SD Card and Android - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Today I've run into a curious problem, and I've finally ran into a brick wall in solving it.
I have the Samsung galaxy S II Skyrocket, and I have a 16GB micro SD card that I just bought from wal-mart for it. The card has been awesome since I got it.
Earlier I was cleaning up stuff because I was running out of space, so I moved a bunch of stuff from the SD card to my laptop and deleted it off my sd card. When I went to move my stuff back over after having made my changes to it... the sdcard said it only had 5GB of memory left. That's weird, because I had just moved 10GB worth of stuff off of the sdcard. So something must be up.
I rebooted my phone and wiped the caches just to make sure it wasn't keeping stuff like that on it. I also got rid of the LOST.DIR folder. I would go through the whole card in Ubuntu terminal using ls -lh on every folder and there was no way that card only had 5GB of free space on it. So I went ahead and reformatted it.
This is where things went wrong.
Foolish me, and this was a mistake on my part, I chose ext 4 for whatever reason as opposed to FAT32. So now I have a 16gb sdcard that is blank and unreadable by my phone. My phone offers to format it, but the format does nothing. Formatting it in CWM also accomplishes nothing. And my other machines won't recognize the Sd card either, only my phone. My phone could see it, but say that it can't use it. Sdcard is blank or has an unsupported filesystem would be the error.
At least my phone could see it though, so I thought there must be a way to save this thing. My laptop couldn't recognize it for some reason, so using Gparted was out of the question.
After a couple attempted reformats and searching for apps that could format sd cards (I couldn't seem to find any) I went for a last ditch attempt and used the partition tool in CWM that I had read about some weeks ago for a completely unrelated task.
And voila I can see the card again. Except.. CWM partitioned 4GB, and those 4GB of data seem to be lost. No matter what, using windows, my phone, Gparted in ubuntu, they all say that the card has a max size of 10.7GB now as opposed to the 14.7 or so that it was supposed to have.
And now I'm stumped. Did CWM goof up and instead of partitioning off 4GB, it actually just destroyed 4GB and somehow made the sdcard work again at the cost of 25% of the data it is supposed to hold? Or is the way CWM partitions it something whacky where the 4GB is there but it is impossible to see it or access it or something..
tl;dr SD card had issues, repartitioning in CWM made it work again. Instead of having 16GB, it has 12GB. How to get those 4GB back?

Related

32Gb Class 4 microSDHC - Phone unstable! Please help!

Hi all, I bought yesterday 32Gb Kingston Class 4 microSDHC card. Now my phone is very unstable with this memory. I mean, sometimes it can't mount it, sometimes it shows its empty, formatting almost hangs phone, some apps hang phone (apps on sd). Looks like the phone doesn't want to eat this big memory too well.
I already tried soft reset, and dalvik cache deleting. Didn't help.
microSD is formatted into Fat32 and 32Kb clusters in windows with HP Formatting tool.
If I try to reformat with phone, nothing seems to happen....
It can work perfectly for a 20min, but if I try to turn many apps on and off, it will reboot. After what it doesn't see apps on SD card. wtf? But after complete reboot, it'll work again for a some time.
I have 2.2 Android from elelinux.
If I use my old 2Gb card, everything works just great.
Any ideas?
P.S
What does this recovery mode SD card formatting? Maybe I should try this one?
I have ClockworkMod Recovery 2.5.0.7. There are some interesting options like..
What ARE these?
1. Format Cache
2. Format SD card
3. Format sd-ext
4. Wipe Cache Partition
P.P.S LOL I can't turn off phone. It is rebooting always. Wtf?
32gb SD cards are not supported by the HTC Hero.
16gb max.
Andyt95 said:
32gb SD cards are not supported by the HTC Hero.
16gb max.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
According to the HTC website, our Hero's should support 32GB.
But that's as far as my knowledge on your issue goes. Just ordered a 32GB Class 4 SanDisk card myself, so when its delivered (hopefully Friday) I'll let you know how it performs.
Just an update for you, mine came in the post yesterday and it seems to work fine with my phone. Loaded it with 20gb of music and it runs fine.
Yep should run fine with 32gb sd cart
i'm having many of the same issues with my 32gb. had a 16gb before, and all was well.
now the phone randomly goes back to charge only when i have it plugged into PC as disk drive. i'm having trouble making backups in recovery too as it says its randomly unreadable in the middle of backing up. also, and seemingly most frustrating, is it is refusing to actually transfer files from PC to SD. i will plug in as disk drive and move all files without issue. however, when i eject disk drive and switch back to charge only mode (or simply unplug), none of the files have actually been moved to my device. they are simply missing entirely when i open any file manager.
i've tried everything. formatting on device, formatting through W7 (quick and full), and formatting through the official sdcard.org tool. nothing helps.
Try this
If u have a linux PC, u will know about gparted, I guess.
Do this: boot to ur favourite linux distro. plug the sd card to ur pc using a card reader. open gparted. click tools and then click new partition table. it will wipe everything from the card.
once done, just setup the partitions as u want for fat, ext or whatever. i was having a htc tattoo troubling me with a 16GB card but now its okay.

Killing SD cards to flash CWM

I have been trying to flash CWM so I can install CM7. I rooted this month ago and just wanted to try something different, but that doesn't seem to be the problem. I can't flash the SD cards.
I downloaded the zip from here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1798439. That seemed straight forward. I first tried imaging a 16gb SD card because I had it sitting around. The image worked, but the card was now 69 MB. Yes, MB.
The booting worked and got me to the CWM menu, but I can't copy the CM7 file onto an SD card that is only 69MB, so it's useless.
I went to Best Buy and figured that since the instructions called for an 8GB SD card, I would try that instead of the 16. I also used a different computer. It did the exact same thing. The card is pretty dead... reformatting lets me reformat a 69MB card.
So as you can see, I'm not really even to the problem of CM7, I just can't use that program to get CWM going on the SD card.
-Windows XP
-Dynex Reader
-SanDisk cards (a 16 and 8gb)
-That Win32DiskImager
Any suggestions? I'm going to buy yet another card, but I really can't afford to keep tossing away these SD cards. Should I do it through the nook? Do I need Windows 7? Is that Win32diskimager junk?
Thanks for your help.
Haha my goodness man, stop buying SD cards! They aren't 69MB forever. The image you wrote to the card creates a 69MB partition. The rest of the space is still on the card. To get the space back, you'll need to download MiniTool Partition Wizard on your PC and do some repartitioning. Don't worry, it's really easy, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
If I read correctly, your real issue is that you cannot fit the CM7 ROM onto your SD card after it becomes 69MB. There's an easy fix. Just copy the ROM onto the internal storage partition (/mnt/media) of your actual NT. Then when you boot into CWM, choose the option to install zip from internal SD.
Awesome! Thank you, good sir. I now have CM7... so I guess I'll go see how that works.
You can reformat the sdcard(s) now either on windows or on the tablet itself (go to storage, select unmount, then reformat).
You'll get back all your space. I'd suggest flashing clockwordmod recovery to internal after doing so.
ZemTyrion said:
Awesome! Thank you, good sir. I now have CM7... so I guess I'll go see how that works.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem. Glad to hear you got everything sorted out now. Let us know if you need help with your microSD cards.
I downloaded and used Gparted to delete both partitions from the SD card, took me less than 5 minutes after I got the .iso burnt to CD.
It has been reported that off brand, class10 cards are troublesome. There has been many good reports for : Sandisk, class 4.

[Q] Formatted SD Card: lost internal card!!

Help!
I moved to GS2 and wanted to use my SD card I used on another phone; it had an ext4 partition and a FAT32 partition.
All went well.
Then I decided to remove the ext4 partition and have the SD fully formatted with FAT32. I tried both Primary and Logical, tried NTFS too and even recreated and ext partition with ClockwordMod, but I end up always the same way, that is if I put the card in the phone and then boot, it freezes, terminate processes and does not see ANY internal or external SD card!!
Please help! How can I get back to a working full FAT32/NTFS card?
Thank you!!!
Dude looks like you have really messed up not only your phone, but also the way you put your problem. How is it possible that you boot up your phone and still you cant see at least your internal SD... Anyhow my suggestions are:-
1. Remove SD card and boot normally without SD card. See if your internal shows up. If YES, format the SD card in PC and put back in cell.
2. If the phone still crashes, you need to clear all caches in Recovery. Do and see what happens. Also tell us if you are rooted? what ROM are you using..
3. Apart from the SD, does your phone work normal?
Bro, your query is kinda too complex and one of the noobiest one i have come upon in a long time.
Sorry for not having said before: without the SD the phone boots normally. AND however I format the SD card, is it always readable in Windows 7.
About your question "How is it possible that you boot up your phone and still you cant see at least your internal SD", it is what I'm wandering too... It looks like the "badly" formatted SD messes the partition logic in Android.
Now I'm trying this: deleted all partitions, created a new unformatted one trying to format within phone.
Thanks for help and patience!
Yes! It worked!! The phone saw the unformatted card and prompted for action; I made it format and now it's back

SD Card unexpectingly stopped working.

Was using my wifi tether while phone was plugged in and when I checked my phone, I seen the white sd card with the exclimation point and when I pulled down my notification bar, it said "Removed SD Card, Insert a new one." I put it in another phone, said same thing. I put it in my laptop, and Windows didn't even recognize it in any way. When I put it back in my phone, it said "Damaged SD Card, Reformat needed" or whatever. When I tried to reformat it, it said it couldn't be reformatted. When I rebooted into 4ext to reformat it, it kept giving me errors that it couldn't be reformatted.
I'm running Dastin's WILD FOR THE NIGHT 2/15 4.2.2 rom. My SD card is a Lexar High-Speed Class 10 32GB.
All I'm trying to do is recover everything that is/was on it. I have a feeling that that isn't possible. I had 4GBs of music, about 10GBs of downloads, custom roms, etc.
If anyone knows how to recover my files or format the sd card without errors please tell me. Thank you.
I had the exact same problem once. no card reader was recognizing it. what i did was go to recovery and format the card from there. I remember i had to choose 4ext partition option or something like that to get it to format
Whenever I go into 4ext, it says sd card can't be mounted. The only way I got it to do anything was I used a friends desktop computer and it recognized it in My Computer, yet when I click Open, it says it's not accessible. I right clicked on it, did the full format, and at the end it said it couldn't be formatted. I went to properties and the disk is blue and it says 0kbs in all sections. I tried data recovery software, partition wizards, etc and no go. Can I send it to Lexar and have them do something about it?
Sent from my WILD FOR THE NIGHT'd Fr3vo that makes iPhags Jellybean.
Go into recovery and then select make sd-ext4 partition option. It should format the card. then afterwards you can remove the ext partition by reformatting
What if the sd card isn't recognized by any computer? And I have data recovery software that "claims" it can restore your data even after a format. Is that even possible?
Sent from my WILD FOR THE NIGHT'd Fr3vo that makes iPhags Jellybean.
I was once able to restore around 90 percent of my images on a corrupted card but i have never seen a card restore all the data on a card. It's all your luck
I had app backups, game data, videos, and about 4gbs of music. Will it restore them or images only?
Sent from my WILD FOR THE NIGHT'd Fr3vo that makes iPhags Jellybean.
Re:
Due to corruption your memory card stopped working and need to repair corruption issue, go for Kernel for windows data recovery software for the recovery of your data from the corrupted sd memory card.
Well i put the sd card in an action replay sd card adapter (the one that you take the bottom off and it turns into a usb drive) and I was able to bring up everything that was on it. I backed it up and formatted it with win7 partition wizard or something, and I put it in a regular sd adapter and I got nothing. For some reason it only works with the AR USB adapter. How can I get the sd card to work in my phone now? I'm thinking I can just buy another 32GB (or 64) since I was able to get everything off of it, I'm just trying to avoid that so I can try and save this one still.
Sent from my WILD FOR THE NIGHT'd Fr3vo that makes iPhags Jellybean.

Sandisk 64 GB Ultra 3rd card dead!

Hey,
I have a 64GB Sandisk Ultra microSD card. I am now on my third dead card, after killing all three through a re-partition and format using Mini Partition Wizard Home.
Originally, I got over 6 months of trouble free operation from the card, with 4 partitions. When I recently upgraded my phone, I went to repartition the card, and it died. I got a replacement from Sandisk (as they have a 10y warranty), and when I went to re-partition the replacement, it died as well. Tonight I just got the next MicroSD card replacement and again, as soon as I reformatted it (I wanted it all EXT4) IT DIED!!!
Originally, I thought it died because I defined the partitions in reverse order (ie the last partition first and the first partition last). Now, I think it was because when I create the EXT4 partition these last three times, I am using a 4K cluster size instead of the default. The first time I partitioned and formatted it (and it worked), I would think I had left it on default. Other than that, I cannot see what I have done that would cause the issue????
Anyway, now I have a Micro SD card that is not recognised by Mini Partition wizard, so I can't reformat it and bring it back to life.
In windows partition manager, it does show up, but as having a size of 0 bytes, and therefore I cant add or delete any partitions. I have searched high and low, and all I can find are recovery software for deleted files or partitions. But my card has no partitions. I also downloaded the micorSD industry standard SDFormatter, but it does not see the card as an option to reformat.
Does anyone have any ideas on how I could recover the card? I think Sandisk may get a little difficult when I get back to them saying I killed another card, and I do not want to wade through the whole returns process and wait for a replacement card, again.
Any ideas? I am getting desperate. The card can't be physically damaged, i would guess if I could re-flash the firmware or something, the card would come back to life.
Maybe a format would do? Well, if you can go with losing the data on it.
J2270A said:
Maybe a format would do? Well, if you can go with losing the data on it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's the problem. I can not reformat it, as nothing (useful) can see the card, to enable the creation of a partition to apply a format to.
At the very best, I can see it as having 0 bytes. ie I can not add a partition to apply a format to it. If I could reformat it (ie define a partition), all would be ok. The card is dead, and it was brand new (for the 2nd time) so there is no data on the card to recover.

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