SD card fried in new Galaxy S3

funkylogik

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Battery Notifier app puts temp, voltage etc in noticication pull-down.
hottest my s3 gets is 45?c but ive had overclocked phones go well over 50 and the sd has been fine.

yeah back up regularly mate

global s3, UK. Ask me anything and ill reply even if its just an intelligent (or stupid) guess ;)
 

funkylogik

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I haven't had a problem with my SanDisk Ultra 32GB - Class 10, but I also haven't stored much on it yet. Although something weird happened when I first put it in, the day the phone arrived via FedEx; I put the SIM card in, then the SD card?and it looked like it was all the way in, then the battery, but after I snapped the phones back, back on and booted the phone, I got a notification that the external SD card was 'unmounted'. I then took the phones back off; couldn't quite grab the SD card and didn't have any tweezers handy, so I just pushed it in (against the spring tension) a few more times?and not knowing what to do next?snapped the phones back, back on; weird thing was that it never clicked into place or anything, like on the AT&T tutorial video, but nonetheless it's been working fine as far as I can tell.
So I wonder if in some cases, it's just the GS3's sensor(s) that are malfunctioning? And maybe the SD card isn't really 'fried' and/or 'unmounted', etc.?

good point mate but replacement cards work fine after a fried one

global s3, UK. Ask me anything and ill reply even if its just an intelligent (or stupid) guess ;)
 

winmod21

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Oh. :-| Right. :-| . . well, never mind then. :) You are free to reeeeeeeeeesume your thread conversations. There will be. . No charge! ;)
 

rteichman

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That happened to me too when I was playing with my SD cards this weekend. My original no-name card was draining my battery and I was trying to "debug" so I kept inserting and removing. I did notice that it did some strange things... I could push real hard and it would pop out, once it came out on its own.

I do know from personal experience that on a Unix based system (which Android is), if you pull a flash device without unmounting it and the system was in the middle of accessing data, it will corrupt the flash memory. I have had the unfortunate pleasure of personally experiencing that phenomena
 

xKrNMBoYx

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Ahh..the horror stories. Now I don't know if I wan't to purchase a microSD. May just buy a Samsung one. That way Samsung can't make excuses as it was a Samsung product used with another Samsung product.
 

soundfx4d

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I had a Transcend 16GB MicroSD card that just stopped working (would not mount in the phone or with a PC) and this is my story as to how I recovered my pictures and videos:

I purchased my Galaxy S3 (Verizon) in July 2012. At that time I backed up my MicroSD Card that I was using in my HTC Incredible. I used my MicroSD card for almost 4 months in my S3 and it worked just fine. Then one night there was a notification (exclamation point on the top of my phone) that the SD card was not detected. After rebooting my phone a couple times, using the MicroSD adapter, and testing the SD card on a different phone, the SD card would not mount. It was as if the SD card didn't even exist. I even had a friend at work try to get it to work using his laptop and Linux (not Windows). The computer could see that an SD card was inserted in the slot, but it was not readable.

I tried using software (PhotoRec) but since the MicroSD card couldn't be recognized, the software would not work. I researched the internet and came across Recoverfab: fix repair CF SD SDHC memory card/flash drive-format error software
They are a professional SSD recovery firm.

I called Recoverfab and spoke to the owner, Leopold Hiersche. I explained my issue and he said to fill out the order form and additional instructions would be emailed to me. I did that and instantly received an email back with further instructions as to how to send my MicroSD card to him. I went to the US Post Office, bought a padded envelope, stuck in my MicroSD card that I taped to my folded over business card for protection, included a copy of my order confirmation page, filled out the customs form (said that the package was a broken memory card and claimed it was work $1), and mailed the package to Germany for less than $5 (envelope included). I did not pay more for it to be registered mail per the suggestion in the FAQ on the Recoverfab website.

I mailed the envelope on Wednesday and the next Tuesday (6 days later) I received an email from Recoverfab that they had received my MicroSD card and that they would have an update for me within 1 week. 24 hours after they received my MicroSD card I received an email that said they recovered 684 photos and 40 videos. I logged into their site and sure enough they provided thumbnails of 100 pictures that they recovered!! I was very relieved to say the least!

Getting this type of recovery done for less than $300 is pretty awesome. I highly recommend Recoverfab if you can no longer access your SD card and you have important pictures/videos that you would like to recover. And if you send them your SD card and they can't recover the data, you are only out the cost of shipping (~$5 via USPS) to send it to Germany. You don't have to pay for the data recovery until data has been recovered!

I learned my lesson that I should always backup my data. I am considering backup options like FolderSync, but for now I have been copying pictures to my laptop manually, and then backing up my laptop to an external HDD. I am also going to start to upload photos to either flickr or Shutterfly so I at least have a copy (lower resolution) in the cloud. I hope that this post is helpful to you!
 

salt_n_peppa

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Same problem here - I bought my phone on Aug 3 and it fried my SD card (PNY). It simply displayed "damaged SD card". So I thought something was wrong with that card and I got a SanDisk, 32Gb microSD card. This card lasted less than two months, because one morning, after powering on the phone, it displayed the "SD card may be damaged, you may have to format it bla bla" again. Just like that. So I formatted the card on my PC and it worked fine again... until today. I was taking photos at a Christmas party, when the screen went black and the phone stopped responding. I wasn't even taking pictures when this happened, but did have the Camera app opened when it froze. I waited about 2 minutes to see if it maybe starts working again... Nope -- it just died, the screen wouldn't display anything. The biggest inconvenience is that it happened just as my kids were sitting on Santa's lap (no joke). I was livid. I couldn't even figure out if the phone was still on or just dead, so I removed the battery and powered the phone on - again, the dreaded "Damaged SD card", for the third time since August.

What I did notice, in the past three days, is that I kept getting "this program is not responding" for a number of apps, such as Gmail, Onavo or the clock app. I should've backed up my pictures when I noticed these error messages. Too late now... I couldn't recover any of the photos I shot lately.

Even when it happened the first time I suspected something's wrong with the phone. Now I'm absolutely convinced it's the phone. And I want Samsung to do something about it, this cannot be just a coincidence.
 

ChuckeeDroid

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My GS3 fried a 32GB Sandisk after about 3 weeks. I noticed there was a message as I was charging the phone.
My GS2 fried a PNY card as well. That took about 2 months.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
 

Dubg

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We need to make sure to report that these problems to Samsung. When I contacted them about my second SD card failure they said that they were not unaware of a problem. I've logged my problem with them and the customer service representative I was chatting with said that if I had another similar incident then they would look into it. And potentially replace my SD card then. We really need to make sure that they are aware of this.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
 

Shunyata00

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For what its worth, I think its a temperature issue, and here's why. I've had the same thing happen recently, Only rather than dying spontaneously, it started out gradually and misbehaved for about three weeks before finally dying. I have had this card fore at least 6 months with no issue, then changed the write speed from 1024 to 2048. It started a day or so later, though I didn't immediately make the connection. Doubling the R/W speed would definitely push a card at the edge right over though. It would usually lose the card during bootup, and when taking pictures or something. The final straw came when I was flashing a modem from the SD card and it disappeared mid-flash (glad it was only a modem). I took it out and put it in a card reader, and it read fine, so I backed everything up and reformatted it, and decided to use it as an experiment. In the phone it reads very occasionally now and immediately crashes, but in a reader, where its not nearly as hot, it will transfer data for a few minutes and them crash. I just ordered a 64G card before I read this forum, and now I fear for my new card. I'm wondering if I could make a foil heat sink over the card slot, though it probably wouldn't make a huge difference. This has worked for the CPU overheating issue the old HD2 had for some people. The location of the slot would make it pretty easy.
 

guinnkevinr

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I had a card that got fried in the Note 1 that I got earlier this year. Worked fine in everything else until I put it in the note and then it was unusable after.
 

rg28

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My San Disk 32 gb card appears to be fried. It shows up in the computer but with 0 in the properties both used and available space. wont format. This means it is fried?
 

bevcraw

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My S3 seems to have fried my Sandisk 32 gb class 10 card. I bought it from Costco in a sealed package around August when I bought the S3. I updated to JB late last week. I was experiencing some weird battery drain after that, so I did a factory reset on Sunday evening. After the reset, the S3 was still reading my card and I reloaded all my music. Yesterday morning, I started receiving notifications that my card had been removed. The storage setting was showing that no card was installed. I finally took the card out this morning and installed a new one with the same specs. The S3 is reading the new one okay so far. My computer does not seem to recognize the old one. I guess it is fried.
 

WAWood8

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I guess I should feel better because this is now one of several threads in different forums that report SGS3s trashing SD cards -- as my phones did to me.

So, at least I know it's not MY problem ...

But, it's a "deal killer" for me -- why? Because I chose the Samsung over the HTC OneX primarily because the Samsung could use my SD card. HTC is building phones that do NOT have external SD cards -- which is keeping me away from switching to them.

Motorola, for now, is STILL including SD card slots in their new phones ... but I don't know if their plans are to exclude them in the future.

So, while I'm backing up my phone every time I take a picture or a video, I'm still looking for the next phone that will include an SD card slot -- and NOT a Samsung phone.

If anyone has any suggestion regarding a replacement for the Samsung, I'm all ears!
 

gknit

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Add me to the list of folks this has happened to. Bought an AT&T SG3 in October and a new SanDisk 32GB card (card purchased directly from Amazon, not a reseller or marketplace). After about a month of use, the SD card was totally wiped and all my photos disappeared. Then last week the card stopped being recognized completely, the phone kept giving me a message that the card had been ejected. It also wouldn't show up on my laptop (MacBook Pro).

I've put in a support ticket with SanDisk to hopefully get it replaced. I also contacted Samsung, who suggested I call them about buying their accessories :confused: If it happens with the new card, I'll try getting a replacement phone.
 

Silhyboy

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Just got off a chat session with a Samsung low level support tech. I have the transcript available for anyone who wants it. Samsung it appears is no longer caring if this issue persists. I have no idea why the problem exists, but it seems to be happening to many users. If everyone contacts them eventually they might admit there is aproblem and offer some type of solution. Until that happens though remember to back-up often. If you own an S3, buy memory in bulk because you WILL be replacing your SDHC card sooner or later.

Anyway, I'm off the pulpit now to go find a new 32GB SD for my own S3.