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Best way to format SD card

Hi I'm pretty sure this won't be an extremely popular topic but just wondering how people go about formatting there sd cards do u just wipe everything save ur backups? Ur photos music? Anything and also is there anything important I shouldn't delete?? Just curious to see how everyone else does it thanx for being nice
Sent from my HTC Desire Z using XDA

Well, you can use your phone to format it by going into settings and storage. You should back up anything you dont want to lose to your pc. I find that the most effective way is to connect the sd card to the pc either in your phone via usb or via a card reader. Then go to my computer, right click on it and hit format. It thould already be in the right file format(fat32) if im not mistaken. Then just place your pics and whatever else back on there and the android system will do the rest. Hope i helped!
Sent from my HTC Desire Z using xda premium

If you are working with a removable SD card I'd recommend HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - v2.1.8. (free)
I had an 8 Gb card sitting around for a while and I wanted to use in my daughter's new phone. I put the card in the PC and deleted everything. Then I thought just format the damn thing. It seemed to only think it had 40 Mb. Windows would not format it to anything over 40 Mb. I had to download the HP tool and it would allow formatting to the full 8 Gb.

Hi,
Not sure if this is the right place.. I just installed coredroid 1.2 and my sd card is not detected. Removed the sd card. Complete format then reinsert still doesnt solve the problem. I am able to use the card using a card reader. Any suggestions

etp23 said:
Hi I'm pretty sure this won't be an extremely popular topic but just wondering how people go about formatting there sd cards do u just wipe everything save ur backups? Ur photos music? Anything and also is there anything important I shouldn't delete?? Just curious to see how everyone else does it thanx for being nice
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It sounds like you are formatting an existing (previously used) card? Do you have some issue with the card? Or just switching between devices? Can't see it making much difference using the built-in Windows disk management tool to format, using the phone to do it, or some other method.
I think even switching between devices, I haven't bothered to re-format, just deleted the files manually and swapped the card into the new phone.
For new cards, I don't even bother to format. They are always pre-formatted to FAT32, AFAIK. So I just insert it in the device and go . . .

redpoint73 said:
It sounds like you are formatting an existing (previously used) card? Do you have some issue with the card? Or just switching between devices? Can't see it making much difference using the built-in Windows disk management tool to format, using the phone to do it, or some other method.
I think even switching between devices, I haven't bothered to re-format, just deleted the files manually and swapped the card into the new phone.
For new cards, I don't even bother to format. They are always pre-formatted to FAT32, AFAIK. So I just insert it in the device and go . . .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how do you move apps to external sd card ? before there used to be option to move to sd card now i don't see that .. i had this problem ever since i upgrade to cm10 and now on aokp....

I use SDformatter.
It's better than just with right click and select format.
Sent from my Incredible S using xda premium

if you have just one partition formated with fat32 on your sd-card, you can format it with windows-tools. if there is another partition (ext2/3/4) on your card, its not possible to format the sd-card completely with this tools and you need, as written above, an external tool like that from HP.
Beside this, i don't really understand why you want to do this, except you have a problem with your card...

i wiped my sd card with h.d.d low level format ! now i cant create right ext partition now . how can i do that ? i did everything with partition magic software . but not use .

If you have a Linux box and an SD card read use gparted. If you don't the best/fastest way is with a good recovery in an android phone
Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

HTC One V ~ SDcard unaccessable??

Recently got my phone which runs through Kodoos and cant seem to find an answer online via HTC manual?
ive browsed several SDcard threads here on the forums and none seem to be covering my problem?
in the Settings/Storage menu:
Storage card:
Total space
Unavailable
Available
Unavailable
Make more space
*light grey and cant access*
Mount storage card
*light grey and cant access*
Erase storage card
*light grey and cant access*
Storage card encryption
*light grey and cant access*
--------------------------------------
[Q]: Is there a way to format this SDcard?
[Q]: is there a way to change the setttings whereas pics, music ,etc, can be directly sent to the SDcard?
[Q]: how do i access the SDcard when it wont let me into the card or it shows it is unavailable?

Try to format the card in pc using an incompatible format like ntfs and then put it in the phone and then the phone should ask you if you want to format the card. If not try to go to settings and format manually.
Sent from my 1,5 GHz HTC One V using Tapatalk 2

hlavicka82 said:
Try to format the card in pc using an incompatible format like ntfs and then put it in the phone and then the phone should ask you if you want to format the card. If not try to go to settings and format manually.
Sent from my 1,5 GHz HTC One V using Tapatalk 2
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Click to collapse
okay...
ill give the pc a shot but if that fails then where exactly is this "format" feature ,cuz i cant see it anywhere?:silly:

swampdawg73 said:
okay...
ill give the pc a shot but if that fails then where exactly is this "format" feature ,cuz i cant see it anywhere?:silly:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
formatted the sdcard using ntfs and still the HTC doesnt see it? ugh!!

swampdawg73 said:
formatted the sdcard using ntfs and still the HTC doesnt see it? ugh!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
dude. just format the sdcard using your pc in FAT16 format. you can also try fat32 but I don't know how it plays with android.
cheers!
PS: after you format it using the above method, it's good to take the sdcard out from your phone and then put it back. just to be on the safe side

1ceb0x said:
dude. just format the sdcard using your pc in FAT16 format. you can also try fat32 but I don't know how it plays with android.
cheers!
PS: after you format it using the above method, it's good to take the sdcard out from your phone and then put it back. just to be on the safe side
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well...tried FAT16 and no luck?
im getting very frustrated at the thought of a phone that doesnt even see a simple SDcard when my PC does?

Well it might be some hardware issue. The phone does not recognize that sd card is in right? Does the phone show something when you plug in the card while the phone is on?
Did you try to put in other card?

hlavicka82 said:
Well it might be some hardware issue. The phone does not recognize that sd card is in right? Does the phone show something when you plug in the card while the phone is on?
Did you try to put in other card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nothing shows up when putting the card into the phone while it is on, but it does state SDCARD REMOVED when pulling it out from the phone

May be the SD card have some defect. Insert some other SD card and see if the phone nose it out.

c#4nc3 said:
May be the SD card have some defect. Insert some other SD card and see if the phone nose it out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ill probably end up doing that and just buy a new sdcard but i have a feeling itll do he same thing seeing as my PC sees it just fine and my last phone used it without a glitch. Now formatting this card for this phone, ive lost 1gb of photos!

Well I just did a small test. I have formatted a spare SD card with NTFS(I used MiniTool Partition Wizard for that) and put it in the phone. It told me that the SD card is blank and not properly formatted and asked if I want to format the card.
So this is something that your phone should do too. So my conclusion is that there must be either something wrong with the card or with the phone. So hurry to try a different SD card and if it doesn't work you should ask for replacement device.

hlavicka82 said:
Well I just did a small test. I have formatted a spare SD card with NTFS(I used MiniTool Partition Wizard for that) and put it in the phone. It told me that the SD card is blank and not properly formatted and asked if I want to format the card.
So this is something that your phone should do too. So my conclusion is that there must be either something wrong with the card or with the phone. So hurry to try a different SD card and if it doesn't work you should ask for replacement device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks everyone so very much for all your help!!!
i called Future Shop (where i purchased my device) and explained everything including your guys help to them, and they said it sounds like the devices card reader is defective. So...seeing as i just got this on Friday last week, i can exchange it for a new device at no cost.
:good:

just got back in from future shop....
seems it was the sdcard that was defective but...
after coming home, i reformatted the old sdcard back to ntfs and dropped a pic on it from my PC and it still works?? lol
for some odd reason the device just didnt see the card? maybe cuz it was generic? maybe cuz it was only 1gb? i dunno??
however...got me a new 8gb sdcard for 14.00, thatll do me just fine!!
again, thanks for all the help

SDcard unaccessable
swampdawg73 said:
ill probably end up doing that and just buy a new sdcard but i have a feeling itll do he same thing seeing as my PC sees it just fine and my last phone used it without a glitch. Now formatting this card for this phone, ive lost 1gb of photos!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am also having same problem with my htc one v
plzzzzzzz help me
I dnt knw wht to now
I have tried all the technic which is written above but still the problem is same

corrupted external SD card?

I was listening to a podcast in Doubletwist and when it finished, I went to delete it.
Once I did this, my phone lost access to the external card (which is where the podcasts download to).
I tried to pull up the card in root explorer and then I rebooted and tried it in recovery. It was not recognized.
I pulled the card and tried it in a friend's phone, and it gave the message that the card filesystem was corrupt or missing, do you want to format?
I don't want to format because I have all my pictures backed up to the card. As I don't have a converter handy to plug into the card reader on my work laptop, I have to wait until tonight to try it at home. Unfortunately, my fear is that the data on the card will be lost regardless.
Does anyone have any suggestions on ways to try to get to the files on the card, or am I just screwed and need to format?

if u just want your pictures and don't really care about anything else on the card, use an application for windows called testdisk on it. Its free and when u download it an app called photo rec is included, that'll recover your pics
if you want EVERYTHING on the card do ALOT of research into tools that can scan and possibly restore partition tables as from you description that seems that's what's corrupt. Be careful with these ones though as some inexperience can cause more harm than good.
if u don't mind paying there is a specific application suited for your task called cardrecovery.
my advice? option 1 if u want easy free, 3 if u want reasonably easy and don't mind paying, and 2 if u don't mind spending some time learning, difficult and possibly free. all ranked in that order

I'll give those options a shot. Really it's the pictures that I don't want to lose.
Thanks for the suggestions!
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-T989 using xda premium

HeavyA said:
I'll give those options a shot. Really it's the pictures that I don't want to lose.
Thanks for the suggestions!
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-T989 using xda premium
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Click to collapse
use chkdsk /r after connecting your device to your computer. if it is detected, this should get you back all your data. this happened to me a couple of times and i was able to recover the data using this.

technojinn said:
use chkdsk /r after connecting your device to your computer. if it is detected, this should get you back all your data. this happened to me a couple of times and i was able to recover the data using this.
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Click to collapse
for a phone DO NOT do this. It can result in recovered files yes, but it is also an intrusive method that can corrupt your data further, highly unrecommended. the non invasive techniques I recommended are better to try first

Would that method work if I intend to reformat the card once the data is recovered?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-T989 using xda premium

HeavyA said:
Would that method work if I intend to reformat the card once the data is recovered?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-T989 using xda premium
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Click to collapse
no because it could ruin the data before u even get a chance to see it, I know, its happened to me. chkdsk is not the best file recovery method and it wasn't intended to be. its meant to repair a damaged file system table

I looked up cardrecovery, and one of the reviews pointed to a free app called "zero assumption recovery" that supposedly worked as well. Gave it a go, but it was unable to recover anything.
Right now I'm running testdisk and keeping my fingers crossed.
Testdisk also came up empty.
I ran chkdsk /x/f j:
It wasn't able to do anything because the file system is RAW.
Windows also was unable to format the card.
Downloading SD Formatter to see if that will work.
And negative. This gets better and better.

As a final note, I plugged my card into a friend's phone and was able to format it. Not sure why my phone wouldn't allow me to, but it works now. Unfortunately, I lost all the files that were on it.

photorec didn't work? wow sorry to hear that bud. I checked out zero assumption recovery, but it seemed like more of a general recovery tool, card recovery was specifically designed for SD cards and removable memory storage. oh well, sorry I couldn't help more

icenight89 said:
photorec didn't work? wow sorry to hear that bud. I checked out zero assumption recovery, but it seemed like more of a general recovery tool, card recovery was specifically designed for SD cards and removable memory storage. oh well, sorry I couldn't help more
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You get an A for effort, but my card was not meant to be recovered. It sucks to lose the files, but not the end of the world.
Thanks for the suggestions, they are good ideas for hopefully resolving future disk issues, and at a minimum, I have more tools available if something like this happens again.

MicroSD card help

Hi everyone,
I have a 64gb sandisk microsd external card, in a att galaxy s3 and it appears to be acting very strange.
i can't add or delete anything from it, i put it in my brothers galaxy s2 to format it (my s3 not having the option(which is strange)) and it let me format it, but when it remounts its at the exact same place, with 42.2gb free storage space, which is what it was at before i formatted it, i did it a few times same thing.
if i manually try to delete things from the card through my phone or computer they either hang or they do delete then upon reboot all the files are back. I hope its not corrupted but it sounds like it is. i've used a few apps like sd tools which runs speed tests, and i get about 130mb write speed a second and 5000mb read speed a second which sounds like it should be able to read and write things but unfortunately it just won't
any help would be greatly appreciated.

zerogood said:
Hi everyone,
I have a 64gb sandisk microsd external card, in a att galaxy s3 and it appears to be acting very strange.
i can't add or delete anything from it, i put it in my brothers galaxy s2 to format it (my s3 not having the option(which is strange)) and it let me format it, but when it remounts its at the exact same place, with 42.2gb free storage space, which is what it was at before i formatted it, i did it a few times same thing.
if i manually try to delete things from the card through my phone or computer they either hang or they do delete then upon reboot all the files are back. I hope its not corrupted but it sounds like it is. i've used a few apps like sd tools which runs speed tests, and i get about 130mb write speed a second and 5000mb read speed a second which sounds like it should be able to read and write things but unfortunately it just won't
any help would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Take the SD card and use a custom recovery to wipe it clean. That might help

xXshur1kenXx said:
Take the SD card and use a custom recovery to wipe it clean. That might help
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Click to collapse
Okay, i used twrp, i'm updated to latest version, i went to wipe advanced, then microsd card says succesfull but its very short. when i reboot the storage is still the same. can't add or remove files still.

zerogood said:
Okay, i used twrp, i'm updated to latest version, i went to wipe advanced, then microsd card says succesfull but its very short. when i reboot the storage is still the same. can't add or remove files still.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm. You might have to try a double format in TWRP, then when you load up the System use the system's format tool. (i.e. Storage --> Wipe SD Card). If that doesn't work, you might need to find someone with a microsd to USB jig or something of the sort and use a computer to format it.

xXshur1kenXx said:
Hmm. You might have to try a double format in TWRP, then when you load up the System use the system's format tool. (i.e. Storage --> Wipe SD Card). If that doesn't work, you might need to find someone with a microsd to USB jig or something of the sort and use a computer to format it.
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Click to collapse
yeah thanks for the support, tried a number of things in twrp but to no avail. i went out and bought another 64gb microsd card and put it in my phone, works perfectly. but still i'm trying to get the other card working. the new card came with an adapter so i've been trying to format it in my computer. i've used windows format, i do the long one, it gets all the way to the end looks like its complete then says unable to format. and all teh data is still there, i've also tried guiformat by ridgecrop, says success but still all the information is still there.
i don't know if this means the card is corrupt i'd always assumed i'd get corruption error messages.
is there a program i can use to scan the card for errors or corruption?
thanks again dude for the responses any additional help will be very much appreciated still.
again thanks.

solution sorta found
Okay, finally ran out of options and things to search for so broke down and called sandisk techncial suport (didn't think they could help but my mistake)
Read the technician

SD Card Issues

Hello All,
Two weeks ago I bought a new Samsung MicroSDHC Pro 64GB Class 10. Kinda from the beginning it wasn't working how it should.. I formated it EXT4, exFat and FAT32 but all give the same problem.
For example; I copy a flashable zip on my external sd card, copies just find, but as soon as I try to flash from the external sd card I keep getting an error and the flash failed, almost instantly. If I copy and flash the same file to my internal sd card, it works just fine and no problems what so ever.
I tried formatting it through Sense, GPe and even a USB card reader.. all give me the same issues. I can even make a titanium backup and it seems to work. Tho, as soon as I try to restore from it, it won't find the files from the backup..but when I check the external sd card on my pc (phone connect to pc by htc usb cable) the files are there and it seems the correct size. But when I want to try a batch restore in titanium backup, and I look the phone for backup folders, it finds the foder.. but when I actualy wanna start the batch recovery, it only sees 1/2/3 apps to restore, even tho there are over 70 apps to restore.
I'm at a loss at the moment, I feel like I've tried everything and nothing seemed to work. This is what the error looks like when trying to flash from external sd card:
E:Unable to open zip file.
Error flashing zip '/external_sd/blablabla/blablabla.zip'
Updating partition details
Hope anyone could help me with the issue.
Thanks in advance<3

nerotix said:
Hello All,
Two weeks ago I bought a new Samsung MicroSDHC Pro 64GB Class 10. Kinda from the beginning it wasn't working how it should.. I formated it EXT4, exFat and FAT32 but all give the same problem.
For example; I copy a flashable zip on my external sd card, copies just find, but as soon as I try to flash from the external sd card I keep getting an error and the flash failed, almost instantly. If I copy and flash the same file to my internal sd card, it works just fine and no problems what so ever.
I tried formatting it through Sense, GPe and even a USB card reader.. all give me the same issues. I can even make a titanium backup and it seems to work. Tho, as soon as I try to restore from it, it won't find the files from the backup..but when I check the external sd card on my pc (phone connect to pc by htc usb cable) the files are there and it seems the correct size. But when I want to try a batch restore in titanium backup, and I look the phone for backup folders, it finds the foder.. but when I actualy wanna start the batch recovery, it only sees 1/2/3 apps to restore, even tho there are over 70 apps to restore.
I'm at a loss at the moment, I feel like I've tried everything and nothing seemed to work. This is what the error looks like when trying to flash from external sd card:
E:Unable to open zip file.
Error flashing zip '/external_sd/blablabla/blablabla.zip'
Updating partition details
Hope anyone could help me with the issue.
Thanks in advance<3
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've seen in the past that 64gb cards have issues with formatting unless formatted in windows as Fat32 - mine did
As soon as I did that it worked.

Have you checked it to make sure it's not fake? Where did you buy it from & what is the formatted capacity? Should be like 59gbs and change
Sent from my HTC6525LVW using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

aer0zer0 said:
Have you checked it to make sure it's not fake? Where did you buy it from & what is the formatted capacity? Should be like 59gbs and change
Sent from my HTC6525LVW using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
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Click to collapse
Got it from a dutch website, through a person, not a company.. it had all legit packages etc, but how can I check to be 100% sure that it's real?
My computer shows it has 62,4GB total capacity.. reading it from card reader. Sounds wrong?

nerotix said:
Got it from a dutch website, through a person, not a company.. it had all legit packages etc, but how can I check to be 100% sure that it's real?
My computer shows it has 62,4GB total capacity.. reading it from card reader. Sounds wrong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Deffo wrong. Sounds like a fake. Capacity is 64gb. Available is obviously lower after formatting. Legit packages mean nothing - take a look here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrFiePAL0Pg
I would return it asap

grentuu said:
Deffo wrong. Sounds like a fake. Capacity is 64gb. Available is obviously lower after formatting. Legit packages mean nothing - take a look here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrFiePAL0Pg
I would return it asap
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Meh so stupid.. never knew ppl still sell fake sd cards.. thought that time was over.. thanks for letting me know <3

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=52626530#post52626530
this is the post i responded to in the forum a couple weeks ago, everything pertinent to testing your card seeing if it is fake or not is in there