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

[derk]

I still have the Sandisk 32gb class 4 that came with my Thunderbolt and is now being used in my Galaxy Tab 2 7. I take it all the time and have had zero issues with it. I also bought the SanDisk 32bg Class 10 that I bought in July 2012 right after I got my S3. I have taken it in and out many times to use through card reader for faster transfers, and it is still working perfectly. However, I just backed up my pictures to be safe after reading this. My wife also has a GS3, I think she has a 16gb SD card which and has had zero issues sine she got her phone in July 2012 also.

That's great you and your wife have no problems with sd cards. If this issue were widespread, then Samsung would be making headlines.

 

[Bandit9]

My S3 keeps rejecting my 32Gb sd card and at other times it's fine with it. I think I'm going to use a smaller card, as I didn't have any issues with my 8Gb card :-D

 

[mc-fine]

I've been having issues as well with my S3 for the last month or so. I was using my old 16GB card that came with my Samsung Epic. Never an issue on the old phone and for the first 6 months or so of the S3. Then I started getting errors saying i could not write to the SD card. Unable to delete files directly on the device or while connected to the computer. So I figured its an old card and probably was on its last legs. I bought a SanDisk 32gb Class 10 card. Popped it in and it worked great, no lag while saving HD video. However every couple of days or so I will take a shot and it will say failed to write to SD card. At one point i noticed all the folders on the files had like a "~/" abbreviation in front of them. The device would not read the files and said it was empty. I moved the files that i could still salvage in the DCIM folder, half of the videos would fail during the transfer. I would have to move individually a few times before the whole thing came across. I formatted the card this time around but still every few days it will fail to write to the SD card and I have to restart the phone to get it to work. When I open the Gallery app to scroll through pictures it always crashes. Never a problem when looking through pics on internal storage.

Something is up and I am afraid it might be a hardware issue. Maybe one of the connectors on the microSD slot is messed up and causing these issues but something is going on with these phones.

 

[TreoRock]

Just wanted to share that I had a 32G SanDisk card that had the same issues you guys reported until it stopped working completely on my GS3 after 3 months. My wife has a GS3 with a Transcend card it never failed. I just bought a Transcend for my GS3.

Sent from my Galaxy S3 using Tapatalk 2

 

[derk]

I've been having issues as well with my S3 for the last month or so. I was using my old 16GB card that came with my Samsung Epic. Never an issue on the old phone and for the first 6 months or so of the S3. Then I started getting errors saying i could not write to the SD card. Unable to delete files directly on the device or while connected to the computer. So I figured its an old card and probably was on its last legs. I bought a SanDisk 32gb Class 10 card. Popped it in and it worked great, no lag while saving HD video. However every couple of days or so I will take a shot and it will say failed to write to SD card. At one point i noticed all the folders on the files had like a "~/" abbreviation in front of them. The device would not read the files and said it was empty. I moved the files that i could still salvage in the DCIM folder, half of the videos would fail during the transfer. I would have to move individually a few times before the whole thing came across. I formatted the card this time around but still every few days it will fail to write to the SD card and I have to restart the phone to get it to work. When I open the Gallery app to scroll through pictures it always crashes. Never a problem when looking through pics on internal storage.

Something is up and I am afraid it might be a hardware issue. Maybe one of the connectors on the microSD slot is messed up and causing these issues but something is going on with these phones.

My first s3 had those hardware issues of writing directly to the micro sd card when taking a photo. Once a photo or video was taken it would take forever to write or not write at all. My phone would become sluggish. If I reboot or shutdown, then I would never know if the phone would be able to mount the sd card or would give me the message of damaged card.

It would also randomly delete folders and files. It would also write "~ " on the folder it deleted. I figured out it damaged fat32 formatted sd cards with that ~ symbol.

So far so good on the replacement phone I received a week ago. I am using the same card the previous s3 had issues with.

 

[WhippetVFR]

Just for the record, I had a 16gb Sandisk card fail a couple of months ago on my S3, and now it's replacement is also unexpectedly being demounted. Never had this problem with any other phone before so suspect there's an issue.

 

[derk]

Just for the record, I had a 16gb Sandisk card fail a couple of months ago on my S3, and now it's replacement is also unexpectedly being demounted. Never had this problem with any other phone before so suspect there's an issue.

I am sad to say that I am still having sd card problems on the replacement s3. The problems are not as severe as previously(losing data). The s3 still randomly unmounts the sd card but not as much as previous s3. Usually a reboot of s3 causes the sd card to be mounted.

 

[meyerweb#CB]

The problem is apparently a SanDisk one, and they've acknowledged it:

http://forums.androidcentral.com/sa...cops-malfunctioning-micro-sds-galaxy-s3s.html

 

[derk]

The problem is apparently a SanDisk one, and they've acknowledged it:

http://forums.androidcentral.com/sa...cops-malfunctioning-micro-sds-galaxy-s3s.html

I think there are 2 issues. Those with sandisk sd cards and s3s with sd card issues. My first s3 fried an sandisk sd card, pny and kingston.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Splodgeyuk]

I'm on my 5th SD card, 3 different sizes, 3 different makes (even a Samsung one), 4 purchased online (2 from Amazon). I've tried to mix it up.

A few hours after putting music on the SD card (by plugging the S3 into my PC as an external drive) things go wrong. It works fine for a while, but within 24 hours it will either be ok or kill the card. My odds seem to be about 1 in 10.

1st I'm told that my SD card needs formatting, then a few seconds later that I have no card. Resetting the phone or re-seating the card makes no difference......at this point the card is dead, nothing will read it. It will even cause my PC to hang when I try to read it.

The delay between transferring mp3s and the card dying is a bit strange. I'm not technical enough to work out what is triggering it. I've just resigned myself to buying a lot of SD cards.

It is a real issue.........despite the opinions of some [people] - {word replaced for legal reasons}

 

[derk]

It is a real issue.........despite the opinions of some [people] - {word replaced for legal reasons}

Is your s3 still under warranty? If so, you should contact your carrier. I was able to get a replacement warranty. The issue on replacement s3 is not as crazy as my first one.

 

[Splodgeyuk]

Is your s3 still under warranty? If so, you should contacr your carrier. I was able to get a replacement warranty. The issue on replacement s3 is not as crazy as my first one.

Thanks, that never occurred to me. I can at least explore that.

 

[ford77]

Most people complain about sandisk. I can confirm a Kingston SD card.
Mine stopped working a couple of days ago without any previous sign.
No error or info messages. I just couldn`t play music or watch movies from it anymore.
My laptop can`t see it as well. it was about 7 months old.

Kingston 32GB Micro SD (SDHC) Card Class 10
Galaxy S3 GT-I9300, Android 4.1.2, Vodafone UK.

Any solution?
I`ll try to get a new SD card. Should I try replacing the phone too?

 

[TechnoSwiss]

My wife just started having this problem with her AT&T S3 16GB stock, the SD card is an 8GB PNY Class 10 though, not a SanDisk. It's now just giving the message that it's blank and needs to be formatted, but when you format it, no dice. It doesn't even show up in my Asus tablet, or the PC.

 

[Lexridge]

When you all say that your SDCard is no longer readable under Windows, are you only checking at My Computer, or are you running the Disk Management program and checking if is shows up there? I had a 16MB PNY card die on me (not Samsung related, but probably PowerAmp related) and Windows would only see it from the Disk Manager. However, it would not format always failing with errors. Then, I moved the sdcard to my Linux box, ran Linux fdisk on it and deleted that partition, which it saw fine, then wrote the changes. Took it back to Windows, formatted it to FAT32 with SwissKnife, and all has been well for four months now. Knock on wood!

Something else, I believe that exFAT is required for any sdcard over 32MB in size, unless you divide the partitions. While the SGS3 does support exFAT, it's possible the exFAT driver could be buggy, causing problems with 64MB sdcards.

I just wish I could format my sdcard to ext4 and use it that way. The result would be, copied system files would always contain the correct (Linux) file attributes.Something that is not possible with FAT32 or exFAT, and gets me in trouble a lot.

 

[Dugrodg]

I've had my Galaxy S3 2 weeks and installed a new 16gb card worked fine till now.
Tried reinserting the card but the operating system still won't recognize it. Found the card works fine in my PC all and all of the data is intact.
Tried again in the phone with the same results.
Obviously the fault is with the S3

Funny but now the card started working for no apparent reason.
Hopefully it doesn't unmount the card again.

 

[Marek Buznicki]

Hi,

I have not similar issue but issue with 32Gb Scandisk card class 10 and S3. This is the second card my S3 has corrupted/destroyed It says card is empty/ with no valid format. It also wants me to format but but when I'm doing it with my S3 it does nothing. When I got this issue with my first SD card I thought it was the card but the issue persisst after installing a new one . The funny thing is that in beginning the S3 with the new card works perfectly but suddenly the issue is there. So definitely Samsung has an issue with 32 Gb SD cards. Contacting Samsung help desk does not help. They saying to reinstall (pick up) the latest firmware to see if the issue persist (which I did , but the issue is still there) and if it does not help to return it back for further inestigation.

 

[EndlessDissent]

I just wish I could format my sdcard to ext4 and use it that way. The result would be, copied system files would always contain the correct (Linux) file attributes.Something that is not possible with FAT32 or exFAT, and gets me in trouble a lot.

I'm assuming you'd like to stay stock, but if you're interested, CM10.1 now supports ext4-formatted cards, no mods required - just pop the card in, and boot the phone. Also, it's not impossible to use an ext4-formatted card in Touchwiz, but you need to set up a script to run at boot to mount the card.

Sorry for being off-topic, but being able to use a non-M$ filesystem is important to me, and apparently, others.

 

[derk]

This problem is very frustrating. On my replacement s3, the data isn't getting deleted randomly. Now the only problem is random unmounting. A quick reboot usually allows the s3 to remount the sd and all is well.

I no longer save my photos/videos taken on my s3 on the sd card. I store it internally. Anything that is on the sd card is backed up on dropbox or my computer.

In June, I ditch my s3 and go back to the iPhone.

 

[mtba44]

My sd card from my samsung S3 failed this morning phone or laptop can't read it checked it out, will have to replace it. So there is a problem with something