• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Am I doing something wrong (SD card errors)

S

sogeking1

Newbie
Twice now I've had the damaged SD card message when I put it into my Galaxy s2 plus. Not sure if this is how you're supposed to do it but sometimes I transfer files through the phone and other times I take it out and use a card reader while I charge the phone on the wall and when I put it back.

I'm using a 32gb class 10 uhs card. I find that file transfers are quicker directly to and from the pc instead of through the phone via usb so I do it when I'm transferring a large amount of files, both time when I was moving around 10gb of my music library and a few video's onto the card.

There are no system files on the card, only the DCIM folder for the camera so I assume I'm free to just move things around and create folders and sub folders while on the computer?
 
Another thing I'd like to add is that when I have the phone connected via usb to my pc, I do use winamp to drag and drop my playlists onto the phone. From what I've seen this creates additional folders which may or may not conflict with the others already on the card...
 
Also do you unmount the card or turn off the phone before physically removing the card from the phone.
 
And you formatted the card in the computer, not in the phone, because it's missing 2 folders that the phone puts on it.

One common cause of SD card failure is writing huge amounts of data non-stop - and 2 or 3 gigs is considered huge for an SD card. Copy everything you want to put on the SD card into a separate folder in the computer. Copy 500MB or so at a time and delete the files that copied, then go on to the next batch. That's why the transfer is so much slower using the card in the phone. The phone "knows" not to overload the card. The computer is just transferring files to another "dive" and is trying to do it as fast as possible.

It could also be the quality of the card - only Samsung and SanDisk make the chips, everyone else gets the "leavings" to make their cards with. (And with a SanDisk card, if it fails like that, they'll usually replace it with no hassle.)

Reformat the card - in the phone. Copy your files with the card in the phone - USB or wifi transfer makes no difference. See if that makes a difference. (It'll take longer. Start it going when you get home and it may be done by the time you're ready to go to sleep.)
 
Thanks guys. The card on the s2 plus isn't hot swappable so I turn off the phone before removing the card, I don't always unmount it. I formatted it the first two times on the phone but after the last failure, I did a long format (unclicked the quick format option), and did an error check on HDtune.
I also made all the folders while on the computer with the intention of doing a one time transfer of all my music files as well as some other media on the disk before putting it back in the phone. I did occasionally bunch a group of files together but kept it at around 1gb per transfer, which is also what I did the previous times. Basically what I've been doing the first two times as well.


One thing I'd like to know more about is that when I transfer videos via phone, I get this option to either convert the files or transfer directly, I always choose the latter thinking it will be less time consuming to transfer it that way. I don't actually know what the conversion process is or does but I've never had a problem with the local media player playing any file I've used.
Also when transferring full audio albums via phone/usb I get the option to remove additional non audio files that may be in the folder, like sytem information files or m3u files which i do, but when transferring directly to the card I just drag and drop without removing them. I don't know if this makes a difference or not?
 
If any SD card is giving problems I strongly suggest reformatting it using a dedicated tool rather than the generic formatter that comes with the OS, which basically treats it like a disk and ignores some SD-specific areas that can sometimes cause problems, like size adjustment for example.

This is the definitive tool for the job: https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

Try it, it's free :-)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom