Develop Bugs

What filesystem should I format my 32GB microsd card to?

So I got a great deal on a class 10 32GB Samsung card, it came pre-formatted to fat32, however I had the wild idea that android supported NTFS based on something I read in the past so I formatted it to NTFS on a windows system and copied some files over (some being over 5GB each)...plugged in my card and turned on my phone and I get a message saying my card is blank or the wrong file format...guess it doesn't support NTFS
I know if I use the phones built in format utility it will format to fat32 which I don't really want because of the filesize limitation, I'd like to be able to copy 8-10GB files every so often so I can use my phone as a little shuttle drive in between places...
But I also want the ability for windows to be able to read my sd card if I change my phone into USB mode so I think that excludes the ext3, ext4 format which I think android will read...
Any ideas?

Won't happen search and you will find threads on this before
You will also find a Q&A section that this belongs in
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

There's an app in the market that will mount any file formatted sdcard in the device I but I haven't used it out remember the name but you can check it and yes this belongs in Q&A but The way you format is fat 32
Touched by an Epic 4G w/Cm9 & Fueled by the NY Giants 2012

Got that Newegg deal as well! Can't wait for it to arrive. Interested in the answer as well as I hope to put some high quality movies there.
Sent from my badass Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

So I found an ntfs app in the market that'll mount ntfs at startup but I gotta root for it work. Guess I now have a reason to root
Oh but it says it was made for the galaxy tab...but it opens fine on my s ii
Sent from my SPH-D710 using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk

btw where is the Q&A section i should be looking for? xda has gotten so huge i'm lost at least i can find the e4gt forum
maybe i should change the title of my thread to what filesystems can i format my sd card to that my phone will read?

if you use windows, fat32 is the way to go so then you can connect the phone to computer and still can access the files

t0mmyr said:
btw where is the Q&A section i should be looking for? xda has gotten so huge i'm lost at least i can find the e4gt forum
maybe i should change the title of my thread to what filesystems can i format my sd card to that my phone will read?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is a Q&A section right under general in the epic touch
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

charles98 said:
if you use windows, fat32 is the way to go so then you can connect the phone to computer and still can access the files
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The reason the op doesn't want fat32 is because he has single files that exceeds 4 GB that he wants to transfer, so fat32 would not work for him.

im0rtalz said:
The reason the op doesn't want fat32 is because he has single files that exceeds 4 GB that he wants to transfer, so fat32 would not work for him.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
maybe drive mount in market but lots of bad reviews....May work don't know
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

Windows also recognized NTFS by the way.

out of curiosity, does anyone know if any custom roms support ntfs sd cards nativey?

t0mmyr said:
out of curiosity, does anyone know if any custom roms support ntfs sd cards nativey?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
None because Android does not.....
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

format it ext3/4 and then install an ftp server app on your phone.

There is an app that works fine
I have exactly the same problem. I want to have the sdcard in NTFS so then I do not have the 4GB limitation of FAT32. The is possible to have .mkv files on your phone or tablet.
In the case of my table the N8010, I have formatted the sd card on Windows with NTFS. Then installed the "paragon" app from market which works very good. It recognized the sd card in NTFS and mount perfectly. But it seems that when your card is overloaded with thounsands of files and some big 6GB file, then comes the problem. Android JB everytime that comes out of sleep, it will check for errors the sd card. Everytime! Then, I get the message "sd card checking for errors" and never gets back. The sd card is not recognized anymore until I reboot the device.
I think that the paragon app is not perfect and might have bugs, but
Is there any way to disable the "sd card check for error" functionality? Have read some threads about it, to delete some file from system, but that method produces inconsistencies with other apps.
By the way, I have tried to format on ExFat, and had the same problem. When the card is almost full it will never end up checking for errors. I finally broke the sd card when I formated it with ExFat and 64k allocation size. It was not regoznized neither by windows and android afterwards
thanks

cla20000 said:
By the way, I have tried to format on ExFat, and had the same problem. When the card is almost full it will never end up checking for errors. I finally broke the sd card when I formated it with ExFat and 64k allocation size. It was not regoznized neither by windows and android afterwards
thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think you broke it unless you fried the flash chips. You can try using the disk manager in windows and try to see if it sees it. Or just learn how to use Linux command line tools and fix it that way. I recovered 80% of my pictures off of a dead SD card using dd and a file recovery utility. I don't recall which one. That 16GB SD card now works just fine as a 12GB card. I don't trust it for any more than shuttling between systems though.
Also, I've never had good luck with exFAT. I much prefer the EXT filesystems, but they aren't natively supported in windows or most cameras. Maybe try NTFS without journaling (If that's even possible)

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exfat is proprietary windows and needs licenses. android won't support it.
ntfs is a journaling file system and will impact performance if you can get android to read it.
ext2/3 is the best solution. there are utilities you can install so windows can read it.

calisro said:
exfat is proprietary windows and needs licenses. android won't support it.
ntfs is a journaling file system and will impact performance if you can get android to read it.
ext2/3 is the best solution. there are utilities you can install so windows can read it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ext2Fsd is excellent for Windows 7, I don't know what I'd do without it.
sent from my ET4G on Paranoid Android using XDA Premium HD in hybrid mode

Problems Formatting SD Card/Working In Phone

I seem to be having problems formatting my Sandisk 64GB MicroSDXC (Class 10) card in FAT32 & having it work in my AT&T Galaxy S3. The card comes preformatted in exFAT, and it works in the phone just fine that way. But, I heard it's best to format it in FAT32 due to some issues I saw about some people having some of their music files not show-up (if they have a rather large music collection, which I do - 85GB's worth!) in whatever music playing program they're using, so I'm attempting to format it with FAT32 to avoid that. Now, Windows 7 (x64) does NOT allow you to format drives via FAT32 (unless you go into DOS), so I've used a couple of different programs (Fast32Format, EASEUS PartiionMaster); I got a message on my Galaxy S3 saying my SD card was damaged or missing when I used Fast32Format); a bunch of services stopped working on the phone when I formatted it using EASEUS PartionMagic, and I even tried formatting it in NTFS (which I think that Android doesn't support) & got a message my SD card was blank and Android wouldn't even mount it!
What am I doing wrong? How can I format it in FAT32 and have it work in my Galaxy S3?!! Do I even really need to use FAT32 instead of exFAT?
Thanks,
Dennis

dmw_4814 said:
I seem to be having problems formatting my Sandisk 64GB MicroSDXC (Class 10) card in FAT32 & having it work in my AT&T Galaxy S3. The card comes preformatted in exFAT, and it works in the phone just fine that way. But, I heard it's best to format it in FAT32 due to some issues I saw about some people having some of their music files not show-up (if they have a rather large music collection, which I do - 85GB's worth!) in whatever music playing program they're using, so I'm attempting to format it with FAT32 to avoid that. Now, Windows 7 (x64) does NOT allow you to format drives via FAT32 (unless you go into DOS), so I've used a couple of different programs (Fast32Format, EASEUS PartiionMaster); I got a message on my Galaxy S3 saying my SD card was damaged or missing when I used Fast32Format); a bunch of services stopped working on the phone when I formatted it using EASEUS PartionMagic, and I even tried formatting it in NTFS (which I think that Android doesn't support) & got a message my SD card was blank and Android wouldn't even mount it!
What am I doing wrong? How can I format it in FAT32 and have it work in my Galaxy S3?!! Do I even really need to use FAT32 instead of exFAT?
Thanks,
Dennis
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
EaseUS worked fine for me - the one thing that screwed me up the first time is when you tell it to format it, you also have to tell it to apply it. And hopefully the "Fast32" was autocorrect - you should just be using FAT32 - and I don't think I changed the block size. HTH

alacrify said:
EaseUS worked fine for me - the one thing that screwed me up the first time is when you tell it to format it, you also have to tell it to apply it. And hopefully the "Fast32" was autocorrect - you should just be using FAT32 - and I don't think I changed the block size. HTH
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I apologize for bringing up this old-ish thread, but I always see that every time someone makes a new thread, they get bombarded with "use the search feature", so uhh, I did .
I've got a Class 10 SanDisk Ultra 64GB MicroSD XC card, that refuses to work with my Galaxy S3. I've got CM10 on it, do you think that might be the issue? If so, how do you think I can rectify it (what format would work?)
I've used EaseUS to delete the partition, and recreate using FAT32, but no dice, still getting a "damaged card" notification. I can seemingly use the card fine on my PC and my Mac, but nothing on the phone.
Any help would be greatly greatly appreciated

Vaesar said:
I apologize for bringing up this old-ish thread, but I always see that every time someone makes a new thread, they get bombarded with "use the search feature", so uhh, I did .
I've got a Class 10 SanDisk Ultra 64GB MicroSD XC card, that refuses to work with my Galaxy S3. I've got CM10 on it, do you think that might be the issue? If so, how do you think I can rectify it (what format would work?)
I've used EaseUS to delete the partition, and recreate using FAT32, but no dice, still getting a "damaged card" notification. I can seemingly use the card fine on my PC and my Mac, but nothing on the phone.
Any help would be greatly greatly appreciated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, this is ominous given that I ordered this micoSD and it just shipped. I read lots of reviews on Amazon and those with S3 phones seemed to have no issues using card as is, although they didn't specify precisely which version of S3 they had. The S3 natively supports 64 GB, so I would think it would work out of the box, so to speak. A number of reviewers said they used this microSD in older phones that supposedly supported only up to 32 GB. They formatted in phone, getting something like 59 GB of usable space.
I'm using stock ROM with CWM on I747.

cm10
it is an cm10 issue

mrky said:
it is an cm10 issue
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A more complete response...its a known issue with AOSP based JB ROM's. This is pulled from the AOKP FAQ, since it is an AOSP based ROM as well this should help you out.
Will my 64 gb sd card work? Except it works fine with a 64GB card. http://rootzwiki.com/topic/28124-doe...card-standard/ The SGSIII is the first phone to support exfatl, but the support is Kernel based, some people are having trouble with the replacement kernels and exfat support. The solution is to force it to format in FAT32. http://www.online-tech-tips.com/comp...ive-to-fat-32/ I know, because I've done it. --- Don't respond without actually doing research. I have no problem spoon feeding information, especially when the information you put out there can increase misinformation. The SGSII also supports a 64GB card as well. http://androidforums.com/samsung-gal...ing-sgsii.html naturefreak85l;
EDIT - Apparently the links are dead, but there a many methods to choose from to format and SD in FAT32.

ATT SGS 3 flashed Aokp JB 64sd card not working?

I flashed the
[ROM] AOKP(Jellybean & ICS) Task & Ktoonsez Run a Train(8/13)(TGFY ONLINE!!! also tried [ROM][OFFICIAL] CyanogenMod 10 Preview Builds for SGH-I747 (08/10)
Today. I have a 64gb sdxc card and it's reading "Damaged card". Is this a common fix and does it have any fix?
Hope my sd card didn't get damaged...
Thanks,
Satya

You need to format it in FAT32 with EaseUS or something else...

I had the same thing happen (exfat 64G card corrupted by the attempted mount under AOKP/CM10) - really irritating. Someone claimed the card would still mount under Recovery and they could pull the contents using adb, but I had no luck with this and had to reformat (but fortunately I could reconstruct the contents). fat32 is limited to 4G file size so I stuck with exfat under a Sammy-based rom (Wanam), at least until exfat support is sorted out under CM10.

plaut said:
I had the same thing happen (exfat 64G card corrupted by the attempted mount under AOKP/CM10) - really irritating. Someone claimed the card would still mount under Recovery and they could pull the contents using adb, but I had no luck with this and had to reformat (but fortunately I could reconstruct the contents). fat32 is limited to 4G file size so I stuck with exfat under a Sammy-based rom (Wanam), at least until exfat support is sorted out under CM10.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FAT32 is NOT limited to 4g in size, which is why EaseUS is recommended...

BNaughty said:
FAT32 is NOT limited to 4g in size, which is why EaseUS is recommended...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unless you're talking about a particular extension of FAT32 (e.g., FAT+), the maximum size of a single file is 4GB - 1 byte. The entire volume can be much larger, of course (up to 16 TB with 4096 byte sectors).

plaut said:
Unless you're talking about a particular extension of FAT32 (e.g., FAT+), the maximum size of a single file is 4GB - 1 byte. The entire volume can be much larger, of course (up to 16 TB with 4096 byte sectors).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then I misread what you said, i apologize... you're right 4g file size...

[Q] 64GB SD card on CM10.1

I recently bought a 64GB SanDisk Ultra MicroSDXC card and right after I got it, I started to play around with it.
Like I knew, stock-CM10.1 doesn't support exFat, but I decided to just plug the card in and watch if the phone would suggest me to format it to compatible format. But nothing happened. So I went to Settings->Storage, and boom, force close.
I thought that maybe it was just impossible to format the card on android, so I formatted it on Windows (to fat32) but no luck. Still fc when I try to go to Storage Settings.
Next thing I tried was recovery-mode:
-fat32 in koush's touch recovery -> cannot mount external_sd
-exFat in PhilZ's "exFat compatible recovery" -> the same thing
Then I really began to think that this whole damn card wasn't supported at all. So I tried one more time.
Clean CM10.1 flash, a try with fat32 and exFat, and after that (and after 0 successful attemps) those both formats one at a time with RedPill kernel.
And nothing worked.
But one of my attempts was not very far from success: when I was on stock fresh CM10.1, I also tried Paragon's app for mounting NTFS-partition and it actually worked. The app itself confirmed that "partition was mounted and it was nearly 60GB large". But in settings and in file managers the card wasn't recognized.
The second odd thing that I noticed (actually because of a half-accident) was that if I formatted the card to fat32 BUT set the size of the partition to exactly 32GB the card was up and running perfectly.
So my questions are:
Is there someone who has 64GB sdcard working perfectly on AOSP rom? And if yes, what is your setup?
Is it some kind of bug in CM10.1/even in all AOSP-roms out there that cards over 32 gigs don't show up at all? And if it is just a bug can we expect it to be fixed in near future?
Or is Touchwiz based rom the only solution?
And if someone is asking what software I used to format the card on Windows I tried:
- fat32format
- HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool
- EASEUS Partition Master
- and of course stock Windows' format tool
And what formats I tried:
- fat32
- exFat
- NTFS
- ext4
Thanks in advance

I have the same sd card working on tw and aosp. I had to plug it into the computer and google formatting exfat 64 micro sd cards and youll find an app online. Download it to your comp and itll guide you through the rest. 10mins at max is all it should take. Hope it helps
Sent from my SGH-T889 using xda app-developers app

Do you remember what aosp roms/kernels have you used while the card has been working as it should?
And do you have any clue what was that app you used to format your card?

4rm45 said:
Do you remember what aosp roms/kernels have you used while the card has been working as it should?
And do you have any clue what was that app you used to format your card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll get on my computer tomorrow and tell you. But as far as ROMs and kernels, since I formatted my SD card to fat32 I use it for both tw and aosp roms from miui, to aokp, jellybam and all tw ROMs. Once your formatted properly it'll work for any ROM and kernel
?Finsh Him?

rambo8987 said:
I'll get on my computer tomorrow and tell you. But as far as ROMs and kernels, since I formatted my SD card to fat32 I use it for both tw and aosp roms from miui, to aokp, jellybam and all tw ROMs. Once your formatted properly it'll work for any ROM and kernel
?Finsh Him?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, good, thanks
EDIT:
Thank god, I got it working. When I downloaded and installed MiniTool Partition Wizard to my computer I noticed that somehow the whole partition of the sd card was changed to logical instead of primary. I simply formatted it to primary fat32 partition and now it works, finally.
And last but not least I have to say a big thank you.

Any way to get around the 4GB size limitation of FAT32 file system on Pixel for OTG?

I can't figure out how to get around the 4GB file size restriction on the Pixel 3. I never had any problems using an exFAT file system on external hard drives/USB drives on previous phones.
It seems that if I attempt to use exFAT or NTFS file systems on my drives, the Pixel will not recognize it, format it back to FAT32, and I'm back at square one.
I've tried to wirelessly transfer files from PC to phone through Portal, using the external drive as the storage device, but that didn't work either.

double0psycho said:
I can't figure out how to get around the 4GB file size restriction on the Pixel 3. I never had any problems using an exFAT file system on external hard drives/USB drives on previous phones.
It seems that if I attempt to use exFAT or NTFS file systems on my drives, the Pixel will not recognize it, format it back to FAT32, and I'm back at square one.
I've tried to wirelessly transfer files from PC to phone through Portal, using the external drive as the storage device, but that didn't work either.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
??? I have a 128 gb USB c thumb drive formatted fat32. It's working fine on my pixel 3.
Sent from my [device_name] using XDA-Developers Legacy app

I can get FAT32 to work. But FAT32 limits file sizes to less than 4GB. I'm trying to have larger movie files on a USB drive to watch on a long trip. Can't put them on a FAT32 formatted drive because they're way too large. And Pixel doesn't support exFAT or NTFS.
I'm trying to find a way around this, unless I really just have to resort to splitting all of the files into smaller segments. Was hoping not to have to do that though.

double0psycho said:
I can get FAT32 to work. But FAT32 limits file sizes to less than 4GB. I'm trying to have larger movie files on a USB drive to watch on a long trip. Can't put them on a FAT32 formatted drive because they're way too small. And Pixel doesn't support exFAT or NTFS.
I'm trying to find a way around this, unless I really just have to resort to splitting all of the files into smaller segments. Was hoping not to have to do that though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Windows artificially limits fat32 to 32 gb so if that's all you need it should format it fine. If you need more there are 3rd party apps or you can do it in a windows power shell running as administrator. In a power shell use format /FS:FAT32 X:. Where X: is the drive letter of the device you're formatting.
Edit, you know what. I miss understood your question. I was thinking partition size not file size. Sorry about that.
Sent from my [device_name] using XDA-Developers Legacy app

jd1639 said:
Windows artificially limits fat32 to 32 gb so if that's all you need it should format it fine. If you need more there are 3rd party apps or you can do it in a windows power shell running as administrator. In a power shell use format /FS:FAT32 X:. Where X: is the drive letter of the device you're formatting.
Edit, you know what. I miss understood your question. I was thinking partition size not file size. Sorry about that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, realized I said small when I meant the file sizes are too large. Either way, I'm hoping to find a way to get my pixel to be able to "see" some 8GB or larger files on an external storage device. I've used a couple apps that said they allow read/write NTFS and exFAT file systems, but none have really worked.

I'm just passing through, I don't own a pixel. But normally you need a kernel that supports either ntfs or exfat or both. I saw there are 2 kernels in the development section. Have you tried those?

double0psycho said:
I can't figure out how to get around the 4GB file size restriction on the Pixel 3. I never had any problems using an exFAT file system on external hard drives/USB drives on previous phones.
It seems that if I attempt to use exFAT or NTFS file systems on my drives, the Pixel will not recognize it, format it back to FAT32, and I'm back at square one.
I've tried to wirelessly transfer files from PC to phone through Portal, using the external drive as the storage device, but that didn't work either.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FAT32 and exFAT are not the same type of filesystem.
double0psycho said:
I can get FAT32 to work. But FAT32 limits file sizes to less than 4GB. I'm trying to have larger movie files on a USB drive to watch on a long trip. Can't put them on a FAT32 formatted drive because they're way too large. And Pixel doesn't support exFAT or NTFS.
I'm trying to find a way around this, unless I really just have to resort to splitting all of the files into smaller segments. Was hoping not to have to do that though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FAT32 is working as it should be.
jd1639 said:
Windows artificially limits fat32 to 32 gb so if that's all you need it should format it fine. If you need more there are 3rd party apps or you can do it in a windows power shell running as administrator. In a power shell use format /FS:FAT32 X:. Where X: is the drive letter of the device you're formatting.
Edit, you know what. I miss understood your question. I was thinking partition size not file size. Sorry about that.
Sent from my [device_name] using XDA-Developers Legacy app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is not an "artificial" limit. This is how FAT32 was designed to work.
double0psycho said:
Yeah, realized I said small when I meant the file sizes are too large. Either way, I'm hoping to find a way to get my pixel to be able to "see" some 8GB or larger files on an external storage device. I've used a couple apps that said they allow read/write NTFS and exFAT file systems, but none have really worked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Those apps never work without root. Even with root, they're still finicky.
[Cruzer] said:
I'm just passing through, I don't own a pixel. But normally you need a kernel that supports either ntfs or exfat or both. I saw there are 2 kernels in the development section. Have you tried those?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As stated here, a custom kernel with exFAT support is your best option.
Please read up on filesystems here.
Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

bxlegend said:
FAT32 and exFAT are not the same type of filesystem.
It is not an "artificial" limit. This is how FAT32 was designed to work.
k
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree to a point. It was designed to work that way since Microsoft is pushing NTFS for larger partitions. You can certainly have FAT32 partitions larger than 32 gb.

jd1639 said:
I agree to a point. It was designed to work that way since Microsoft is pushing NTFS for larger partitions. You can certainly have FAT32 partitions larger than 32 gb.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let's be careful here because you're confusing file size with partition size. Microsoft is not "pushing" one filesystem over another. The FAT32 filesystem had too many limits for servers which is why Microsoft introduced NTFS. As consumer needs grew, NTFS was made the default for Windows filesystem. The same applies to removable flash storage. To get consumers and manufacturers away from FAT32, Microsoft created exFAT. Microsoft, Apple, and Google are all competitors and they all have default supported filesystems. Microsoft and Apple user proprietary filesystems while Google sticks with open source since it's patent free. Which is why Pixel phones do not support Microsoft and Apple filesystems by default.
Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

double0psycho said:
I can't figure out how to get around the 4GB file size restriction on the Pixel 3. I never had any problems using an exFAT file system on external hard drives/USB drives on previous phones.
It seems that if I attempt to use exFAT or NTFS file systems on my drives, the Pixel will not recognize it, format it back to FAT32, and I'm back at square one.
I've tried to wirelessly transfer files from PC to phone through Portal, using the external drive as the storage device, but that didn't work either.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are a couple of apps that allow accessing exFAT and NTFS file systems via OTG. Here's one I've used:
https://mixplorer.en.uptodown.com/android
It also allows accessing the files directly, so a slow copy to the phone isn't required for say playing a movie.