SD Cards failing in Galaxy S3: Samsung's insane response.

tom0100

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If you are using a Sandisk 32 or 64gig (speed is class 4 series), it is known issue. They are draining batteries and damaging internal memory (according to Samsung). You can call Sandisk to get it replaced or just throw it out! I bought a Samsung SD card and the phone is actually faster! It makes no sense but they said the card caused errors in the phone.
 

GrooveRite

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If you can reformat it do it. Mines too late my pny sdhc 32 gb level 10 officialy died. Mine died when the camera couldn't find it I think I rebooted to give it time to find the card and now its not visible. No error other than the camera saying it couldn't find external source. Luckily in my case I had dropbox setup and I just gotta get a replacement memory card.

If there was a solution in 5 pages here pm me since all was sd card deaths pages 1-3

Well, my card MIRACULOUSLY has been working, thankfully! I'm going to just reformat it sometime this week since its been awhile since I have done so and I've been adding and deleting BIG files the past few months. Hopefully this will help and extend the life of the card, if possible.
 

Jeb Malcolm

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Galaxy s3. Had it two months. Also now have a corrupted 32 gig sd card. I suppose I'll get a Samsung card. I've had trouble from the beginning getting the phone to allow saving data to the sd card. Keeps reverting to the phone storage with photos-I have to keep checking it to keep it honest. I now wish I'd bought the Galaxy Note, instead.
 

derk

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Galaxy s3. Had it two months. Also now have a corrupted 32 gig sd card. I suppose I'll get a Samsung card. I've had trouble from the beginning getting the phone to allow saving data to the sd card. Keeps reverting to the phone storage with photos-I have to keep checking it to keep it honest. I now wish I'd bought the Galaxy Note, instead.

I hope getting a Samsung sd card is the solution. I do recall hearing s3 owners in this thread wirh Samsung sd card problems with the s3 as well.
 

gollum18

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If you are using a Sandisk 32 or 64gig (speed is class 4 series), it is known issue. They are draining batteries and damaging internal memory (according to Samsung). You can call Sandisk to get it replaced or just throw it out! I bought a Samsung SD card and the phone is actually faster! It makes no sense but they said the card caused errors in the phone.

Maybe samsung included code somewhere that makes competitors cards run like crazy and makes their own cards run well? Conspiracy maybe?

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2
 

bronsonjames

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i have had a brand new sd card fail with the sudden death syndrome in samsung s3 all i can say is back up back up back up. I am really annoyed at this apparently it has occoured at the same time as freeze as one hour earlier I checked my photos and they were all fine. It seems to be related to some kind of power spike possibly when the mother board fried itself. The sd card was not cheap and i have lost valuable photos. I will not be taking photos with my new note and wonder how many faults that may have. Beware Samsung users and for those who have escaped well done but beware there are far too many people out there with same problem and where there is smoke usually fire. So all you can do if you persist in trusting this system carry a back up sytem with you in the form of something small as in a tablet so your at least have a recovery point. Back up your pictures so you too do not meet with this fate. Photos are irreplacable items. I too have had sd cards fail usually due to age but they have not fried at the same time as a phone ??? I wish you all the best of luck with your s3 phones despite my warranty I will not touch another s3 phone again. Consumer affairs sounds like a good place to start maybe they can do something, people should be alerted to this it seems all too incredible that it has been swept under the carpet so to speak.
 

Shanghaichica1

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These SD cards are a bit hit and miss. I've had one 32gb card for over a year and it still works. I used if for about a month in the galaxy Y and I put it into my galaxy note and its been Working fine for the past year. I'm on my second SD card in my galaxy tab as the first one failed after 5 months.

Sent from my GT-P5110 using Android Central Forums
 

Fernando Ullate

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I'm not surprised that they don't have that service. no company has it really. Not even Apple. If you have an iPhone and the same issue happens...except there is no removable SD Card to take out, Apple will flash their warranty T&C and say that they are not responsible for any loss of data...and that is not limited to smartphones..even if you buy the most high-end laptop...Happened to me, lost all my work, which cost me $$$ due to loss of time...called up and told me to read the T&C and wouldn't you know it..in black and white...they are not responsible for loss of data, time, opportunity and revenue lost....If the most "posh" company in the world (Apple) doesn't give you the service to recuperate your data for free...what makes you think "Sammy" will?
 

leftyman

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I finally broke down and bought a PNY 32gb card to replace the sandisk card that though it was a horny rabbit on viagra by mounting and unmounting continuously for a few weeks. Luckly I had everything backed up on my computer here at work so I was able to transfer all my music and pics on the new card and so far after a week no problems.
 

Mike Hall1

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I hope getting a Samsung sd card is the solution. I do recall hearing s3 owners in this thread wirh Samsung sd card problems with the s3 as well.


Heads up on the Samsung cards. Both my wife and I use Samsung 16gb cards in our Galaxy S3's and last night hers became corrupted and is no longer readable. I haven't had any issues yet but now I'm nervous and saving all my imprortant files elsewhere. She is upset, and right fully so. I talked her into putting all her pics on the ext card to save phone space. She had already transferred several gigs worth of pics from her old phone to the galaxy. Now its all gone. I figured if I went with the samsung cards and not over do it on space we would be fine. Nope.

She was searching for something on google when she said it froze, and when she tried to back out to the home page she received the corrupted disk message. I'm wondering if its the apps we accept on our phones that request permission to view the info on our phones/cards that if or when they have a malfunction such as freezing it increases the risk of card failure?? I'm not very computer literate, just reaching for straws I suppose.
 

derk

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Heads up on the Samsung cards. Both my wife and I use Samsung 16gb cards in our Galaxy S3's and last night hers became corrupted and is no longer readable. I haven't had any issues yet but now I'm nervous and saving all my imprortant files elsewhere. She is upset, and right fully so. I talked her into putting all her pics on the ext card to save phone space. She had already transferred several gigs worth of pics from her old phone to the galaxy. Now its all gone. I figured if I went with the samsung cards and not over do it on space we would be fine. Nope.

She was searching for something on google when she said it froze, and when she tried to back out to the home page she received the corrupted disk message. I'm wondering if its the apps we accept on our phones that request permission to view the info on our phones/cards that if or when they have a malfunction such as freezing it increases the risk of card failure?? I'm not very computer literate, just reaching for straws I suppose.


This problem sucks. I am an iPhone convert. I used the iPhone for 5 yrs. I dig all the features of Android and S3 with the exception of the sd card issues I am having. I got a replacement s3 in March. The problem came back after 2 weeks with new non Sansdisk sd card.

In June, I go back to iPhone.
 

Nalorin

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I FOUND A SOLUTION!!!

I was having the same problem on my Samsung Galaxy S3 SGH-I747M (This may work for I9300 as well, but I'm not sure since I don't own one).

I tried reformatting using the phone - didn't work. I tried reformatting to FAT32 and NTFS on my Win7 laptop. Didn't work. Every time, it would work for a couple of minutes and let me take some photos, and then it would stop working as soon as I tried to take a video or tried to go into the file browser and create folders.

So...

Here's the fix for SD Card on Samsung Galaxy S3 not writable (or at least what worked for me), using a Windows PC (probably Vista or later):
--- 1) format the SD card to "exFAT" (it's not necessary to do a full format - a quick format will suffice)
--- 2) "safely" eject the SD card by:
---------- 2a) using the "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" icon in the system tray, or by
---------- 2b) opening "My Computer" and right-clicking the drive and selecting "Eject"
--- 3) remove the card from your PC and place it into your GS3
--- 4) give it 10-15 seconds to prepare the card
--- 5) Voila! C'est bien! It should work for you, now.

Hope this helps some of you frustrated peeps out there - I was getting pretty frustrated, since I bought my SD card from The Source by Circuit City and their return policy is not the most friendly...

P.S. It's still working for me, even now! :) If it doesn't work for you, I'm sorry this didn't help and good luck as you continue the search. But please don't abandon Android for Apple - you KNOW that's a mistake, as Apple doesn't even support external storage, and they're really annoying (and a lot like Microsoft in its developmental years - LITTLE CUSTOMIZATION without using work arounds (like jailbreaking) and slow progress to reverse that trend!)

Cheers,
Nalorin
 

gnr_2

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Heads up on the Samsung cards. Both my wife and I use Samsung 16gb cards in our Galaxy S3's and last night hers became corrupted and is no longer readable. I haven't had any issues yet but now I'm nervous and saving all my imprortant files elsewhere. She is upset, and right fully so. I talked her into putting all her pics on the ext card to save phone space. She had already transferred several gigs worth of pics from her old phone to the galaxy. Now its all gone. I figured if I went with the samsung cards and not over do it on space we would be fine. Nope.

She was searching for something on google when she said it froze, and when she tried to back out to the home page she received the corrupted disk message. I'm wondering if its the apps we accept on our phones that request permission to view the info on our phones/cards that if or when they have a malfunction such as freezing it increases the risk of card failure?? I'm not very computer literate, just reaching for straws I suppose.
Did you try putting it into a card reader on your computer, or even in a camera and connecting that to your computer, to see if the computer can read it and it's not just the phone that can't? Just throwing out suggestions since it sounds like you are in the doghouse with your wife right now. :(


Sent from my totally awesome Sprint Galaxy Nexus, even if I don't know all its secrets yet.
 

drouellette

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Hmmm.. maybe a 64gb SDHC doesnt trip this issue at all? I bought a Scandisk 32GB SDHC and withn weeks start getting this issue-
I sent scandisk an email. but Im wondering, has anyone received any feedback from Samsung? Is this issue happing only on ScanDisk brand SDHC?
 

Mike Hall1

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Did you try putting it into a card reader on your computer, or even in a camera and connecting that to your computer, to see if the computer can read it and it's not just the phone that can't? Just throwing out suggestions since it sounds like you are in the doghouse with your wife right now. :(


Sent from my totally awesome Sprint Galaxy Nexus, even if I don't know all its secrets yet.


Yea I tried my laptop and my sons PC to see if there was anyway to read it and its corrupted. My next step is letting one of the Computer guys at work take a look at it but he admitted it was probably not gonna help. I don't understand what happened. Fact is my phone is/was set up identical to hers and hers has had this memory card issue and also the quick battery drain issue. Mine has been excellent so far, knock on wood.
 

drouellette

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Just an FYI, I received an email back from an employee from scandisk, he said that with ScanDisk SD cards, when 1st purchased, before use (in a GS3 phone), format it in a PC as NTFS, write any file to it, then format it again as FAT32. Note that i had initially formated my Scandisk SD as extFAT
 

FloDoodle

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i have the same sd card as you (PNY 32GB)... it just did the same thing, but i haven't reformatted it or anything yet... were u still able to pull up the info from the sd card onto a pc? i can't figure out how, if it can still be done... any suggestions? I'm asking u because everyone else has had a different sd card.
 

gnr_2

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Yea I tried my laptop and my sons PC to see if there was anyway to read it and its corrupted. My next step is letting one of the Computer guys at work take a look at it but he admitted it was probably not gonna help. I don't understand what happened. Fact is my phone is/was set up identical to hers and hers has had this memory card issue and also the quick battery drain issue. Mine has been excellent so far, knock on wood.
And the phone wasn't set up to sync photos to Google? I thought that was a Android default.


Sent from my totally awesome Sprint Galaxy Nexus, even if I don't know all its secrets yet.
 

Downtown Taco

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And the phone wasn't set up to sync photos to Google? I thought that was a Android default.


Sent from my totally awesome Sprint Galaxy Nexus, even if I don't know all its secrets yet.

You need G+ or Picasa for that I believe.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
 

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