Formatting the internal memory?

[mwake4goten]

So I am trying to troubleshoot my phone which appear to have a failing battery. One thing I wanted to do was to format the internal memory card as I've read that they can get corrupted. However is this possible? Or do I have to factory reset the entire phone as the SD card is internal?

 

[SpookDroid]

There is no SD card in the Note 5 or support for it. The internal memory, however, you can 'format' (factory reset). SD cards are more prone to corruption than internal memory, so that's the information you might have read, but that's not an issue in the Note 5 since it doesn't support external cards.

If you still want to wipe your phone's memory (note that this will make you lose ALL DATA in your phone and bring it back to a factory state), you can do it either from the Recovery Menu (powered off device, then press and hold power, home button, and volume up at the same time until you boot into Recovery) or from the Erase Device option in your phone's Settings.

 

[smvim]

It sounds more like you're confusing microSD cards with smartphone internal memory. There is no 'card' in our smartphones, the internal memory storage is a hardware chip soldered to the motherboard (often referred to as 'NAND flash'). Android being built on top of the Linux kernel relies on ext4 as its default file system. Ext4 isn't a file system with a lot of 'bling' but it is stable and reliable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory

On the other hand we have FAT, Microsoft's 'File Allocation Table'. FAT is an outdated, proprietary, legacy file system Microsoft no longer actively supports. Unlike other, better file systems it was adopted as the default file system for SD cards so it's a curse we're all stuck with. FAT is relatively fragile and easily corruptible so that's one thing to consider when using a FAT-formatted microSD card, it's not the best media for long term archiving of irreplaceable data.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table

 

[mwake4goten]

It sounds more like you're confusing microSD cards with smartphone internal memory. There is no 'card' in our smartphones, the internal memory storage is a hardware chip soldered to the motherboard (often referred to as 'NAND flash'). Android being built on top of the Linux kernel relies on ext4 as its default file system. Ext4 isn't a file system with a lot of 'bling' but it is stable and reliable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory

On the other hand we have FAT, Microsoft's 'File Allocation Table'. FAT is an outdated, proprietary, legacy file system Microsoft no longer actively supports. Unlike other, better file systems it was adopted as the default file system for SD cards so it's a curse we're all stuck with. FAT is relatively fragile and easily corruptible so that's one thing to consider when using a FAT-formatted microSD card, it's not the best media for long term archiving of irreplaceable data.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table

Interesting, i have a general question obviously not related to the note5 but related to your answer... so if I format a sd card is it best to format it within Android or a PC. Does Android automatically choose the best file format for sd card. Im not sure but I think I formatted my sd card for my htc phone in in FAT... Thats why I'm wondering if I should re format my sd card in android instead of Windows so that Android will choose the best didn't... Sorry if I'm not making sense do you know what i mean lol?

 

[smvim]

Do your microSD card formatting using your Android device, a Windows system will format media optimized for Windows. Also keep in mind there are variations of FAT - FAT, FAT32, exFAT,etc. that evolved as media sizes increased. And to add to that there's now the Android adoptable storage function (starting with Marshmallow, v6 but the phone manufacturers are only allowing it to be enabled in some models) where once you format a microSD card as adoptable storage you've committed that card to always remain mounted inside your phone as at that point both your phone's internal storage and the card become virtually 'melded' together as a single, combined storage media. One of the many drawbacks to FAT formatted microSD cards is FAT doesn't support the same things that ext4 does so aspects like file and folder permissions and file metadata always need to be accounted as the Android OS is working concurrently with both (internal storage and card storage) types of media. That's part of why an adoptable storage-formatted card needs to be re-formatted as an external storage card (returned to FAT again) to be used once it's removed from the phone it was once a part of -- the Android OS interacts differently with media formatted as adoptable or external.
Basically, it's safer to just format your microSD cards using the device you'll be using it with, we've gotten to the point where there are too many variables involved.

 

[mwake4goten]

Excellent! Thank-you for detail advice, I think I formatted the sd card via Windows and then put it in my phone. Maybe I might get less issues of I format it in phone now? One of the issues I seem to get is media scanner is always high on the app usage list. I think I have corruption issues which maybe due to the windows FAT file system.

 

[anon(130544)]

do you know which phone manufacturers and which handsets support the new "adoptable storage function" ?

 

[Scott337]

do you know which phone manufacturers and which handsets support the new "adoptable storage function" ?

I believe all phones with a SD Card slot and running Android 6 Marshmallow or newer support Adoptive Internal Storage.