MicroSD isn't being read properly

[Matthew Jenson]

So my brother has an Ematic tablet. He just got an 8GB SD Card for Christmas, and the last 8GB SD Card he had didn't work right either. It comes up as 8GB on the storage. But when we go to the apps section of the "On SD Card" it comes up as 0.90 GB. I'm not sure why. And when we install apps onto it, it will stop when it gets to the 0.90 GB. Anyone know how to fix this?

 

[treetopsranch]

Probably a fake card. Where did you buy it? Beware of Ebay for SD cards.
All About Fake Flash Drives 2013 | eBay

 

[Rukbat]

Either a fake card (an old 1GB card reprogrammed to claim it's 8GB), or it's formatted with one 1GB partition and 1 7GB partition.

Buy SanDisk in a brick and mortar store - then you know what you're buying. (And if it doesn't work, SanDisk is there, with live chat on their site, and they'll take care of the problem. You pay more, but you get a lot more service. Assuming that the store doesn't replace it on the spot.)

BTW, there are listings on eBay for "factory reconditioned SanDisk cards". I contacted SanDisk - they do sell reconditioned cards [with only a 90 day warranty], but not on eBay, so those are probably fakes. (It's amazing how they can print an almost perfect card - so perfect that even with a magnifying glass, if you compare a real one and a fake, you won't find a difference.)

 

[Matthew Jenson]

We got it at Shopko. It's a PNY 8GB. I put it in the computer and it read it as 8GB, but the tablet isn't. Awhile ago I had put my 8GB SanDisk card in there and when it didn't work I figured it was corrupted because it was in my old phone and I didn't really clear it out properly

 

[treetopsranch]

I don't consider Shopko a reliable place to buy SD cards. So if the computer can read it but the tablet can't then maybe it's formatted incorrectly. My understanding is that FAT or ExFat should be OK. So what is the format of your SD card? Note that fake cards read OK in computers because there is a special hidden file in those fake cards that tell the computer that info but it's not true. Did you try to test it as shown in my link above? Just try to load a 3 GB video on it using your computer and see if that works.