Develop Bugs

Sandisk Ultra SDXC Card Problem - Confirmed

I have a Sandisk Ultra SDXC 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 Micro SD card in my T999 T-Mobile Galaxy S III phone.
The card has become "damaged" (Samsung's term). 4 times now. Please note that the card works fine on my Window 7 PC. This last time I formatted the card in the phone, put the card in the PC, copied a bunch of files to it (about 3GB) and then put the card back into the phone. And the phone said that the card might be damaged. I was sure to unmount the card before removing it.
I called T-Mobile tech support and they know nothing about it.
I called Sandisk and they said "There are known problems with Samsung Phones and Tablets and Sandisk Class 10 cards. Samsung is aware of this and working on it. Would you like us to replace your Class 10 UHS-1 card with a Class 6 card?"
I called Samsung tech support and they know nothing about it and are not setup to tell their engineers about issues. The only way to report an issue to engineering is via email.
Let's make a loud stink about this so Samsung/T-Mobile will fix it.
Follow up on original post:
I went out and purchased the recommended Sandisk 64 GB SDXC Class 6 memory card and the problems are exactly the same as with the Class 10 card.
The problem seems to appear when there is more that 4GB (I'm not sure if it is exactly the 4GB barrier or not) on the card the Galaxy S III has a problem mounting the card. Note that once the card has gone greater than 4 GB even deleting files to reduce it below 4 GB does not allow the card to be mounted.
On the class ten card I was able to successfully run the fsck -t exfat command on the card that Android would not mount. fsck returned no errors or problems found.
My testing is rather limited but I can say: The T-Mobile Galaxy S III (T999) does not work correctly with SanDisk Ultra 64 GB SDXC memory cards (class 6 or Class 10)
Please, let's spread this around so that maybe Samsung, T-Mobile and SanDisk will learn how to work together and solve the problem for the sake of their customers.
I put the new card in the phone and formatted it in the phone.

I don't quite understand how you got 2 crap microsd card, I'm using a Samsung ultra 32gb class 10 just fine, never had one problem mounting it never seen one error message. Sorry
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda premium

achmedclaus said:
I don't quite understand how you got 2 crap microsd card, I'm using a Samsung ultra 32gb class 10 just fine, never had one problem mounting it never seen one error message. Sorry
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think it is a software problem with the 64 GB Micro SDXC Card.

I have a Sandisk Ultra SDXC 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 in my Galaxy SIII and have never had an issue. I had problems formatting the card in my PC, So i just threw it in the phone and formatted it there. It was formatted and I have loaded about 25gb of music, 5gb of pictures through Cheetah Sync without issue.

picachux said:
I have a Sandisk Ultra SDXC 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 in my Galaxy SIII and have never had an issue. I had problems formatting the card in my PC, So i just threw it in the phone and formatted it there. It was formatted and I have loaded about 25gb of music, 5gb of pictures through Cheetah Sync without issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you rebooted your phone or unmounted and remounted the card? That is when the problems occur.
I believe that there is a bug in the code the Samsung uses to check the card prior to mounting. They are doing more than just a simple
fsck -t exfat.
I tried a 32 GB SDHC Samsung Class 10 card with the exact same data that was on the 64GB SDXC card without any problems. It is my belief that there is a bug in exFAT code in the Galaxy S III.
Thanks for your comments.

I have only unmounted the card twice to kickstart the media scan after loading some music and I reboot my phone every 2 days or so.

ChitownWingMan said:
Have you rebooted your phone or unmounted and remounted the card? That is when the problems occur.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've reboot my phone all the time—I don't have any problems. I don't mount/unmount very often, but just tried it now and everything appears to be fine.
My card is a 64 GB class 5 SanDisk, formatted FAT32 (done on a Linux machine).

tamasrepus said:
I've reboot my phone all the time—I don't have any problems. I don't mount/unmount very often, but just tried it now and everything appears to be fine.
My card is a 64 GB class 5 SanDisk, formatted FAT32 (done on a Linux machine).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe the bug is in the exFAT drivers in the S III.
I formatted the card in the S III under the mistaken assumption that the phone would know best.
The theoretical maximum size of FAT32 is 2TB. However, since Microsoft in their infinite wisdom decided only to support FAT32 up to 32GB (most likely to force people to use NTFS) support for FAT32 above 32GB is spotty and unreliable.
This being said if you format a 32GB card or smaller in the Galaxy S III, it will be formatted FAT32. If you format a 64GB (or greater I presume) in the Galaxy S III, it will be formatted exFAT.
I will try formatting the card as a 64GB FAT32 partition. However, this will mess up my using a USB 3.0 card reader (at 5Gb/S transfer rate) to write to the card. Writing to the card via WiFi is interminably slow by comparison.

Sounds like windows is damaging the exFAT partition when you plug it in to your computer to transfer stuff. I've never done that because I just use Cheetah Sync to sync my iTunes(25gb) folder to my sdxc card and to sync my pictures/videos from the sdxc to my pc.

ChitownWingMan said:
I believe the bug is in the exFAT drivers in the S III.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems that way to me too. exFAT is not in Linux upstream, so I imagine Samsung just bought a binary driver from someone. Who knows the quality.
I will try formatting the card as a 64GB FAT32 partition. However, this will mess up my using a USB 3.0 card reader (at 5Gb/S transfer rate) to write to the card. Writing to the card via WiFi is interminably slow by comparison.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What does the card reader have to do with it? I've a USB 3.0 card reader, and my 64 GB FAT32-formatted fine.
As I recommended in the other thread, use a Linux Live CD to format your SD card.

tamasrepus said:
Seems that way to me too. exFAT is not in Linux upstream, so I imagine Samsung just bought a binary driver from someone. Who knows the quality.
What does the card reader have to do with it? I've a USB 3.0 card reader, and my 64 GB FAT32-formatted fine.
As I recommended in the other thread, use a Linux Live CD to format your SD card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
or use Partition Wizard Home Edition (free)(windows) for large fat32 format jobs works perfectly and the price is right http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html

picachux said:
Sounds like windows is damaging the exFAT partition when you plug it in to your computer to transfer stuff. I've never done that because I just use Cheetah Sync to sync my iTunes(25gb) folder to my sdxc card and to sync my pictures/videos from the sdxc to my pc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because I thought the same thing one of the tests that I performed was to never remove the card from the phone. I did all of my copying to and from the card via File Expert Web Sharing. One day I ran the phone battery down and the phone rebooted. When it came back up it was unable to verify the card. However, fsck -t exfat found no problems with the card.
One interesting point, I was using Cheetah Sync (a great program) last night to copy a TitaniumBackup directory to the phone and it failed. Here is a copy of the email I sent to the developer:
The destination directory contains 11,841 files totaling 2.93GB and Cheetah needs to download 1917 files and is failing on the 1st file with the error "Sync Error - I/O error downloading files.".
Note: Cheetah Sync had already copied almost 7,000 files. It originally failed during a copy of almost 9,000 files. I restarted
the sync and that is why it failed on 1 of 1,917 files.
I am using a T-Mobile Galaxy S III (Model SGH-T999) with 32 GB internal memory and a 32 GB external SD Card (Samsung Class 10).
The source directory is c:\phone\card_backup\TitaniumBackup and the destination directory is /mnt/extSdCard/TitaniumBackup.
I am able to manually create a file in that directory using a file explorer.

tamasrepus said:
Seems that way to me too. exFAT is not in Linux upstream, so I imagine Samsung just bought a binary driver from someone. Who knows the quality.
What does the card reader have to do with it? I've a USB 3.0 card reader, and my 64 GB FAT32-formatted fine.
As I recommended in the other thread, use a Linux Live CD to format your SD card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The card reader is not the issue just the mechanism to allow me to copy files quickly from/to the card.
How Windows will handle a FAT32 partition greater than 32GB is my concern. In the past I have always used NTFS for drives/cards greater than 32GB because FAT32 has a 4GB - 1 file size limit and I have many video files that are larger then that.
MiniTool Partition Wizard and Easeus Partition Master can both also make a 64GB FAT32 partition.
Thanks...

Update
There is an update to this thread here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=29904990&postcount=10

SanDisk Ultra 64GB microSDXC Class 10 Only $54.51

Found this really nice deal on Amazon.
Just ordered one
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B007WTAJTO/ref=redir_mdp_mobile?redirect=true

I'd say be careful. If you check some reviews, I heard when they sell out, they replace it with Class 6.
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda app-developers app

You don't have to worry if you buy from Amazon. If you buy from a third party make sure it says "fulfilled by Amazon", you'll get super saver shipping and it will be exactly as described.

It's Sold by Amazon and
Fulfilled by Amazon,
so I'm not too worried about it.
If they ship something other than what I ordered, I'll just return the item
I've always had good experiences with Amazon, as long as the Items are Sold by Amazon directly, or if the Seller's Return Policy is the same as Amazon's.
I read through All 12 pages of Amazon reviews.
This Is a Class 10 Card.
The 4th reviewer was only stating his opinion. Every Reviewer (111 of 112) received a Class 10.
And the 4th reviewer most likely also received a Class 10.

I'm actually using this card right now. Ordered it Saturday, got it Wednesday. Works like a champ.
From Amazon, of course. The price was cheaper than ebay, with none of the risk.

Bought this card last night...hope it works in a 16 GB verizon s3...

I would live to get one of these but I'm in Canada. Anyone want to order one for me?
Sent from my SGH-I747M using xda app-developers app

got this card today and it does not work...does anyone know if you need to do anything special?

bearklaws said:
got this card today and it does not work...does anyone know if you need to do anything special?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What ROM are you using? Did you format the card?

senergy rom, and yes i formated it. i also transferd from old card to new card and still a no go.
went into setting /then to storage and tried to mount it that way also. it might be bad.

bearklaws said:
senergy rom, and yes i formated it. i also transferd from old card to new card and still a no go.
went into setting /then to storage and tried to mount it that way also. it might be bad.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can't see pics at work if you uploaded a pic with that, but does your computer read it? Does your phone say its corrupt? If everything says it's corrupt you can probably go to control panel -> hardware and do a full format (25/30 minutes). If nothing recognizes it at all, it's bad and you should request a replacement/refund.

had a hard time formatting the very first time. I am going to do a full format now, if that doesnt work, its going back. Thanks for the help.
Tried everything i know how...i am sending it back...thanks

Just received mine, and installed it in my S3.
Working Perfectly
This is what I did:
- I removed my SanDisk 32GB Class 6 card from my S3 after 'Unmounting' it.
- I saved All data on the card to a Folder on my pc
*the 32GB card is FAT32
- I installed the 64GB card into my S3, Formatted it, and Removed it after 'Unmounting' the card.
I transferrerd All data onto my New 64GB Card via my pc
- I installed the 64GB card into my S3 and Everything is Working Fine
*the 64GB card is exFAT
The 64GB card had 59.47GB Usable memory beforing transferring my folders over to it.

Biker1 said:
Just received mine, and installed it in my S3.
Working Perfectly
This is what I did:
- I removed my SanDisk 32GB Class 6 card from my S3 after 'Unmounting' it.
- I saved All data on the card to a Folder on my pc
*the 32GB card is FAT32
- I installed the 64GB card into my S3, Formatted it, and Removed it after 'Unmounting' the card.
I transferrerd All data onto my New 64GB Card via my pc
- I installed the 64GB card into my S3 and Everything is Working Fine
*the 64GB card is exFAT
The 64GB card had 59.47GB Usable memory beforing transferring my folders over to it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice...I could not even get my phone to see it...I did the same thing you did also...just a bad card,waiting for another.(thanks for the write up.)

bearklaws said:
Nice...I could not even get my phone to see it...I did the same thing you did also...just a bad card,waiting for another.(thanks for the write up.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your card arrived in the cardboard/blister packaging?
Don't know what the odds are of getting a defective card, taking into consideration the Seller, packaging, etc. But hopefully your replacement card will have no issue.
Have you tried to install the card into another device, if one is available?

Biker1 said:
Just received mine, and installed it in my S3.
Working Perfectly
This is what I did:
- I removed my SanDisk 32GB Class 6 card from my S3 after 'Unmounting' it.
- I saved All data on the card to a Folder on my pc
*the 32GB card is FAT32
- I installed the 64GB card into my S3, Formatted it, and Removed it after 'Unmounting' the card.
I transferrerd All data onto my New 64GB Card via my pc
- I installed the 64GB card into my S3 and Everything is Working Fine
*the 64GB card is exFAT
The 64GB card had 59.47GB Usable memory beforing transferring my folders over to it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
I did exactly the same (my old 32GB FAT32 card to new 64GB exFAT one).
And everything is going fine...
Sent from Tapatalk 2

key_r said:
+1
I did exactly the same (my old 32GB FAT32 card to new 64GB exFAT one).
And everything is going fine...
Sent from Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds good to me
My S3 now has a capacity for 96GB of frigg'n
memory
That's a lot of memory!

does a 64gb card HAVE to be exfat? or can i make it fat32?

diz_dizane said:
does a 64gb card HAVE to be exfat? or can i make it fat32?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can but you can't format it using the Windows formatter. I used easeus software to format mine so that the card would be visible in clockwork recovery. exFAT is not supported there. Had a bit of a scare after formatting with the HP utility. Repartitioned in easeus but it would only read on the computer and it would FC system apps on my phone. Figured out that the partition needs to be primary not logical (what easus defaults to for new partitions) to work on the phone. All you have to do is pop the card in the computer, open easeus and format fat32. Don't mess with partitions
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

nacron said:
You can but you can't format it using the Windows formatter. I used easeus software to format mine so that the card would be visible in clockwork recovery. exFAT is not supported there. Had a bit of a scare after formatting with the HP utility. Repartitioned in easeus but it would only read on the computer and it would FC system apps on my phone. Figured out that the partition needs to be primary not logical (what easus defaults to for new partitions) to work on the phone. All you have to do is pop the card in the computer, open easeus and format fat32. Don't mess with partitions
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't realize that Clockwork didn't read exFAT.
I just did a backup to my Internal storage cause as you say, CWM didn't see the ext. SD card.
I'm gonna reformat the card now.
Thanks.
Is this what I need to use to convert to FAT32?
http://en.kioskea.net/download/download-380-easeus-partition-master
I'm going to do the following:
- format 64GB card in my S3, which will delete all data
- install Easeus onto my pc
- put 64GB card into my pc
- open Easeus Utility, and format 64GB card to FAT32.
- reinstall Folders previously saved on my pc from my 32GB FAT32 card to the newly formatted 64GB card
- install card into my S3, and I should be good to go?
UPDATE:
- Formatted 64GB card to FAT32
- CWM recognizes card
All is well in the neighborhood

[Q] 64GB SD card unformattable in AOSP & AOKP

I have had my GS3 for a little over a month, rooted and had no issues, I installed another rom with no issue. Unfortunately when I tried to install a CM10 or AOKP rom, each say my ext sd card is damaged and needs to be formatted. I try to format, but it hangs and then just quits without completing the task.
I have tried formatting to fat32 on my PC, downloaded EaseUS Disk utility to format, but none seem to work. When I restore back into the previous rom, it still says damaged and then I can format and start over only in that non AOSP/AOKP rom.
I boot into recovery when the AOSP/AOKP roms are loaded and it wont even mount or format in recovery either.
Any ideas?

stretch0r said:
I have had my GS3 for a little over a month, rooted and had no issues, I installed another rom with no issue. Unfortunately when I tried to install a CM10 or AOKP rom, each say my ext sd card is damaged and needs to be formatted. I try to format, but it hangs and then just quits without completing the task.
I have tried formatting to fat32 on my PC, downloaded EaseUS Disk utility to format, but none seem to work. When I restore back into the previous rom, it still says damaged and then I can format and start over only in that non AOSP/AOKP rom.
I boot into recovery when the AOSP/AOKP roms are loaded and it wont even mount or format in recovery either.
Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I read somewhere that in CM10/AOKP that it won't read/understand exFat very well.
So, formatting to Fat32 is definitely the way to go.
When I used some other programs it would say the same thing... that my card was damaged and had to be fixed.
I had a heck of a time finding a program that would do it for me on my 64gb sdxc SanDisk card!
But I found a free one called GUI Fat 32 Format that actually worked.
Click this link and it will start to download:
http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/guiformat.exe
It didn't work immediately, for me at first, but after a few tries it actually worked very well.
I think that once you get it into Fat32 all of your problems will go away. Hope so anyway.:cyclops:
Let us know if it works!

This seems to have corrected the issue, finally

stretch0r said:
This seems to have corrected the issue, finally
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad it worked for you!
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app

I had a similar issue... I flashed an AOSP ROM on my phone n it corrupted my sd card and wouldn't format. before formatting I went back to a touchwiz ROM and it still said it was a bad sd card and needed to format I ended up formatting my card in my phone and lost all my data. I put music on my sd card and removed the sd card from my phone before flashing another AOSP ROM. After I installed another AOSP ROM I re-inserted the sd card and it again said it was bad and needed to be reformatted...
So my question is...How can you use a 64gb sd card on an AOSP ROM...I'm back on touchwiz for now. Sd card works fine.
Does formatting the sd card in your phone format it to exfat and not fat32?
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda app-developers app

iomega311 said:
I think I read somewhere that in CM10/AOKP that it won't read/understand exFat very well.
So, formatting to Fat32 is definitely the way to go.
When I used some other programs it would say the same thing... that my card was damaged and had to be fixed.
I had a heck of a time finding a program that would do it for me on my 64gb sdxc SanDisk card!
But I found a free one called GUI Fat 32 Format that actually worked.
Click this link and it will start to download:
http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/guiformat.exe
It didn't work immediately, for me at first, but after a few tries it actually worked very well.
I think that once you get it into Fat32 all of your problems will go away. Hope so anyway.:cyclops:
Let us know if it works!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wait, so you're saying that AOKP/CM10 don't have the necessary drivers to handle exFAT formatted sd cards?
Do you remember where/how you came upon this information? Was this issue particular to 64gb SDXC cards vs smaller SDHC cards or maybe to certain classes of cards?
I find this shocking, but I can't say it isn't unfounded.
I have a 64gb uhs-1 sandisk card coming from newegg in a few days, so I'm obviously concerned.
Any insight you could provide is greatly appreciated!

Hey guys... after doing some fooling around I've found out some (useful) information for people with 64 gb sd cards...
1. When you format an sd card while its inside your phone it will format it to exFat.... which is fine if you plan on only staying on TW ROMs. This format is not compatible with TWRP Recovery and has given me issues (causing me to loose all my data on my card) just by flashing an AOSP ROM
2. If you use the program posted in the second post(thanks iomega311) you can format your sd card to Fat32 and it will now work on TW ROMs, TWRP, and AOSP ROMs.
Hope this helps for anyone with SD Card Questions/issues.

In my opinion... Never program sd cards on phone... Always use a computer. Especially if you want it done right!!!!

kdepro said:
Wait, so you're saying that AOKP/CM10 don't have the necessary drivers to handle exFAT formatted sd cards?
Do you remember where/how you came upon this information? Was this issue particular to 64gb SDXC cards vs smaller SDHC cards or maybe to certain classes of cards?
I find this shocking, but I can't say it isn't unfounded.
I have a 64gb uhs-1 sandisk card coming from newegg in a few days, so I'm obviously concerned.
Any insight you could provide is greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CM 10 which all the AOSP roms are based off does not support exFAT since it is a proprietary format and they don't want any legal trouble. The best way to format a 64GB gard is with GUI formatter

What allocation size did you guys use? Just got my 64GB SDXC and need to format it so that I can use it on CM10.

how do i know which sd card do i have?

i want to use this app:http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1889550 but i see it dosent work on exfat and i dont know how to know if i have exfat or fat32 please help ..

I'm using directory bind (latest version) on exfat and it works fine for me. You can just put the card in your computer and go to its propertes, it will tell you which format it is on.
64GB micro sd cards usually come with exfat format out of the box. 32GB usually FAT32

i think most sdcards are fat32 by default--may be wrong--but you can research phone specs or Google sdcard specs for n2.
Not aware any card comes with exfat--if you are original owner it should be fat32
you can also use partition programs like gparted or sdformatter that should list the sdcard and say how it is formatted--
either way backup sdcard first and even phone

MohJee said:
I'm using directory bind (latest version) on exfat and it works fine for me. You can just put the card in your computer and go to its propertes, it will tell you which format it is on.
64GB micro sd cards usually come with exfat format out of the box. 32GB usually FAT32
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
rugmankc said:
i think most sdcards are fat32 by default--may be wrong--but you can research phone specs or Google sdcard specs for n2.
Not aware any card comes with exfat--if you are original owner it should be fat32
you can also use partition programs like gparted or sdformatter that should list the sdcard and say how it is formatted--
either way backup sdcard first and even phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i press propoties on the n7100 when i connect the phone to the computer but not any intresting information

MohJee,
makes sense that some 64gb cards would come exfat--need to pay attn to that when I get phone

64GB SDXC card won't mount

I got a sandisk 64GB card for my spring galaxy s3 but whenever I plug it into my phone it immediately says "SD card is safe to remove" and does not mount it. I've mounted it manually but it immediately unmounts and give the message again. I tried reformatting the card as exfat with my laptop and it recognizes the SD card fine and formatted fine, but I still had the same problem when I plugged it back in to my phone. Does anyone have any idea how to fix this?
I'm running FreeGS3 3.0 with ktoonsez' kernel, in case that matters.

...You can't use exfat / extremely rare usage. Format the sdcard as fat32 and you'll be fine.

I had the same issue with my tab 2 10.1 and he is correct....format to fat32 in your pc and you should be good to go
Sent from my rooted Galaxy S3 on FreeGS3

Got this same error, said SD card was damaged ... format to FAT32 using GUI format, here is the link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=36273669&postcount=18. FAT32 will work with both TW and AOSP ROMs (just with a 4GB file size limit)

Have you ever found a way to get past the 4GB file limit yet?
nimaim said:
Got this same error, said SD card was damaged ... format to FAT32 using GUI format, here is the link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=36273669&postcount=18. FAT32 will work with both TW and AOSP ROMs (just with a 4GB file size limit)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

mycall0 said:
Have you ever found a way to get past the 4GB file limit yet?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Format to NTFS