card/ unmount sd/ format sd card!...
Sent from my HTC Vision
This worked to some degree.
Once I unmounted it and erased the SD card I couldn't mount or format the card again :/. Nothing I did worked.
I tried formatting my SD card when connecting the phone to my windows laptop but couldn't do it either.
I have clockworkmod installed on my phone and think I have found a solution.
Keep your phone connected to your laptop. If you reboot into recovery on your phone and go to "mounts and storage menu", then "mount USB storage". On your windows platform it should popup something like "need to format this drive before you can access it". so I formatted the drive, fat32, allocated unit size 32kb, check "quick format". Start.
once it's done in windows, select in clockworkmod "format /sdcard" and then "mount /sdcard" and reboot.
It should work.
In case this helps you along the way - this program seems to come recommended for formatting SD cards.
http://www.sdcard.org/consumers/formatter/
Grant Barker said:
In case this helps you along the way - this program seems to come recommended for formatting SD cards.
http://www.sdcard.org/consumers/formatter/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried that a couple of days ago. Formatted my new 32GB microsdhc card fine. But XP Pro (with SP3) couldn't see it on my desktop so couldn't drop all my data onto it. In the end I formatted the card with my Nokia E71, mounted it as a 'disk' on the PC and all was fine.
(Didn't do it on the DHD 'cos I didn't want to tie it up for 7 hours copying all my music across)!
Dave
II have ordered 16 GB card and what steps should I follow to move my 8 GB stock SD apps to new one?
1) Format new card............
2) ..................
3)
Cant u just connect it to the PC in USB mode and format from windows?
in reference to wiping SD cards, i want to know if i can format my sd card or is CWM, CM or anything else has essential files on the SD card (i dont install apps to the SD)
thanks
eozen81 said:
II have ordered 16 GB card and what steps should I follow to move my 8 GB stock SD apps to new one?
1) Format new card............
2) ..................
3)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) Format new card............
2) Copy everything from old card to PC
3) Copy everything from PC to new card
If your PC environment is Windows based, you may want to think about using SyncBack Freeware. It will ensure that every file has been moved. I've been using this to move large folders/directories for many years.
Well, I tried formatting my 8gb micro sd card that came with my Mytouch4g and now Windows 7 doesn't recognize it. When I insert it into my Mytouch it just says a "blank card" was inserted. I can SEE the size of it when using things like EASEUS or going into disk management but I can't format or anything. I've tried changing the Drive letter and that doesn't work.
Does anyone know what I should do?
Did you just use Windows to format, and did you do a quick format or a full format? Also, what file system did you use?
Sorry about the super late reply. But yes, I used Windows to format, and now im stuck with the problem stated above. I think it was FAT.
Try a different program or os like linux to read/reformat the card.
But its possible that it is defective.
Happened to me that way once.
The card was showing bad performance i thought i could fix it by reformating it, after that i couldn't get it to work again.
If you have installed rom manager, try and format the Sd card from that.
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)
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yes thats good one ! +1
avetny said:
yes thats good one ! +1
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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?
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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. )
Big problem. I have a Lexar 32gb sd card and today it seems to have went corrupt.
I noticed it when my ring tone change from a song to default. if i put the sd card in my PC and try to read from it it says card needs to be formated. Please tell me there is a way to recover the info on the card??? when i put the sd in the phone it says preparing then says safe to remove sd card.
TIA
JC
Hopefully just a format is all you need. I lost a 32g USB drive recently, and fortunately Corsair has great warranty service.
Sent from my Bricked Energy Sensation.
My wife's sensation did the same thing, I had to take out the SD and put it into my SD card reader on my laptop, format it and then put it back in the phone. The phone then wanted to format it again which it did and now it seems fine.
By the way, the data was intact when I put it in my SDcard reader. I was able to back up the data before I formatted it.
He said he wanted to recover the files on the SD card, not how to get the **** thing working.
You might want to check if all of the connections are clean. If they're not, a format the ****-error is likely to happen. Pure alcohol might do the trick.
If it doesn't, you could search Google or the forums for terms like 'recover corrupted micro SD'.
Good luck!
Edit: Maybe this guide does the trick?
I've an other question. I made the mistake to format my SD card with CWM and now it's only a 4 GB card (it should be 8 GB). Does someone know how I can force format it to 8 GB (with Windows or Mac OS disk utility, I can't expand the size anymore, just reformat it) ?
you can use sdformatter, a great and simple tool for those types of things, or you can download easus partition manager, its free and pretty good software for drive management.
If you want to make a linux disc, such as Ubuntu, gparted is one of the best tools available for examining, repartitioning, flagging, and fixing disks. I believe you can just download gparted and boot it from a CD or flashdrive, but I think just downloading a linux distribution is easier.