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SD card unreadable

The data from my SD card became partly unreadable, some prgms could not be started and when looking at the root folder of my card I found some items named like ç!é”è((é§éç. Putting the card out and back in didn’t help, only a soft reset did the job. All data was still intact. This thing happened twice untill now. I use a Sandisk 1GB card.
Has anyone had this problem before? I remember reading about the same problem on a forum but couldn't find the posting.

I also experienced the same problem
I had this problem before. When I pulled my Sandisk 1 GB Micro SD and pushed it back in, the System did not recognize my Memory Card. I did it several times and suddenly it came back again.
The trick I used was pushing the Memory upward (against the back of the phone) until the memory was not completely inserted. Roughly about 1/10 of the memory sticks out of the memory slot
I believe this is a major hardware problem with the Memory Slot.

I have had this problem with my 2GB miniSD on my MDA Compact- the first time i had no choice but to re-format the card and start over but second time, re-inserting the card solved the problem.
May be something to do with the card not getting proper contact.

It doesn't work at all anymore!
I've had the same problem with my 1gb SD card since I bought it 2 years ago. It's crap, because copying a movie for instance through the phone (MDA compact) takes forever.
Now I reformatted it, and copied some stuff to it through my card reader. But after putting it back into my phone, the card now is not even seen at all by my phone, and putting it back in my PC doesn't work either... now it's not recognised anywhere anymore...
Anyone, now how to get this fixed?!
Thx!

Re: It doesn't work at all anymore!
The Fittest said:
I've had the same problem with my 1gb SD card since I bought it 2 years ago. It's crap, because copying a movie for instance through the phone (MDA compact) takes forever.
Now I reformatted it, and copied some stuff to it through my card reader. But after putting it back into my phone, the card now is not even seen at all by my phone, and putting it back in my PC doesn't work either... now it's not recognised anywhere anymore...
Anyone, now how to get this fixed?!
Thx!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try using this utility (or similar) to format your card from a card reader:
http://www.sdcard.org/Downloads.aspx I've used it many times on various cards and seems to do the trick.

Re: It doesn't work at all anymore!
sh500 said:
Try using this utility (or similar) to format your card from a card reader:
http://www.sdcard.org/Downloads.aspx I've used it many times on various cards and seems to do the trick.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm, thx for hint, but that didn't work either. Since the drive isn't recognised, so does this tool... weird enough the adminstrative tools in windows (drive managament) does see a 1gb drive, but assigning a new drive letter causes an error.... damn... looks like I'll be buying a new SD card.
Does anyone know which brands/types (I now have a 1gb Kinston) have less problems with this, so I can copy files to and from my card though my card reader instead of my phone, without srewing my card up?
Edit: Ha! I formatted my SD card with my digital camera! Leaving just the problem of not being able to copy files to my card through my cardreader...

mini SD card not recognised and tired of WM crashes

Hello All,
My Vario is behaving weird. The mini SD card is not being recognised at all. I have tried:
Soft reset- nothing
Making a 20KB backup on the inserted card: works
Checking if anything else is on the card: no, card only lists the small backup file
thousends and thousands of times: inserting and removing the ^%%*&^$&^%#&-card- nothing
Hard reset (I saw no other solution)- to my horror: nothing (sys info states: no card is inserted)
After the hard reset, my options are very limited. I do not have a card reader to get to my backup file....
Anyone here has an idea on how to get my card being recognised again?
Anyone else also very tired of this WM **** crashing all the time or is it just me? (and my usage?

had the same problem on my hermes guys from a different forum gave me a solution is not the best but it works for me cut a little corner of a business card and insert it under your sd card to make a tighter fit and keep it making contact if everything was erased of your sd card you might have to reformat and reload your data this is a pretty common issue i guess i had to get a new sd card because the last one says I have a 4GB file in it but its only a 2 GB sd card crazy ****.

holy mozes!
edwincito0_1 said:
had the same problem on my hermes guys from a different forum gave me a solution is not the best but it works for me cut a little corner of a business card and insert it under your sd card to make a tighter fit and keep it making contact if everything was erased of your sd card you might have to reformat and reload your data this is a pretty common issue i guess i had to get a new sd card because the last one says I have a 4GB file in it but its only a 2 GB sd card crazy ****.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks mate! That was quick! tried it and unfortunately it does not work. Even tried a different card: same deal. My card in someone else's device: whooohoo! my data (and backups) are still there!
So I checked with my provider just a minute ago and they told me it is still under warranty!!!
I guess I can close this post now...??? ...good, now where's that dutchie...

Killing a process broke the SD card ??

My MicroSD was working nicely since new (1 month ago) And it just stopped. Just now. Just like that
Reinserting does not work. Reset does not work. And if I put it in USB mode, the XP disk manager and file explorer jam. And I was not even writing to the card or anything. Putting it in a USB card reader makes XP respond the same. Putting another (128Mb) card in the phone works well, no reset needed.
It looks like the SD card itself is corrupted. Not the FAT or partition table, but the card itself, because otherwise disk manager could repartition it.
If I reconstruct events: I was checking some OpenGL based programs. I ran GL maps. Then I ran BeerV2. (all from the card). BeerV2 was reeealy slow, and I noticed GLMaps was still resident, so I killed it. Then I noticed Diamond Hologram did not want to start, so I figured OpenGL in a bad state and I reset. And then my SD card was gone.
So, when I ran BeerV2, the card must still have been there. When I ran Hologram, it was probably already gone. All application were installed and ran OK in the past.
I destroyed my SD card by killing a running process that probably was not even writing at the time????
Very strange. Can't even believe it myself, must have been coincidence...
So, I am down to 128Mb for the moment..... Better read that thread about the 16Gb cards again.

cybermaus said:
My MicroSD was working nicely since new (1 month ago) And it just stopped. Just now. Just like that
Reinserting does not work. Reset does not work. And if I put it in USB mode, the XP disk manager and file explorer jam. And I was not even writing to the card or anything. Putting it in a USB card reader makes XP respond the same. Putting another (128Mb) card in the phone works well, no reset needed.
It looks like the SD card itself is corrupted. Not the FAT or partition table, but the card itself, because otherwise disk manager could repartition it.
If I reconstruct events: I was checking some OpenGL based programs. I ran GL maps. Then I ran BeerV2. (all from the card). BeerV2 was reeealy slow, and I noticed GLMaps was still resident, so I killed it. Then I noticed Diamond Hologram did not want to start, so I figured OpenGL in a bad state and I reset. And then my SD card was gone.
So, when I ran BeerV2, the card must still have been there. When I ran Hologram, it was probably already gone. All application were installed and ran OK in the past.
I destroyed my SD card by killing a running process that probably was not even writing at the time????
Very strange. Can't even believe it myself, must have been coincidence...
So, I am down to 128Mb for the moment..... Better read that thread about the 16Gb cards again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried formatting the Card? It sometimes works!

This might have been a flakey card or just bad luck. Do not use Windows format for any SD cards, it's not formatting them according to SD/SDHC specs.
http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/sd_formatter.html
Try this one.
Only microSDHC available at the moment is the SanDisk 16GB class 2 for ~€50.
-Valynor

Valynor said:
This might have been a flakey card or just bad luck. Do not use Windows format for any SD cards, it's not formatting them according to SD/SDHC specs.
http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/sd_formatter.html
Try this one.
Only microSDHC available at the moment is the SanDisk 16GB class 2 for ~€50.
-Valynor
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
16gb micro sd £39.15 at vodafone

cybermaus said:
My MicroSD was working nicely since new (1 month ago) And it just stopped. Just now. Just like that
Reinserting does not work. Reset does not work. And if I put it in USB mode, the XP disk manager and file explorer jam. And I was not even writing to the card or anything. Putting it in a USB card reader makes XP respond the same. Putting another (128Mb) card in the phone works well, no reset needed.
It looks like the SD card itself is corrupted. Not the FAT or partition table, but the card itself, because otherwise disk manager could repartition it.
If I reconstruct events: I was checking some OpenGL based programs. I ran GL maps. Then I ran BeerV2. (all from the card). BeerV2 was reeealy slow, and I noticed GLMaps was still resident, so I killed it. Then I noticed Diamond Hologram did not want to start, so I figured OpenGL in a bad state and I reset. And then my SD card was gone.
So, when I ran BeerV2, the card must still have been there. When I ran Hologram, it was probably already gone. All application were installed and ran OK in the past.
I destroyed my SD card by killing a running process that probably was not even writing at the time????
Very strange. Can't even believe it myself, must have been coincidence...
So, I am down to 128Mb for the moment..... Better read that thread about the 16Gb cards again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check out the thread of mine on this. I had similar problem on 16 gig card. I used the Softwinter.com storagetool app to restore. Now seems OK.
But, tomorrow will load up a few more gigabytes on the card. Have restored all applications including 2 gig of route66 and all is well.
...
here is the thread link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=3159350&postcount=54

Before you start formatting, try the Windows Error Checking tool.
I had problems with the SD aswell, and this fixed it up.

Guys, all those tips on reformatting are kind, the card itself is broken. Not just lost its formatting, but lost its ability to present itself as a card.
Anyway, already ordered a replacement. 8Gb-ultra only, the 16Gb-ultra were out of stock. I want it fixed today, because I need (well, want) TomTom tomorrow on my trip to Paris.
But at least I can see if the ultra series is really noticeably faster than the normal SANdisk.

cybermaus said:
Guys, all those tips on reformatting are kind, the card itself is broken. Not just lost its formatting, but lost its ability to present itself as a card.
Anyway, already ordered a replacement. 8Gb-ultra only, the 16Gb-ultra were out of stock. I want it fixed today, because I need (well, want) TomTom tomorrow on my trip to Paris.
But at least I can see if the ultra series is really noticeably faster than the normal SANdisk.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would suggest to try the storage tools app (it's free). I had a similar problem with my micro SD stopping presentation to the laptop and USB sync mode. It would work in the HD but strangely - very long delays in pocket pc explorer.
Before I went out and bought a new card I tried the storagetools app and it worked for me !

HD2 destroyed my SD card?

Hello.
After trying the android booting, for 5-6'th time (all working), now the phone can't see the SD card. I thought it was only on the phone, but when i insert the card, in adapter and connect to pc, then NOTHING happens. Like if the card wasn't there.. Hmm, any clue? Usually I just formatted. But now, I can't format a SD card which "isn't there."
Please.

any one??? :S

mooooooa said:
Hello.
After trying the android booting, for 5-6'th time (all working), now the phone can't see the SD card. I thought it was only on the phone, but when i insert the card, in adapter and connect to pc, then NOTHING happens. Like if the card wasn't there.. Hmm, any clue? Usually I just formatted. But now, I can't format a SD card which "isn't there."
Please.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like your sd card maybe corrupt, they can die for no apparent reason, its happen to me twice in about 4yrs, tho i always buy from CEX they offer a 1yr warranty & just replace it if its within that time.
There's been a few threads about this;
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=712281
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=646731

Which brand?
mooooooa said:
Hello.
After trying the android booting, for 5-6'th time (all working), now the phone can't see the SD card. I thought it was only on the phone, but when i insert the card, in adapter and connect to pc, then NOTHING happens. Like if the card wasn't there.. Hmm, any clue? Usually I just formatted. But now, I can't format a SD card which "isn't there."
Please.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is the brand of the memory card?

hey dude,i got the same problem as yours few days ago..cant do much abt it,i just buy a new one..some says the htc that makes the sd card problem

Hi,
My 8 GB sd card lags when i`m scrolling in the file manager.
In addition, the sd card drains the HD2 battery. I loose 35% in 6 hours in flight mode, but only 4% when not in flight mode without the sd card... ( this also yields for the original sandisk 2 GB sd card that was supplied with the phone).
Anyone experienced the same issue?
Is this hardware or software related, and can i fix this myself?

Error check your microSD card using your computer then switch your phone off, put the card back in it and switch your phone back on. The phone will need to index your music/video files etc so go to the relevant tabs and let it do its stuff. See how that helps.

mooooooa said:
Hello.
After trying the android booting, for 5-6'th time (all working), now the phone can't see the SD card. I thought it was only on the phone, but when i insert the card, in adapter and connect to pc, then NOTHING happens. Like if the card wasn't there.. Hmm, any clue? Usually I just formatted. But now, I can't format a SD card which "isn't there."
Please.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i got a new HD2 and it came with a MicroSD card. I put a couple of cooked ROMs on it and everything was fine for about a week and then the card jsut stopped working. I didnot use it on any other phone or on my PC and it just died.
I own an HTC Hero as well and i put the card in it but it wouldnt recognize it. It has never happened to me before. Never has a card died on me.
I think its a problem with the way the HD2 accesses the SDcard. I wouldnt know specifics but this is the first phone that fried my SD card.

Hey guys, I had the same issue. The SD card stopped working and cannot be formatted now via computer.

My experience with Windows Mobile is that the SD/CF driver is the weakest link. The problem seems to be simultaneous accesses drive it bonkers. I've had the disappearing card problem on other PDAs but usually removing it, doing a reboot with it out, and then inserting it after the reboot is complete will fix it. If it doesn't show up immediately DON'T do anything for a while, it could be doing a CHKDSK on the card, and if you mess with it it will screw it up worse.
Once it shows up what I would recommend is hooking up via USB in CF Disk mode (not Activesync) and doing a format on the drive from Windows.
Last night I got a new 32gb Class 4 MicroSD from China (unnamed) and stuck it in, worked fine, so I backed up all my data to my 'puter off the T-Mobile Class 2 16gb and changed to the new 32gb SD. I started the copy and after a while went to bed.
This morning I got up and it had died during the copy. It was giving me an error on the new MicroSD. It had copied about 75% but was asking to continue or skip. I ended up having to cancel it because it appeared full but it was not. After a reboot I found a ton of FILEXXX.CHK files which indicated it was doing a chkdsk.
Looking at it with SoftWinter.com's Storage Tools the disk was formatted with 512 byte cluster size, way too small for such a large disk, so it was not really out of space just out of cluster nodes. If you have lots of files (I had 10,000) each takes up at least one, even if the file is only 5 bytes. So I reformatted it from the 'puter to 32k cluster size and started the copy over. Seems to be working better now.
Please note that using larger cluster size also will help performance when writing and reading large files as it has to do less directory accesses. Small cluster size is good if you have a lot of small files as it doesn't waste as much space. You lose on average 1/2 the cluster size for each file, as the last node is almost never full.

mknewman said:
My experience with Windows Mobile is that the SD/CF driver is the weakest link. The problem seems to be simultaneous accesses drive it bonkers. I've had the disappearing card problem on other PDAs but usually removing it, doing a reboot with it out, and then inserting it after the reboot is complete will fix it. If it doesn't show up immediately DON'T do anything for a while, it could be doing a CHKDSK on the card, and if you mess with it it will screw it up worse.
Once it shows up what I would recommend is hooking up via USB in CF Disk mode (not Activesync) and doing a format on the drive from Windows.
Last night I got a new 32gb Class 4 MicroSD from China (unnamed) and stuck it in, worked fine, so I backed up all my data to my 'puter off the T-Mobile Class 2 16gb and changed to the new 32gb SD. I started the copy and after a while went to bed.
This morning I got up and it had died during the copy. It was giving me an error on the new MicroSD. It had copied about 75% but was asking to continue or skip. I ended up having to cancel it because it appeared full but it was not. After a reboot I found a ton of FILEXXX.CHK files which indicated it was doing a chkdsk.
Looking at it with SoftWinter.com's Storage Tools the disk was formatted with 512 byte cluster size, way too small for such a large disk, so it was not really out of space just out of cluster nodes. If you have lots of files (I had 10,000) each takes up at least one, even if the file is only 5 bytes. So I reformatted it from the 'puter to 32k cluster size and started the copy over. Seems to be working better now.
Please note that using larger cluster size also will help performance when writing and reading large files as it has to do less directory accesses. Small cluster size is good if you have a lot of small files as it doesn't waste as much space. You lose on average 1/2 the cluster size for each file, as the last node is almost never full.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey
i hope for your sake im wrong, but as far as ive been able to find out in my own searching, only san disk has released a 32gb micro sd & its only class 2.
there has been a lot of talk of fake 32gb micro sd's from china, most are actually 4gb re-programed to read as 32gb on your phone or pc, but when you start to fill them with files more than their actual capacity they will only overwrite prev' files & become corrupt.
i actually pick up 1 (32gb) last weekend from a local store, tried to copy the contents of my 16gb, 7gb copied then an error occurred, 2nd attempt 9gb copied but files unreadable by phone or pc, fortunately i always buy from this store & they refunded (£50), straight away, still have 2 16gb cards ive had for about 9mnths with no probs.
there is another longer thread over in the Q&A section, you guys may find some useful feed back over there: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=646731

Well, the one I got says SanDisk and I have done a full format and surface analysis, it checks out, but I am having trouble writing to it. Not sure what is up with it right now. I knew it was a fake but I thought it was a real fake, not a piece of junk. I hope you are wrong.

I´ve got problems too. I have two SanDisk 16 GB microSDHC cards and both of them are giving similar problems.
I´ve got my HD2 a few days ago and initially I used my old 16 GB card I bought with the X1 (then used with my TP2 and latest the HD2). Everything was working fine initially but then the problems arose. Now I have those problems:
1. Audio Manager has problems reading my music library. iPlay can read it though. Windows Media Player takes a long time building my music library but manages to do that eventually.
2. HTC Album can read my albums sometimes - sometimes not.
3. Resco Photo Manager can read the albums but sometimes it takes a long time to do it.
4. The computer can access the card without any problems after formatting and it seems not to be any problems reading or writing files to it. Installations of cabs stored on the memory card works.
5. Total Commander can access the card without any problems but takes slightly longer time than before to show all folders.
6. Running chkdsk in Windows gives the result of a perfectly working card.
7. The phone is draining battery in an abnormal way with the card inserted.
8. Flashing ROMs from the card worked initially but not any longer. Now it shows the threecolor bootloader screen instead.
The interesting thing is the fact both of my 16 GB cards has the exactly the same symptoms. I will try them in my X1, TP2 and Vivaz later to check out their behaviour.
When I inserts my old 8 GB card (everything made by SanDisk) everything works without any problems. Flashing ROMs work normally etc.
I´m running the Omega XT 3.0 and are using HardSPL3. The 16 GB card has worked perfectly initially with this ROM and HSPL so I don´t think they are related.
The whole thing seems to indicate some kind of "incompatibility" between the phone and the 16 GB cards. It´s like it is unable to handle that size of card correctly. It seems like it "trashes" the file system. My older 16 GB card started to behave badly which caused me to buy a replacement and now that replacement has the exactly the same behaviour.
My 8 GB card is an "ultra" SanDisk card. The troublesome cards are Class 2 cards. I began to have the impression the problem is some kind of issue with Class 2 - because the cards itself seems to be working after formatting.
I have formatted them with either Panasonic SDFormatter and the Format SD application on the phone. Both options gives the same result.

[Q] SD Card crashed?

You guys are the most helpful!
My 16gb sandisk micro sd card is no longer being recognized. I booted my HTC HD2 in Android and mounted the sd card to transfer pics to my pc. Just then I got a call coming in and the phone immediately became unresponsive. I kept getting the force close message but I couldn't stop it (it seemed to be in a loop) So I unsafely disconnected the phone from the pc, took out the battery and rebooted it. It started up in windows, but when I went to check for the sd card it could no longer be found. I pull out the card put it back more than twice, and yet the phone failed to recognize my memory card.
Please help me guys

put the sd card into a card reader, connect to your pc and if if its recognised there, it might be a dying card I've lost 1 16GB and an 8GB in 18 months with my hd2
If the pc recognises the card with no error save the date, reformat to primary partition fat 32 using Easeus free edition, also try the phone without the card

Thank u
Hey ..I really do appreciate the time u took to respond. Funny I was thinking the same thing....I broke my old card reader, now I have to get another another on from Amazon.com. As soon as I can lay my hands on one that is gonna be my first move.
Again, thanks a bunch.
P.S
Sadly I feel like an idiot for not backing up my sd card...(more than 3000 photos on there )

wartibobo said:
You guys are the most helpful!
My 16gb sandisk micro sd card is no longer being recognized. I booted my HTC HD2 in Android and mounted the sd card to transfer pics to my pc. Just then I got a call coming in and the phone immediately became unresponsive. I kept getting the force close message but I couldn't stop it (it seemed to be in a loop) So I unsafely disconnected the phone from the pc, took out the battery and rebooted it. It started up in windows, but when I went to check for the sd card it could no longer be found. I pull out the card put it back more than twice, and yet the phone failed to recognize my memory card.
Please help me guys
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After trying the SD Card thru a card reader and if it still doesn't work/recognize it - then your mobile (hd2's)windows is corrupted - coz the same happened with me thrice and ultimately I took it back to the HTC service centre and they re installed the windows 6.5 and since then everythings is working normally and there is no problem with the SD Card anymore, but your old card becomes thrash and you'll have to get a new card :0)

johnerz said:
put the sd card into a card reader, connect to your pc and if if its recognised there, it might be a dying card I've lost 1 16GB and an 8GB in 18 months with my hd2
If the pc recognises the card with no error save the date, reformat to primary partition fat 32 using Easeus free edition, also try the phone without the card
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here. Lost a sd-card recently but probably due to my own fault.
The card was difficult to get out of the reader (Yup, it seems there is some tolerance on the size) so I had to use some small tweezers.
I finally managed to get it out without any visual damage but after inserting it in the HD2 it couldn't see it anymore, neither in the cardreader afterwards.
What I think is that I had physically bent the card and broke the connections to the actual memory chip.
Some good advice on memory cards and I can't stress this out enough especially for dedicated photo equipment. Instead of buying a 16GB card buy 2 x 8GB and from a known seller and known brand.
The best and probably worst experience example that I can give is from a couple who were on their honeymoon and lost all of their pictures because of a el-cheapo 8GB memorycard.
For a phone it is something else but I made a custom out of it to create a map on my c-drive called sd-card phone. Ok it is not a every week copy but it is handy to have the data on my pc and on my phone.