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Android phones corrupting my microSD cards!

O

omegaSQU4RED

Lurker
Hello everyone!

I've been having some very irritating issues with regards to microSD cards in my Android phones...

In April I bought a Sony Xperia Z and a Verbatim 32GB microSD card (class 4). After a month or so, my phone unexpectedly "removed" my memory card, unmounting it without my permission and corrupting it so that it couldn't be used on any other devices. I tried plugging it into my laptop with an adapter and it wouldn't access the card or even recognise it (it only recognised that there was something in the slot). Since I thought this might just be a faulty memory card, I sent it back to Verbatim and got it replaced. A couple of weeks later, it happened again! This and reports on forums of people getting this with different brands of memory card led me to believe that the handset itself was faulty, so I sold it on eBay as faulty (I didn't return it as I bought the phone itself off eBay and wasn't given a receipt).

As a replacement, I got a Samsung Galaxy S4 and a Lexar 32GB microSD card (class 10), and a couple of months later the same has happened! So that's two completely different brands of phone as well as two independent microSD card manufacturers, and I only just got the same fault! If anyone asks, I mainly used the microSD card for music, with a few pictures and a couple of apps.

This has led me to believe that it could be the operating system that's causing my memory cards to corrupt as they were both Android phones. This should not be happening at all, and it's such a shame that even though these are excellent phones, not being able to rely on external memory is a big deal-breaker!

Does anyone else have similar issues with memory cards and is there a way of preventing this?
 
What happens if you plug in the phone via usb without removing the card? What messages does the computer give you?

The computer should recognize an external storage device.
 
Hello and welcome to AF

Many of the high end android devices are moving away from SDcard storage completely. The HTC One - the One Mini - the Motorola Moto X - LG G2 - LG Google Nexus 4 all come with internal memory only. I have the HTC One 32gig and have never missed the sdcard slot. These new phones have USB OTG support and you can use an adapter to backup and store files to and from your phone stored on flash drives or sdcards with usb adapters.

I know it seems like a big coincidence but I'm pretty sure you have just had bad luck with the sdcards you have purchased. I have several cards that have been moved to 2-3 different android phones and all still work fine, so no it's not a common problem that I have ever experienced.
 
Hmm. That's pretty weird IMO. My 32GB TDK memory card has been with me for the past year over two different Samsung Galaxy phones. You did make sure that you bought original cards?
 
I just discovered that my old SD card which was in my feature phone got corrupted. I have no idea how but I have accidentally dropped those phones a few times.
 
The SIII is known for corrupting cards.

I've had it happen a few times, but a reformat fixes it and the card still works.

Lesson learned the hard way to always have current backups of your SD card
 
Never happened to me.. owned several sandisk since 2010 and 2011 put it on multiple devices from symbian, blackberry to android still doing its job till today.
 
I have a Note 3 and have over the past month, have gone thru 3 SD cards - all got corrupted. It appears that the FAT is being overwritten, as folders and files show up with extended ASCII characters in them. I have reformatted each card one or more times, with the same thing happening to each, even after formatting. Samsung is recommending reflashing the OS, which I'll probably do shortly, but I have little hope that it will solve anything.

I only have images and music on the card but am seriously considering removing the SD card and just using internal memory.
 
clsA said:
Hello and welcome to AF

Many of the high end android devices are moving away from SDcard storage completely. The HTC One - the One Mini - the Motorola Moto X - LG G2 - LG Google Nexus 4 all come with internal memory only. I have the HTC One 32gig and have never missed the sdcard slot. These new phones have USB OTG support and you can use an adapter to backup and store files to and from your phone stored on flash drives or sdcards with usb adapters.
Click to expand...

Spot on.

I would like to also add that this is why the devices are moving to MTP support.

MTP devices do not physically mount their memory to a host device, instead their internal software and controller answer and respond to requests for data transfer, directory listings/actions, and so on.

Far less chance of memory corruption in the event the host system abruptly disconnects or memory unmounted before being removed.
 
WoohooGuy said:
Spot on.

I would like to also add that this is why the devices are moving to MTP support.

MTP devices do not physically mount their memory to a host device, instead their internal software and controller answer and respond to requests for data transfer, directory listings/actions, and so on.
Click to expand...

Problem with MTP, it's a bit of a Microsoft Windows only thing, after all MS invented this method. On a Mac you have to install some third-party software, which I found doesn't always work and is unreliable. And on Linux, MTP can be a real PITA.

WoohooGuy said:
Far less chance of memory corruption in the event the host system abruptly disconnects or memory unmounted before being removed.
Click to expand...

TBH I don't even plug my devices into the computers, do all transfers wirelessly with Airdroid.
 
Goodspike said:
S4 owners are reporting a lot of problems with Sandisc cards.

There are also a lot of fakes sold on eBay.
Click to expand...

There's a lot of fakes sold everywhere, like Amazon, that seem to get through, although most fakes will be found on Ebay. With Sandisk though you can at least verify if you have a fake or not on their website, by the serial number and ID of the SD.
 
My HTC Thunderbolt-2.5 years no problem with the 32 gig card. I have had my Note 2 1.5 months so far-got a 64 gig Sandisk in it, which was bought in a BB 50% off btw, so, so far so good.
 
Not directly the same problem e.g I've never lost the data on my cheap eBay class 10 32gig Micro SD on my S5830i it did lose the extended partition several times when un-mounting and re-mounting via USB or if the SD card was removed and fitted to an adaptor for my Laptop to back it up.
This happened with using the phone or CWM(clock Work Mod) to partition the card and Partition mini tool.I then decided to try using the old free software I'd had for years for partitioning called,"EaseUS Partition Manager",

EaseUS Partition Master - Free Partition Magic alternative, Partition Manager Software for Windows PC and Server

Since doing so I've had very few problems.It may be worth the OP using this software to partition and format the SD card as it seems to be more robust than the other ways.Of course if there is a fault with the phone/tablets O/S then changing the O/S is always an option e.g a different Android rom.
As above always keep a backup of the SD card on a computer or Cloud storage.
HTH :)
 
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