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Help SD Card corrupt - had to reformat

B

BobDobalina

Lurker
Has anyone experienced an corrupted SD card with their Droid? I was listening to a podcast through Listen while navigating home and the battery was getting low. But, I was nearly home so I figured it would make it. Well, it didn't. When I plugged it in it powered up and I got an error about a corrupt SD card needing a format. I removed and re-seated the card (after shutting down the phone, natch) but that didn't help. I popped it into a PC to try to do a scandisk, but the PC couldn't read it either.

So, I did indeed format the card. All is well so far, but it's disconcerting that this would happen after only a few days.
 
Do you loose downloaded third party applications, synch data, etc when you reformat the sd card? If you do, what is the best way to recover that data after you reformat? I have had a few issues with synching to my mac and using Salling Media Sync. Tech support told me to reformat the sd card but I have been holding off until I know I can secure the data already on the card.
 
Yes, you will lose everything stored on the memory card when you format it. I lost a number of pictures and videos which I hadn't copied off the phone yet, but there was no choice as the entire thing was corrupt.
 
Bob,

I had this exact same problem. I let my battery drain (on purpose), however my phone was completely idle. When I plugged it in, the SD card was corrupted with no way to fix other than a reformat. I have let it run dry a few more times to see if it will happen again and it did not. I planned on bringing the phone back if this happened again.

This should not be an issue - devices using flash memory should shut down before the battery is 100% dead to ensure there is no data corruption. I am thinking the DROID may not have this process completely under control, which is a problem.

Please, if anyone else is having this issue let us know. It would be good to know if this is fairly widespread.
 
I think I might have an issue with my SD card as well. I was transfering over some large video files through USB, and somehow the USB connection was broken when the phone went into sleep (even though this hasn't happened before or after).

My SD card isn't fully corrupt, so I'm not getting the error, but half of my videos and images were unviewable and crashed the gallery application.

I cleared out the video folder, and things are working better. I have this strange feeling that something isn't perfect though, as the camera/video apps are acting a bit funky.
 
All,

I have been having trouble transferring large numbers of files using Salling Media Sync. During transfers, the software and phone would hang. I was unable to unmount the droid on my mac. As a result my droid would freeze and I would have to remove the battery and insert it again to start the phone. Salling Media Sync reports there have been several problems and that it might be related to the SD Card or the firmware and suggested I go to Verizon. He reported that several customers have gone in and gotten their cards replaced. So I went in this weekend and Verizon told me they are aware of some potential issues and asked if they could trade me my current phone and SD Card for new ones. They want to test it and discuss with Motorola. I tried the new phone and sd card and am having the same problem. I am trying Syncmate for now until this gets resolved. Salling Media Sync said they can't help until this is resolved.

If anyone is aware of a working solution to transfer music from itunes on mac to their droid, please let me know.
 
Hi,

I've been having the same problem on my mac. I tried to sync with Salling, and around 70 songs in, or so, the phone froze, Salling froze, and I could not eject the card. I had to cold-restart my laptop, and pull the battery to restart the Droid. I then tried using Double-Twist; the card/droid showed up on DT, but I was still unable to load any music onto it. Then, I tried using Songbird. Same result as Salling
 
Ok, so after more forum digging, it may be due to a screen timeout issue on the Droid's part. I'll post my results once I try syncing once more with the screen timeout turned off.
 
markwittig said:
All,

I have been having trouble transferring large numbers of files using Salling Media Sync. During transfers, the software and phone would hang. I was unable to unmount the droid on my mac. As a result my droid would freeze and I would have to remove the battery and insert it again to start the phone. Salling Media Sync reports there have been several problems and that it might be related to the SD Card or the firmware and suggested I go to Verizon. He reported that several customers have gone in and gotten their cards replaced. So I went in this weekend and Verizon told me they are aware of some potential issues and asked if they could trade me my current phone and SD Card for new ones. They want to test it and discuss with Motorola. I tried the new phone and sd card and am having the same problem. I am trying Syncmate for now until this gets resolved. Salling Media Sync said they can't help until this is resolved.

If anyone is aware of a working solution to transfer music from itunes on mac to their droid, please let me know.
Click to expand...

I had all of these same problems as well. The only way I could get music to successfully sync was using DoubleTwist. But the trick was that I put my SD Card in a card reader plugged into my MacBook -- rather than connecting my phone via USB. It took FOREVER doing it this way... but at least it worked. However, I did successfully transfer once via drag and drop without any problems.
 
asandwich said:
Ok, so after more forum digging, it may be due to a screen timeout issue on the Droid's part. I'll post my results once I try syncing once more with the screen timeout turned off.
Click to expand...

Did this work for you? I thought it was working for me, but I just couldn't shake the freezes... My next test was going to be trying the Motorola Media Link on my Vista box and see how that went. I'm just afraid to touch it since I have to waste hours anytime I redo the music on my phone...
 
NoSenseWorrying said:
Did this work for you? I thought it was working for me, but I just couldn't shake the freezes... My next test was going to be trying the Motorola Media Link on my Vista box and see how that went. I'm just afraid to touch it since I have to waste hours anytime I redo the music on my phone...
Click to expand...
I tired syncing with both Songbird and Double-Twist and got freezes at 17% and 20% respectively. Had to pop the battery to restart the droid, but my comp didn't freeze up as well. I'm going to try syncing with just using an sd card reader, but my hopes are not too high. If this doesn't work, then I'm going to Verizon tomorrow and getting either a new 16gb card or phone or both and seeing if that works. Some other people on the forum said they had Verizon replace their Droid, but they still had problems afterwards. I don't know if this is useful info, but I'm running Leopard 10.5.8, not Snow Leopard.
 
how do you format the sd card? i have went into settings and tried selecting the format sd card option but it is greyed out. I unplugged the phone from the computer in the middle of a transfer and now everytime i plug it into the computer it says it needs to scan the card. I try to scan but it fails and i have to re-mount and tell it not to scan....i'm just going to format now before i put anything more on the phone. any help on a way to format the sd card is appreciated.
 
zim2704 said:
how do you format the sd card? i have went into settings and tried selecting the format sd card option but it is greyed out. I unplugged the phone from the computer in the middle of a transfer and now everytime i plug it into the computer it says it needs to scan the card. I try to scan but it fails and i have to re-mount and tell it not to scan....i'm just going to format now before i put anything more on the phone. any help on a way to format the sd card is appreciated.
Click to expand...
You can format the card through the phone if you go to the Settings app, then go to SD Card, and hit Unmount first. Then the Format option should no longer be greyed out. Alternatively, you could right click on the card once you plug it into your pc and hit format. Or if you have a mac, then go to the Disk Manager app and you should have an option to format any hard drives that are plugged in.
 
zim2704 said:
how do you format the sd card? i have went into settings and tried selecting the format sd card option but it is greyed out. I unplugged the phone from the computer in the middle of a transfer and now everytime i plug it into the computer it says it needs to scan the card. I try to scan but it fails and i have to re-mount and tell it not to scan....i'm just going to format now before i put anything more on the phone. any help on a way to format the sd card is appreciated.
Click to expand...

Pull the card out of the phone and use your PC and a card reader. Right click on the SD card and pick format.
 
Ok, I found something that actually works (so far). I plugged my card into my sd card reader and synced a (around) 3gb playlist to it through Songbird on my mac relatively quickly. It only took a few minutes. I had no freeze-ups or anything. However, I have yet to push past the 3gb mark. On my Windows system, I was able to get up to 4gb without a problem, but sh*t hit the fan at that point. So, once I try a transfer of more than 4gb on the mac with sd card reader and no phone, I'll post results.
 
asandwich said:
Hi,

I've been having the same problem on my mac. I tried to sync with Salling, and around 70 songs in, or so, the phone froze, Salling froze, and I could not eject the card. I had to cold-restart my laptop, and pull the battery to restart the Droid. I then tried using Double-Twist; the card/droid showed up on DT, but I was still unable to load any music onto it. Then, I tried using Songbird. Same result as Salling
Click to expand...
 
I had all kinds of problems syncing with my mac. Salling, doubletwist, drag-and-drop, etc. I then tried syncing with my PC and have had no problems (doubletwist, Motorola Media Link, drag-and-drop, etc.). I am wondering if it is something to do with the mac, not the droid. Anyone else experiencing the same thing?
 
I have windows installed via bootcamp so imma try to sync my itunes with the droid on windows and report back my findings.
 
I was able to sync my iTunes playlists with the Motorola Media Link without any issues. So my guess is that the Droid's SD card doesn't like OS X.
 
thetruth said:
I was able to sync my iTunes playlists with the Motorola Media Link without any issues. So my guess is that the Droid's SD card doesn't like OS X.
Click to expand...

That's a good find! I wanted to test this theory out, but just haven't had time with a newborn at home ;)

The fact that it's the exact same hardware with just a different OS pretty much settles that I think.
 
I haven't had any sync issues, and I use WMP but I am having an issue with my SD card. I had it mounted/connected to my laptop(not syncing anything just yet), my laptop rebooted for whatever reason. Now whenever I open the camera it just says "preparing SD card". Won't take pictures or anything, but if I switch it to camcorder mode it works just fine. Switch back to camera and i get the sd message again.

I am also able to see and play all of my music and videos, that I have on the card.

I've tried mounting it back to the computer, and doing the safely remove hardware, then unmounting again but that did not help.

I also tried mounting it to my computer and doing a disk check error check, but that did not help either. Any other suggestions.
 
I have had the Droid since Dec 9th and had no problems until today. My camera stopped working with the message of - replace sd card. I checked the gallery and my pics and video are gone. Also noticed my navigation on google maps was acting up and some of my ringtones are missing (and the main one I was using from an app). I took my battery out and put it back and the notification bar showed sd card damaged. Tech support said to format the sd card. I haven't yet because I want to try and save my pics/video. I am going to a verizon store tomorrow.

I am posting this per the request to show how widespread this is.
 
Just as some insight.

Your sd card in your droid is formatted to the FAT32 format. People who are having issues or bugs transferring items large in size should know that FAT32 partitions will not allow you to transfer items or a group of items that exceed 4GB in size. This has been the cap ever since Win 98. This changed when NTFS came out, but unfort., your Droid will not read NTFS as far as I know. This may very well be the cause of your problems. Try transfering items in smaller groups or smaller file sizes.

This info can also be found at Microsofts (sorry to mention them Google) website. Just search FAT32 information.:D

Hope this helps with some issues
 
I found the solution for the problem, after two days of suffering, installed more than 10 data recovery program I found how to recover the data. it is very simple! I was in a trip where I took very precious pictures, while when I was in the plane going back home, I switched off my mobile (HTC Magic). When arrived and switched it on again, "SD card damaged" message appeared, I tried on another phone, even on my computer with no chance. I tried maybe ten data recovery programs with no chance either. Finally, I connect it back to my mobile phone, then connected the whole phone to the computer through USB cable, and Guess what? the phone give me the option to mount my data storage, and so I did. All the data were just there, I copied them to my computer, and formatted my SD card. that's it, very simple!

So the solution is:
1) keep the damaged SD card in your phone.
2) connect the whole phone to the computer, through USB cable.
3) Mount the USB.
4) Open the storage from computer.
5) copy your data from the storage to your PC.
6) Unmount your storage.
7) format it through the phone.

Congratulations.
 
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