Database Users

SD card issues ...

Well, I don't know what to do at this point besides unrooting and taking it to sprint.
I had no problems with my SD card when running miui. I switched to cm7 and the rom was working just finw until the SD card was no longer read. The gallery/music app would no longer find anything on the SD card...and my SD card apps were gone. Yet, the phone was able to read the SD card with a file explorer. I first thought it was a rom problem...but it doesn't seem like it. I already wiped and reflashed several other roms and I'm still having the same SD card issues. I have already reformatted the card and started from scratch ..with no luck. I've also done the SD card fix by calkun with no solution. Additionally ..I've tried other SD cards and still not able to have a read/write on my phone
What could be the problem here and what's a possible fix? I'm desperate for help and I've tried researching to find a solution..but nothing seems to work.
I would gladly appreciate some help

if you tried other roms, other cards, formatting and such. check your card in a pc, if flawless then you got yourself a hardware malfunctioning evo

Yup no problems with reading/writing from a PC
Its weird. Something very similar happened to my brother and he was like that for weeks ...and it magically fixed itself someday.
And I don't see why it would be a malfunctioning evo when I had no problems and it happened all of a sudden without any physical damage.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

dongator7 said:
Yup no problems with reading/writing from a PC
Its weird. Something very similar happened to my brother and he was like that for weeks ...and it magically fixed itself someday.
And I don't see why it would be a malfunctioning evo when I had no problems and it happened all of a sudden without any physical damage.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Scan for errors on the card?

already did..and tried several sd cards
the problem is not the SD card(s) .. there's something wrong with the phone

Try wiping EVERYTHING twice and installing a ROOTED sprint ruu rom. This sometimes helps fix problems. I had a problem once with my vibrate function and had to do this to correct the problem. Worth a shot right?
ROOTED RUU

do you have a link to a most recent sprint ruu rooted rom?
edit: nvm you already included the link thanks

Update:
Stock Sprint Rooted RUU rom didn't fix it either
I don't know what to do at this point...

I have the same probelm with cm7. Once I started to use cm7 my SD card has been unable to read twice...to where I have to reformat the card in android.....the card is fine and reads fine in all Roms ....

I've already reformatted the card(s) in android as well..no luck.
I have no idea what the problem is..

Do you have tep? Try bringing it back to a Sprint store and see if they will replace it.

Check and blow some air on the microsd slot
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

[Q] Any hope for my SD Card?

Short story: Was running the latest (as of Dec. 4-5) ICS ROM(s) - the ones with the SD card bug - and my SD card appears to be shot.
Long story:
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I had been using the various betas of the ICS ROMs since I noticed Tytung's first Alpha was out and the ROMs had been improving rapidly. I guess when the headphones issue was fixed it caused problems with reading the SD Card which was documented and seems to be well known.
The constant SD messages didn't bother me much, but eventually I noticed launch icons missing and went to the Market to re-download one of the apps I use (I've been flashing so much, I wasn't sure which apps I didn't bother restoring). The Market app tells me I need a SD Card to install apps, so I just figured it's just the instability of the sd card mount for this latest batch of ROMs and I'll flash an older ROM off my SD card when I get the chance. I also noticed the messages started saying I inserted a blank SD Card but I brushed it off (couldn't look into it at the time).
I get home and find out Clockwork refuses to mount my card which means I can't easily wipe and install something else, so I switch to USB storage mode in CWM to simply transfer a ROM from my PC and my PC only sees ~30mb of my 16GB SD! I initially thought it was just some corruption but I tried all sorts of format and partitioning programs and nothing recognizes more than 30mb of space and none have even been able to format that little space that's showing.
I've been Googling for a while and came up with nothing I haven't already tried so I finally decided to post here. Is there any hope for my SD card? Being the holiday season and for once I've got most of my Christmas shopping done early, I'd rather not waste the little money I have left to run out and buy another SD card right away if it's not necessary.
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Does anyone have any ideas how I could fix this? I'd greatly appreciate it because I now stuck with WM6.5 and realize how much I didn't miss it for the past year
This is also a heads up for testers to be sure to upgrade their ROM ASAP (or at least to the kernel that fixes this) if they're on a ICS ROM with an SD card bug. I'm not complaining - I know this is a part of testing early builds (please ignore my sorry post count; I've been flashing for quite a while) - but there's no reason for others to go through this issue if it can be helped.

Have you tried EaseUS?
Sent from my LG-VM670 using Tapatalk

Yes,
Try Easus Partition Manager and/or MiniTool Partition Manager.
They can help but you will have to format your SD card I think.
Good luck!

I had the same problem. I plugged my card into a USB reader after it working error free, it then said it needed to be formatted and was only showing 30mb. After formatting repeatedly it still doesn't read. I haven't retired any positioning software but i think the card may just be done with.
Sent from my HD2 using XDA App

probably you'll need a replacement.
have you tried the SD formatter? there's like a 0.000001% chance it will work in your case, but why not try it?

[Q] Frustrating SD Card issue - not the normal

Note - this is not the "Damaged SD card Issue" i never received ths warning.
Up until last night, my New S4 was running great with my Samsung 64gb sd card...had a ton of programs etc. The thing is, the card was also encrypted by company security policy. Prior to flashing to a new rom i tried to decrypt the card, the the system credientials were locked and wouldn't let me (after removing accounts etc). I don't want to talk about ways i could have decrypted - let's just say i went into the flash with an encrypted card.
Wiped cache, delvik cache, and factory reset
now i don't believe this cleans the internal (SD or storage) as this is where i flashed from
Everything flashed successfully and the new rom is up and running.
Except now i can't access my SD card on my Galaxy. Mounting only results in the device saying "it's safe for removal". I can't even format on this device, but i can on a galaxy s3 and my laptop. And the card works in all those places just fine. The card won't even mount in CWM....EVERY time I insert the card, I'm just told the card being checked for errors and immediately goes to "card is safe for removal"
anyone know what might be going on? This is driving me nuts here!

Just tried reflashing again, this time clearing internal memory too...installing rom from a diffetent external SD card and still no luck. Same result as above.
Again SD card works in all other devices other than s4.
Also note I am using a T MO rom on att device with new kernal. I don't think that should matter though
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk

Had this issue. I used my 64gb card with the stock rom. I flashed CM10.1 this morning onto it and CM10.1 wouldn't read it. Took it out, put it in a SD card adapter and read it on my laptop, copied all contents off. Put it back in my S4, formatted it. It worked. Put card back in laptop, copied content over, worked fine on the S4.
It's a formatting issue. Just back up your data via another device, then format the card in your S4 and youll be fine.

Problem is I can't get s4 to the point where it will format the card. After I attempt to mount it...keeps reverting back to ready to remove message...as if it doesn't want to know the card is there.
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk

mattyv said:
Problem is I can't get s4 to the point where it will format the card. After I attempt to mount it...keeps reverting back to ready to remove message...as if it doesn't want to know the card is there.
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well. Try formatting it in another system. Take it out copy your files off, then format it. (Windows My Computer, right click the flash card, Format). Mac, Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility Select the flash drive, go to erase. Linux, use Gparted. Install via sudo apt-get install gparted if your on a ubuntu/debian based distro.. Then try it in your S4 and see what happens. Maybe the partition got messed up and the S4 is goofing up when it goes to read it, or check partition table or something in a way where other systems might be okay with it still.

Woodburyman
Thanks for the input. I did try as you recommended. Even going so far as to format in a galaxy s3- successfully ....a digital camera - successfully ...and my computer systems successfully....all able to read write and format.....galaxy s4 just doesn't seem to care....
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk

mattyv said:
Woodburyman
Thanks for the input. I did try as you recommended. Even going so far as to format in a galaxy s3- successfully ....a digital camera - successfully ...and my computer systems successfully....all able to read write and format.....galaxy s4 just doesn't seem to care....
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting. Well eliminated anything with the card itself or formating.
Have you tried any other microSD's in your S4?
If not I suggest trying that and see what's going on.
If it DOES work then it might be a issue with the card. If it doesn't, something with your S4.
It's either hardware (the microSD card reader is bad somehow) or software (Something in your ROM is messed up). If you want to troubleshoot it to the fullest extent you can do a full factory restore, wiping your phone completely, and loading stock firmware again and wiping \Data partition, as well as cache and see what happens. That would eliminate any software issue.

I have tried other cards and they all work fine. S4 can do everything with these cards. Format...mount...unmount....etc...
Just seems to be this one card in this one device....both card and device work well outside of each other...
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk

mattyv said:
I have tried other cards and they all work fine. S4 can do everything with these cards. Format...mount...unmount....etc...
Just seems to be this one card in this one device....both card and device work well outside of each other...
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's your problem then. That brand card or something, or that particular card may have something funny going on with it.

I had the same exact thing happen to me yesterday. I was also having issues with my WiFi not working either.
I ended up doing a complete wipe of my S4 in cwm, Odin to stock, updating my software via settings and re-rooting. After doing that my WiFi worked and it would read the 64GB SD card I had.
Luckily, I had a nandroid backup from just a few days prior I was able to revert back to.
Sent from my Galaxy S4 via Tapatalk

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Aokp/aosp/cm roms/kernels don't support the exfat format.. So format the SD card to FAT32 to fix the issue check this out.. Lots of threads on this.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1803814
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

Your 64gb sd card is Exfat and a lot of kernels and roms do not support this. Format it to Fat32 and all should be good. But backup everything on your sd card before you do it

don't know how far you have gotten on this, but
i usually use sdformatter from web. i do a "full erase on", takes awhile, but cleans card well and always solved any card issues i had--

Final Solution Atrix 4g to the rescue
Finally put the SD card in my old atrix 4G and reformatted twice and now the card works!
Can't for the life of me figure out why nothing else could format the car sufficiently.

I struggled with this as well just now with my SanDisk 64gb card on my Verizon s4 running Jelly Beans... Solution was to format the card fat32. I did this by executing this file from the command line and issuing 'fat32format x:' after mounting the card obviously. Here is the file fat32format.exe It works perfect now Note: Don't format the card again on your phone or it will end up exFat and the phone will reject the card again.

Can no longer write to external SD (4.3)

Sometime after I installed safestrap and a second rom, I lost the ability to write or delete from my external SD card. It may have something to do with SAFESTRAP, or possibly an app called SDFix: KitKat Writable MicrosSD which I installed and may have ran in preparation for any type of KitKat update. Anyone have any ideas of what I may have done?
edit for more info : The weird thing is, it lets me go through the motions to delete a movie file with say ES File Explorer, but when I reboot, the file is still there and I am able to watch the same exact file I thought I deleted. Also, if I set my camera to write external, it seems like it works, but when I reboot, the files aren't there anymore. Luckily the few pictures I tried taking like that were uploaded to my dropbox before I reboot..... Also, if I create a new folder and paste a file into there, the folder won't be there when I reboot. Also, it seems like my titanium backup files aren't updating, they all seem to be dated February 28 and they won't update even though it goes through the entire backup process!

ssmaster said:
Sometime after I installed safestrap and a second rom, I lost the ability to write or delete from my external SD card. It may have something to do with SAFESTRAP, or possibly an app called SDFix: KitKat Writable MicrosSD which I installed and may have ran in preparation for any type of KitKat update. Anyone have any ideas of what I may have done?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried taking the card out and seeing if it works properly on a computer?

airmaxx23 said:
Have you tried taking the card out and seeing if it works properly on a computer?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is a good idea. I'll try once my co-worker comes back from lunch so I can borrow their microsd-usb adapter. The weird thing is, it lets me go through the motions to delete a movie file with say ES File Explorer, but when I reboot, the file is still there. I am able to watch the same exact file I thought I deleted. Also, if I set my camera to write external, it seems like it works, but when I reboot, the files aren't there anymore. Luckily the few pictures I tried taking like that were uploaded to my dropbox before I reboot.....

The card is an 64GB Sandisk, and the computer won't recognize it, I believe because of the way it is formatted. When I get home, I will try to connect via USB 3.0 and see if I can dump everything to my PC and go from there....

ssmaster said:
The card is an 64GB Sandisk, and the computer won't recognize it, I believe because of the way it is formatted. When I get home, I will try to connect via USB 3.0 and see if I can dump everything to my PC and go from there....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your computer should still recognize it though.

uhh ohh, its a VDI virtual system, and it says this card needs to be formatted before windows can recognize it....

I am copying everything over to my PC over USB. I will try the card in a card reader to see what can be done. If I format it, and if it works after format, should I have confidence that the card won't crap out on me in the future¿???

I am finally able to format it using a slow format in Windows 7, lets see if it works...
Nope, still broken with all previous files in tact.

I'm having the exact same issue and I bet others are too. At first I thought it was something to do with an ESexplorer update since I never happened before it, but I've deleted ES and tried many other file managers/explorers and still have it happen. Someone has to know how to fix this.

nickgordi said:
I'm having the exact same issue and I bet others are too. At first I thought it was something to do with an ESexplorer update since I never happened before it, but I've deleted ES and tried many other file managers/explorers and still have it happen. Someone has to know how to fix this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had the same issue with the same card. After a lot of research I found that my SD card had somehow become locked...I know...WHAT? My sd card is looked with no way to unlock it. I can view files on it but i cannot add files or delete from the card.
I emailed Sandisk asking them if they had a solution but I never heard back from them
I have tried every solution that I have found and none have worked...

I've gone through 6 San disk 64gb class 10 cards between my Note 2 and Note 3 with my last cropping out 2 weeks ago. San disk will replace your card and tell you to contact the phone manufacturer. I did that contacted Samsung...at 1st I got the run around but I was persistent and got a hold of a good tech support agent. Samsung phones have issues writing info to the 64gb class 10 cards. They are aware of the issue and are working on a fix as of 2-3months ago. He told me the will work fine. He said they don't recommend over 32gb and a class 4 card because of the stability issues of files being corrupted on class 10s particularly 64gb 1s. Funny thing is i called San Disk back and told them what i was told and asked for a 32gb lower class and he told me i could buy it buy they could only replace it with the same one i had. Good luck!
Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

You know this is not the first time that I've heard of this. I actually had a 10s 32Gig SanDisk micro that I ended up losing because of this problem with my Galaxy S3. I got to work one day and set my phone down on the desk and it just seeming stopped working. I don't know what it is with the 10 series cards but it seems like they all have some kind of problem.

Thanks everyone for all the info. I guess I'll have to get another card and I'm going to be sure it's NOT another SanDisk.

[Q] LINK2SD Broke efs on my SM-G900H

A- I recently installed Link2SD on My rooted Galaxy S5 (SM-G900H) and everything seemed ok. The app asked me to reboot my phone, when I did my phone stuck on the SAMSUNG Logo screen and FACTORY RESET/Wipe data didn't work. I even tried emergency recovery with no luck (Error mounting efs). I fixed the efs issue and I re-installed the stock ROM and re-Rooted my device.
I didn't re-install Link2SD anymore because I'm afraid it may break my phone.
1- What is the maximum size of the ext2 partition?
2- Does it work on SM-G900H without issues?
B- Despite what they say about Kitkat and that you cannot move your apps to SD card, I have the option on my phone to move (movable apps) to SD card and that's good enough for me. I purchased a SANDISK Extreme plus 64 GB SD card (Which is formatted in exFAT by default). When I move apps to SD and reboot my phone, all the apps on SD disappear and my phone starts acting weird and apps crashes. Maybe it's because of exFAT but I'm sure the SD card is fine and not broken. That's why I wanted to try Link2SD and see it it solves the problem.
Have anyone faced theses issues? Anyone know a solution for these problems? I appreciate any help.

Bump... Me too!
bjaguar33 said:
A- I recently installed Link2SD on My rooted Galaxy S5 (SM-G900H) and everything seemed ok. The app asked me to reboot my phone, when I did my phone stuck on the SAMSUNG Logo screen and FACTORY RESET/Wipe data didn't work. I even tried emergency recovery with no luck (Error mounting efs). I fixed the efs issue and I re-installed the stock ROM and re-Rooted my device.
I didn't re-install Link2SD anymore because I'm afraid it may break my phone.
1- What is the maximum size of the ext2 partition?
2- Does it work on SM-G900H without issues?
B- Despite what they say about Kitkat and that you cannot move your apps to SD card, I have the option on my phone to move (movable apps) to SD card and that's good enough for me. I purchased a SANDISK Extreme plus 64 GB SD card (Which is formatted in exFAT by default). When I move apps to SD and reboot my phone, all the apps on SD disappear and my phone starts acting weird and apps crashes. Maybe it's because of exFAT but I'm sure the SD card is fine and not broken. That's why I wanted to try Link2SD and see it it solves the problem.
Have anyone faced theses issues? Anyone know a solution for these problems? I appreciate any help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I am having a very similar problem and I also have the 64GB SanDisk Extreme and SM-G900H and rooted.
Did you ever find a resolution?
My extSD seems to come and go. The last time I uninstalled the last 2 apps and it was good for 24 hours. Put I just pulled it off the charger and it started acting up again.
I cleaned the contacts, chkdsk'd it on my PC (everything reads fine) and rebooted a few times but no luck.
This post had some good recommendations but cleaning contacts, etc. didn't help me.
I was going to try an OTA update but it seems that I need to un-root first. That's my next step -- starting over.

Try FAT32
alex_tytn said:
Yes, I am having a very similar problem and I also have the 64GB SanDisk Extreme and SM-G900H and rooted.
Did you ever find a resolution?
My extSD seems to come and go. The last time I uninstalled the last 2 apps and it was good for 24 hours. Put I just pulled it off the charger and it started acting up again.
I cleaned the contacts, chkdsk'd it on my PC (everything reads fine) and rebooted a few times but no luck.
This post had some good recommendations but cleaning contacts, etc. didn't help me.
I was going to try an OTA update but it seems that I need to un-root first. That's my next step -- starting over.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You SD card is formatted with exFAT? Try formatting it with FAT32. I didn't try it yet because I can't use my phone since my EFS partitions are gone and my IMEI code changed to 004999.... (Generic IMEI code).
Let me know if this solves your problem.:angel:

bjaguar33 said:
You SD card is formatted with exFAT? Try formatting it with FAT32. I didn't try it yet because I can't use my phone since my EFS partitions are gone and my IMEI code changed to 004999.... (Generic IMEI code).
Let me know if this solves your problem.:angel:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
64GB will for sure need to be exFat -- FAT32 can't access all the space.
This is a good utility to reformat and fix it OR you can use the cmd level commands.
For me, I am able to use it intermittently now -- seems like it will work for hours, even days, then have a problem when I pull it off the charger. Of course, I woke up this morning and it wasn't working AGAIN.
I am on the phone now with Samsung tech support to see if there is a log somewhere that can give me more information about what is exactly failing. I did use this same card in 2 other Galaxy S5's (AT&T and T-Mobile versions) with no problem. Maybe I ruined the card when I had it in my wallet?

FAT32 - I was wrong.
alex_tytn said:
64GB will for sure need to be exFat -- FAT32 can't access all the space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was wrong. FAT32 CAN access all the space. I reformatted with FAT32 using the fat32format program and still have the same problems.
Furthermore, it happens with and without root -- I've reflashed a million times now.
At this point, I think that I just got a bad card reader in my unit because the card went off just by tilting the phone sideways last night (clean install, no root, no apps).
Good luck to the original poster.