Database Users

MINI SD disappeared!

Hi guys... I have the worst problem since I bought this brilliant device: I was playing with a game (installed on the mini SD), and when I tried to save it told me I had not enough storage space. Puzzled, I ended the game and went back to the normal pda functions...just to find out my SD is not recognized anymore. Zero, nada. Disappeared. Tried to get it out and in again (a million times), and I don't even get the sound I used to get. I tried fitting the minisd to the sd adapter and put it in an old zire: the card works!Everything is there. But the wizard won't recognize it anymore. Tried soft reset and it didn't help... Not so keen on hard resetting unless it is the only option but...I'm dazed...It doesn't see it anymore.I admit I was playing the game at 240 mhhz (overclocked) but I had played it a million times already and everything was smooth... PLEASE HELP!

same here im having this problem. it's annoying as hell!

same here im having this problem. it's annoying as hell!

I have had the problem of the memory card seemingly disappearing.
On checking closer, I noticed I had 'Storage Card' and 'Storage Card2'
Storage Card had one file on it and everything else was still on Storage Card2.
By deleting Storage Card abd soft reset, all was restored.
This has happened a couple of time.
If this happens to you, make sure you delete the right one.

Storage card
I've never unlocked the extended rom (Storage_card_2), so i have just Storage Card, a 1 Gig Sandisk mini SD. Still, it dissapears a couple of times a day, and i must soft reset my wizard to appear again. Very, very frustrating

Missing data
Something similar has happened to mine as well....
I turned my PDA on and accessed the storage card just like I do on any other day, only to find that all of the files had disappeared!! Everything had gone - but when I went into the memory setting, where it tells you how much space is used on the card it is still showing up as being half full i.e. the data is still there but not showing up on explorer!!
What is this all about??!! It has never happened to me before!!
Just wish I could offer an explanation on how to fix this...

You can probably read those files in Windows. This memory card disappearing problem seems to occur frequently with Wizard. Lookslike some program keeps corrupting the memory card.
Format the card in Windows and put it back in your phone, it will most likely work.

Format the card in Windows and put it back in your phone, it will most likely work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you format the card, surely it will wipe everything that was on there in the first place..?!
There must be a way of retrieving those missing files somehow without resorting to formatting...
The weird thing is, today I transferred a single file from my desktop to the Sd card (whilst in my XDA) and suddenly some of the missing files appeared...?!
Now to find the rest of them....

I would love to have storage card 2 or something like that, but all I get is...the same behaviour I'd get if NO sd was in. I don't want to hard reset UNLESS somebody can confirm me this works...I am so desperate, it kinda looks like the sd reader is dead...all of a sudden! Please guys help...

I hard resetted and still it doesn't work...I'll take it to a shop to repair...I am totally disappointed!

I had this, the card came back after I just placed it in a card reader, browsed it on a pc, then replaced it in the phone.

dukeV said:
I had this, the card came back after I just placed it in a card reader, browsed it on a pc, then replaced it in the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ditto, it works if i do that too.
i think i found a fix, i formatted my card as FAT.
and so far it hasn't crapped out on my since.
see if it works for u guys too.

dukeV said:
I had this, the card came back after I just placed it in a card reader, browsed it on a pc, then replaced it in the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ditto, it works if i do that too.
i think i found a fix, i formatted my card as FAT.
and so far it hasn't crapped out on my since.
see if it works for u guys too.

What is do
It happens to me too - if I go into file explorer, I see storage_card and storage_card_2. The contents of storage_card_2 are exactly those of my SD. If I delete storage_card, remove and re-insert my SD, storage_card_2 disappears and storage_card is as it should be...

It was an sd problem...as soon as I have formatted it started to work again...
hope that sorts it for you guys if you have this annoying problem...

Mini SD trouble.

Just trying to upload a few files to my 1gb sandisk and found that some files and directories had just become a jumble of characters and after a soft reset my programs that were stored on the card refused to work.
I had the phone reasonably close to my monitor at work on the desk, could that have been the prob or is my card going to die ?
Formatted it on the PC and its back to normal for now. Just re installing everything.

i got the same thing just now. all my games and programs stored on my miniSD card dont work! what the heck?

Is it some form of magnetism interference or power surge or what ? I was plugging my phone into the usb attached to the computer at the time when I first noticed it. Everything had been runnning fine before that.
Hope its not going to keep happening on a regular basis.

It happened to me too, I think it is due to two programs trying to write to the storage card at once, or something reading while some else is writing, or similar.
I wiped mine and fortunately was able to replace most of what was on there (mostly music) but found out afterwards that there was a good chance of recovery.
Try checking out EasyRecovery Professional, there is a free trial I beleive and you should be able to recover files on your card (even if they have been deleted and not yet overwritten).
Hope this helps
Oliy

Recurring Storage Card Corruption

Corrupt files and folders are starting to appear on my Vario II storage card (sandisk 2Gb) and I cannot establish why. As you can see from the view of the card below it contains many illegal characaters so neither the files nor folders can be deleted. Whilst I can understand any crashes of the device may cause stray files they do not normaly comprise corrupt names and as you can see from the file dates it all looks rather nasty.
Last time I just copied all the good folders (using a micro SD card to USB stick converter) to my laptop then formatted and started again with a freshly formatted (Windows FAT32)and checked (Windows scandisk) the card - copying all files back afterwards.
This solved the problem but as you can see the issue has occured again and I notice that some files and folders have disappeared (I tried Google and this forum but the posts seem to concentrate on fixing the problem - I can do that). What I need to know is how to avoid this again - can anybody offer any help? Is it a virus perhaps? I am concerned that my files are at risk and even resolving this immediate problem will not address the cause.
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Stop using sandisk - get a kingston card. all my problems disappeared ...

I used to have the same problem on my Xda IIi, so maybe it is a card problem more than the phone? Sandisk too...

Use kingstone!
I originally had sandisk 512mg and had problems of lock ups and corrupted files. Soft reset would fix it but not for long. However, since I got a new Kngstone 1gb card, all problems were gone. After that I needed more storage and couldn't find Kinstone 2gb card where I leave, so bought sandisk ultraII 2gb card 3 days ago hoping it would be different. Nope! The problems are coming back again. I am going back to Kingstone.

tony.wheeler said:
Corrupt files and folders are starting to appear on my Vario II storage card (sandisk 2Gb) and I cannot establish why. As you can see from the view of the card below it contains many illegal characaters so neither the files nor folders can be deleted. Whilst I can understand any crashes of the device may cause stray files they do not normaly comprise corrupt names and as you can see from the file dates it all looks rather nasty.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Tony,
Notwithstanding that there are apparently known issues with certain SanDisk cards, do you remove the mSD card while the device is still powered on? I have noticed disk corruption such as lost clusters and truncated files on my Kingston mSD card when I have done this. Seems better to power down the device and wait the ~10 secs for the caches to be flushed before removing it.
John

johnburn said:
Hi Tony,
Notwithstanding that there are apparently known issues with certain SanDisk cards, do you remove the mSD card while the device is still powered on? I have noticed disk corruption such as lost clusters and truncated files on my Kingston mSD card when I have done this. Seems better to power down the device and wait the ~10 secs for the caches to be flushed before removing it.
John
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
John,
I have removed the card from time to time but this appears not to be the cause in this case. I have now even started removing software in the hope of resolving the issue but so far this has not helped. I have found the problems occur every few days and if left gets worse - the screen shot below shows how it starts - this happened today. I have not removed my card for days now but it has once again happened - BUT take a look at the screen shot of my device in Resco Explorer. Note that there are corrupt files in the route, that folders have gone (trust me) and also that a folder previously named "GB_plus_major_roads_of_WE" is now called "GB_PLU~1". Most of the folder names are now also in upper case where by default they are not normally.
This is very frustrating and although I can revert to the full folder structure copy on my laptop it's a pain to restore so often.
Each time I restore the data to the card (2Gb Sandisk) I remove the card and put into a USB adaptor that allows the card to be used as USB stick, format the card (in Windows XP - tried FAT and FAT 32), then run check disk on the card - which never finds any errors even on the card with corrupted files and folder names! ARGHHH - what can I try next?
I have found plenty of references to this kind of fault but nobody appears to have previously posted screen shots or referred to this detail - it's almost as though there is some form of MS DOS (8.3) folder name change going on for at least one of the folders. Any help would be most welcome - it's almost time for a hard reset to try to isolate the problem - I suspect software is the cause because of the MS DOS type folder name change...

tony.wheeler said:
Each time I restore the data to the card (2Gb Sandisk) I remove the card and put into a USB adaptor that allows the card to be used as USB stick, format the card (in Windows XP - tried FAT and FAT 32), then run check disk on the card - which never finds any errors even on the card with corrupted files and folder names! ARGHHH - what can I try next?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's possible that bad software is doing this, but I'd be surprised. This looks more like "low level" (i.e. SD Card controller) corruption. Have you tried a different card (even from the same manufacturer)? It's possible that there is a hardware fault with the card that you have (does happen, especially as they become cheaper and cheaper).
John

johnburn said:
It's possible that bad software is doing this, but I'd be surprised. This looks more like "low level" (i.e. SD Card controller) corruption. Have you tried a different card (even from the same manufacturer)? It's possible that there is a hardware fault with the card that you have (does happen, especially as they become cheaper and cheaper).
John
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For a while now I have thought this is a hardware issue that then leads into software issues. IMHO it's possible that the card (particularly Sandisk) is making poor contact with the contacts in the device. This poor contact, possible it's intermittent, then messes up the tasks the software is performing. My reason for saying this is some of the common factors reported:
1. The card works fine in a card reader on PC (yes the corrupted files show up but scans reveal no problems
2. The cards have not been reported to become corrupt when being used in a card reader
3. There are likely to be miniscule differences in the physical dimensions/contact surfaces between different manufacturers. Hence Sandisk shows more issues. However use caution with this assumption - there are probably far more Sandisks around than other makes - hence statistically there will be more problems with them.
4. The problem appears to be random - not associated with any particular programme or use of inbuilt software package.
5. There are reported cases where folks say if they insert the card at a certain angle or pushing up or down a little when inserting the card will work better. This is a fairly definitive indicator of contact problems.
6. Some have reported sticking a layer of paper on the non-contact side of the SD card makes it work better. Again this suggests a problem with contacts. Perhaps Sandisks are a little thin than other brands?
7. To make a very crude point - the card slot and internal contacts are very delicate. We have all had a torch with poor battery contacts that when shaken the light comes and goes (or brightens and dims). Imagine the same situation if this happens to your SD card while data is written or FAT tables read.
8. All makes of card can suffer corruption if card is removed while data is being written or card is removed before data is written back.
There is a backup FAT table that can sometimes mean that if you spot corruption on the disk and perform an immediate soft reset the data may return in un-corrupted form as the device uses the backup table. However if you continue to try opening and closing files in the corrupt state or if any information is automatically written to the card then the corrupted version of the FAT table becomes the backup and the corruption is non reversible. This is a matter of pot luck when you spot the corruption, it may already be too late.
May I just say that I have never suffered this problem and I use a Sandisk 2gig.
Mike

I had same problem with my hx4700 after I upgraded it to wm5. but that was 2 years I ago. have you tried defragmenting your card? just a suggestion

mikechannon said:
...... May I just say that I have never suffered this problem and I use a Sandisk 2gig.
Mike
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mike,
Thanks for the excellent summary of factors - it sounds like the contacts may be to blame as I have rarely removed the card when the device is powered - and then when I have it appears not to have caused any problems. I wonder if I am not able to retify the problem because I use applications installed to the card and they access the card so removing the FAT backup and the possibility of making good with a soft-reset. I'll try the paper trick - I've already tried gently cleaning the contacts on the card with a soft clean cloth. I'll report back.... This card has now been in use for over 6 mths and only just stated to cause problems.

I have a Sandisk 2Gb that never corrupted but I have a Sandisk 2Gb Ultra 2 that has been corrupting with my old WM5 builds
I did not tried it with WM6 as I am working with this unit...

Card now appears to have failed
The card now seems to have failed altogther as neither the USB card reader (USB Stick like) nor the device can even see the card when inserted! Suspect card failure as the USB Stick-type device is recohnised in Windows empty and inserting the MicroSD card just makes the light on the stick come and stay on.
I wonder what can fail in these cards? There is no damage and no obvious sign of any external problem

tony.wheeler said:
I wonder what can fail in these cards? There is no damage and no obvious sign of any external problem
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Aha, as I suspected. Lucky guess more like it!
SD cards contain flash memory (obviously) and also a controller (basically a mini-processor) to do things like wear leveling (not writing too many times in the same spot, since flash memory is only good for so many write cycles) and automatic defragmentation. Considering its size, it is quite a complex piece of electronics. Like many pieces of complex electronics, it is also suspectible to damage through bad handling, e.g. static discharge across the contacts. However, newer devices are definitely better made (at least, the more expensive ones), are more resilient and last longer. I guess the old adage, "You get what you pay for" comes to mind.
This posting is not at all meant to undermine Mike Channon's comments (whom everyone here acknowledges is the XDA Hermes hardware expert), in fact, Mike comments were quite valid and now that I think of it, probably the cause of my corruption experiences. It's probably wise to buy a card, insert it (carefully) and just leave it there. Probably will last longer.
John

Sd Card No Sandisk But On Kingstone
I had a SANDISK CARD and I HAD ever problem of detect and crash of smartphone. Now, I have buy a new KINGSTONE card and all my problem are finisched.
by and say see you at SANDISK

New Card ordered
I've just placed an order for a new 2Gb Kingston card so will see how this gets on. Thanks for all the advice. I am now trying to pursue a claim against the warranty - bought it via "flashman" on Ebay so this might be interesting (to claim against an ebay seller). I am sure I will be referred to Sandisk and I have already sent them an e-mail seeking advice.

Tony, try to use a 2mm thin tape , 5 cm long and tape it over the card right next to the notch, overlapping the notch slightly. This fixed my UNKNOWN MANUFACTURER 2G byte card and made my TYTN fly comparing to the state it was before. I used to SR 10 times a day, loose my card at least 5 times a day and not be able to turn my TYTN on twice a day. This all gone and my TYTN today is steady as a rock with WM5, 2.11 and many programs installed including SPB Plus, Diary, Time, Weather, Imageer, Backup, Emoze and others.

barrr said:
Tony, try to use a 2mm thin tape , 5 cm long and tape it over the card right next to the notch, overlapping the notch slightly. This fixed my UNKNOWN MANUFACTURER 2G byte card and made my TYTN fly comparing to the state it was before. I used to SR 10 times a day, loose my card at least 5 times a day and not be able to turn my TYTN on twice a day. This all gone and my TYTN today is steady as a rock with WM5, 2.11 and many programs installed including SPB Plus, Diary, Time, Weather, Imageer, Backup, Emoze and others.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Barrr,
The card is now dead altogether and will not even read in the USB stick convertor, which it had done quite OK before. Are you suggesting I appliy this mod to the card and then try using in in the card reader?

tony.wheeler said:
Barrr,
The card is now dead altogether and will not even read in the USB stick convertor, which it had done quite OK before. Are you suggesting I appliy this mod to the card and then try using in in the card reader?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I doubt he is. That trick is for a card that is making a poor contact - normally in the phone only. If your card does not read or format in a PC card reader then sadly I think "it's up the Swaney"
Mike

mikechannon said:
I doubt he is. That trick is for a card that is making a poor contact - normally in the phone only. If your card does not read or format in a PC card reader then sadly I think "it's up the Swaney"
Mike
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks Mike,
I'll report back here on how my next Kingston card (also 2Gb) gets on - the problem is that the Sandisk worked very well indeed for at least 4 months!
Regards

tony.wheeler said:
Thanks Mike,
I'll report back here on how my next Kingston card (also 2Gb) gets on - the problem is that the Sandisk worked very well indeed for at least 4 months!
Regards
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well yes, my Sandisk 2g has been perfect for 10 months now, touch wood.
Mike

Files are missing from the memory card!

Hi,
I am having a weird problem and that is any file that I copy on the memory card goes missing and I can not see it. Files are on the card though since checking the memory card size is giving the approximate correct used space. Is there anyone else having the similar issue? I tried even a hard reset but it didn't help. by the way I am running TouchFlo v14 for the wing.
Also is anyone know how to format a memory card, I couldn't find it anywhere.
thanks,

The disappearing storage cards is a common thing.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=294324&highlight=disappearing+sd
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=304346&highlight=disappearing+sd
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=289980&highlight=corrupt+SD
As far as formatting the card, I use a program called CNETX flash format which installs on the phone.

Missing 1go Kingston card
I carefully followed all of the above instructions for the pagefile change. It appears to work///got the dos window etc. but upon restart, my storage card with all the programs has disappeared...nowhere to be found "not installed"!
What did I do wrong please??? have I somehow destroyed the card? Is the disappearing act related to this tweak or simply coincidental. I would really appreciate some feedback here!

wow at first i thought that this is only a problem for a few but it seems many suffer from it! i think i am going to use the last link for future updates on this issue. i just formatted my device to see what will happen...
which instructions did you use shepperd?

actually i lost all the pictures and music on my card a couple times. the first time i just recreated the my pictures and my music folder on my storage card and it all came back. the second time this didn't work and i ended up having to bring the microsd card to my friends dorm who had a card reader in his laptop and i used a freeware undelete utility to recover all the missing files.
this happened to me both times while reflashing the phone so from now on i've removed the microsd card while flashing the phone and i've had no problems since.

applecarriage said:
actually i lost all the pictures and music on my card a couple times. the first time i just recreated the my pictures and my music folder on my storage card and it all came back. the second time this didn't work and i ended up having to bring the microsd card to my friends dorm who had a card reader in his laptop and i used a freeware undelete utility to recover all the missing files.
this happened to me both times while reflashing the phone so from now on i've removed the microsd card while flashing the phone and i've had no problems since.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks. i think this is useful information. by the way can i ask you the name of the software you used in your friends laptop?
thank you!
Never mind. I think any undelete program should work...

[Q] SDCARD died on me last night help recovering data?

Hey everyone, I really need your help.
my 16GB microsd died last night, here's what happened:
I had gotten google music beta on wednesday, last night i was showing it to a friend, then clicked home. I have Watchdog installed, which told me music was taking up a lot of CPU, so i went in and killed it. instantly, android notified me that the sdcard had been ejected. then it popped up and told me that a blank card had been inserted. I was confused at first, but didn't do anything with the card, I took it out, reseated it with the phone off, started backup, same issue. I put the card into a card reader on my win7 pc, no luck, the card really is dead. It shows up with a drive letter, but notifies me that the card needs to be formatted.
Does anyone have experience recovering data from flash drives? I always backup my roms to the card, and apps using titanium, but I never ever thought of backing up the entire contents of the sdcard elsewhere. HELP!?

http://www.piriform.com/recuva
Use that on windows, it worked when my sd got messed up. This is assuming the files are still on the sd and not gone completely. You could try the repair option in windows if you have Vista/7, not sure about macs or linux.

Thanks but right now windows is telling me that the drive is not accessible. recuva is also saying "the parameter is incorrect". I can't see anything on the card. I think i need some low level scan type stuff, but I have no idea what program goes that deep.

phuzznut said:
Thanks but right now windows is telling me that the drive is not accessible. recuva is also saying "the parameter is incorrect". I can't see anything on the card. I think i need some low level scan type stuff, but I have no idea what program goes that deep.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, don't know of any software like that. You may need to format if you can find no solutions.

I had the same problem a couple of weeks ago, but the last application that I used and caused the card's premature death was some FM radio app.
Since it is not recognized in any device whatsoever, I don't see any software that can help you even attempt to recover, fix or format the card.
But I learned a lesson: I always used to do backups once in a while, but when the card fubared I just learnt the hard way that I wish I had made backups more frequent...