Any special formatting needed for replacement micro SD?

[slwerner]

The less-than-one-year-old 16 Gb micro SD card which Verizon sold men along with my Droid X has died.

I've ordered a replacement, and just thought I'd ask if there is any special formatting in order to set up directory structure? I'm guessing that it isn't necessary, and that I will be able to restore directly from by back on my PC. Just wanted to make sure.


While I'm irritated by the failure after just 11 months, there has been a plus side (sort of). Because some of the apps were on the card, they don't just run automatically. Previously, every time I tried to use my phone as a phone (who'd a thought...), some many apps would be running that I had to run a task manager to kill-off many of them just to get the phone functionality to respond. Now, instead of only having ~44 Mb available, I have nearly 80 - and my phone works as a phone without the need to kill-off apps.

This brings me to another question: do others have the problem of unwanted apps occupying so much of the Droid X's memory that the phone functionally is hindered? If so, this seems to me to be a major defect in the Android OS (for phones).

And, is there an app that can be used to help keep memory free by restricting apps from starting until manually launched?

 

[gordol]

The less-than-one-year-old 16 Gb micro SD card which Verizon sold men along with my Droid X has died.

How do you know it's actually dead, and not merely file-corrupted? Did you try to reformat it and see if it'll work again?

I've ordered a replacement, and just thought I'd ask if there is any special formatting in order to set up directory structure? I'm guessing that it isn't necessary, and that I will be able to restore directly from by back on my PC. Just wanted to make sure.

To format the card, do so from the phone. Stick it in and boot. Go to the device Settings / Storage and Unmount the card. Once it's been unmounted, the Format option will be available. Format the card and it'll automatically remount when done.

Then, yes, you can simply plug the phone into your computer and with it set to mount as a USB Mass Storage Device on the computer (shows up with a drive letter), copy the files back over.

While I'm irritated by the failure after just 11 months, there has been a plus side (sort of). Because some of the apps were on the card, they don't just run automatically. Previously, every time I tried to use my phone as a phone (who'd a thought...), some many apps would be running that I had to run a task manager to kill-off many of them just to get the phone functionality to respond. Now, instead of only having ~44 Mb available, I have nearly 80 - and my phone works as a phone without the need to kill-off apps.

This brings me to another question: do others have the problem of unwanted apps occupying so much of the Droid X's memory that the phone functionally is hindered? If so, this seems to me to be a major defect in the Android OS (for phones).

No such problem here. It's unlikely to be the number of apps you have, rather maybe a specific app that is interfering. The best way to determine which is trial and error - One at a time, move a suspect app back to the internal storage until the problem comes back. Then move that one back to the card and move the others one at a time to make sure. Once you've identified the problem, contact that app's developer.

And, is there an app that can be used to help keep memory free by restricting apps from starting until manually launched?

Not sure. I do know that if you are rooted, you can use Titanium Backup to prevent apps from loading at all.

 

[slwerner]

How do you know it's actually dead, and not merely file-corrupted? Did you try to reformat it and see if it'll work again?

The message on my Droid X indicated that the SD card was ?blank?, and I was prompted as to whether I wished to reformat it.

A check using Astro file manager indicated that, the SD card was unmounted, and unformatted/unmountable. I tried to allow the OS to reformat it, with no visual results ? no errors indicated. A recheck using Astro showed it still blank/unmounted/unformatted. Retried the above twice, with same non-results.

Next, I pulled the battery out and removed the micro SD card, inserted it into an adaptor (SD), and tried to read it from my PC. According to the PC, it as (again) unformatted, and I was prompted to format it. Attempting to do also failed ? message popped-up indicating that their was no disk in the drive.

I?m pretty sure it?s just dead. I?ve never had an SD card fail before ? some I?ve had for years ? so, I am only guessing here. But, it sure seems dead and unrecoverable.

Because I was getting constant error messages about the blank SD card, I took an old 8 Gb one that I had used in a Windows Mobile 5 phone, and stuck it into my Droid X. I seems to work without any other formatting required (I?m going to wait until the replacement 16 Gb card arrives to do a full restore from my PC backup).

As to the better performance of my phone (as a phone) due to some apps not being able to launch themselves, I don?t know that it had to do with them being on the SD card rather than in internal memory (as apps still on the internal memory seem to be auto-launching) but rather just a bad and unwanted behavior relating to their ability to launch themselves without my choosing to do so.

I think I?m just going to have to keep fewer apps installed on the phone, with an eye towards those that do auto-launch themselves.

I?ve had a Xoom tablet since February, and thus have had a diminished need to use my phone to run apps (although it sure is handy to have some readily available on a device that I do carry pretty much everywhere I go (unlike the Xoom). Thus, I think my best bet will be to ?target? apps that are truly useful, and which I am more likely to ?need? at times when I don?t have my Xoom with me.

Not sure. I do know that if you are rooted, you can use Titanium Backup to prevent apps from loading at all.

Nope, not rooted. I did notice that the app blockers available all seemed to require that the device be rooted.

I just think it?s a design flaw that one would have to choose to block apps from auto-launching as opposed to being allowed to select which apps one wishes to have startup on boot up.