SD Card Issue - Please Help!

[CHopp123]

Hello, I've looked all over this forum and found similar issues, but the solutions offered there didn't work so I'm posting this cry for help!

I have a Polaroid Link 5" which runs on Android 6.0. It only has 4GB of usable storage (which means I can have about 3 apps). I bought a micro SD card (Samsung EVO Plus, 128GB) that I want to use as internal storage so I can use more apps. I have not used this SD card at all previously. There is nothing on it. When I went through the process of formatting it, it seemed to work at first. However it said that there was not enough memory to transfer my pics and apps to the new storage.

When I go to Settings > Storage & USB it says that the SD card is corrupted. If I tap it it will give me a message that the SD card is corrupted and that in order to use it I have to set it up first. I tap Set Up, and it fails to do so.

Is this a common issue? Is there a way to fix it? Is it worth it trying to get another SD card? I only bought this phone because the info about it said that an SD card could be used to expand it's memory. A phone with only 4GB of storage is completely useless...

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Does the tablet support Adoptable Storage? In other words, did it give you the option to format the card as Internal Storage, instead of Portable Storage?

 

[CHopp123]

Yes. It's a phone. It said right on the box that it supported adoptable storage, and when I put the SD card in it gave the option to format it.

 

[B. Diddy]

Hmm, then that card might not be salvageable. If you remove it from the tablet and insert it in your PC, do you get an option to format the card there? The PC won't be able to read the data on the card, because of it got encrypted by the tablet during the Adoptable Storage formatting process.

It's possible the card was counterfeit, and was actually smaller in size than advertised (which is a fairly common scam). You might be able to check a card using SD Insight, but there might be compatibility issues with Marshmallow.

 

[CHopp123]

I tried putting the SD card in my PC, it gave a prompt to format it, but then failed to do so. I tried to save an image on it, and then open the image. When I did the image was corrupted. I'm returning the card. Hopefully the replacement will work. I was concerned it was my phone because it seems to give me trouble at every step.

 

[B. Diddy]

Where are you buying your SD cards?

 

[pidjones]

I'd go with nothing larger than 32 GB. Large micro SD cards have been horribly unreliable in my experience. After three failures of Transend 64 GB SDs, I asked for my replacement to be two 32 GB cards and they've worked fine for two years now.