Question Always format error for sd card

[michaellanfield]

Hi. Love this forum and website. Thank you for creating it.

I have a problem with my Android phone. I was continuously getting format SD card error, as you see in the image above. I used a Kingston brand micro SD at first. I saved the files from the sd card on a PC and then formatted the card on my Android, and then transferred the files back to the card through the PC and put the card back into my phone. When I connected the SD card into my phone, I did so with the phone on. some people say it's better to put the SD card into the phone when the phone is completely off. the card worked for some weeks or months and the same problem happened.

I thought this was the SD card issue, so I bought another new SanDisk micro sd and did the exact steps as above as I did with the Kingston, and I received the same error twice in a few weeks time. I am frustrated as to why this is happening and how to permanently stop getting the formatting error come up on my Android phone? Thank you so much.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Are you buying these cards from the same place? Are they from a well-respected retailer, or from a random seller on eBay? Counterfeit SD cards are common, and the risk of getting one is much higher from random sellers. You can check a card this way: How to Spot a Fake MicroSD Card and Avoid Being Scammed

 

[michaellanfield]

Welcome to Android Central! Are you buying these cards from the same place? Are they from a well-respected retailer, or from a random seller on eBay? Counterfeit SD cards are common, and the risk of getting one is much higher from random sellers. You can check a card this way: How to Spot a Fake MicroSD Card and Avoid Being Scammed

Thank you for the quick reply. I think mine are real. Here are shots of my cards.

 

[B. Diddy]

Knockoffs can be made to look very convincingly authentic. Run those tests in the link just to be sure.

 

[michaellanfield]

I am still confused how to tell if it is a fake, and anyways, how to get rid of the formatting error on my Android phone, so the card always works. I don't have a Windows computer, just Debian/Ubuntu OS.

 

[B. Diddy]

There used to be an Android app that can test SD cards, but it's too old to work on current Android versions. The reason why I'm pursuing this is that the formatting error might be a result of a counterfeit card being used to store more data than it can actually hold. Counterfeit cards typically report much higher storage than they actually have (e.g., a 4 GB card that reports that it's 128 GB). Once you try saving more than 4 GB on the card, you can start getting data corruption or a total crash of the card.

See if you can borrow someone else's Windows PC to test the cards.

You also haven't mentioned yet where you got these cards -- do you remember?

 

[michaellanfield]

There used to be an Android app that can test SD cards, but it's too old to work on current Android versions. The reason why I'm pursuing this is that the formatting error might be a result of a counterfeit card being used to store more data than it can actually hold. Counterfeit cards typically report much higher storage than they actually have (e.g., a 4 GB card that reports that it's 128 GB). Once you try saving more than 4 GB on the card, you can start getting data corruption or a total crash of the card.

See if you can borrow someone else's Windows PC to test the cards.

You also haven't mentioned yet where you got these cards -- do you remember?

I got the cards from Mercadolibre. Shop, Circuitshop. I bought other items from Circuitshop with no problems

 

[michaellanfield]

There used to be an Android app that can test SD cards, but it's too old to work on current Android versions. The reason why I'm pursuing this is that the formatting error might be a result of a counterfeit card being used to store more data than it can actually hold. Counterfeit cards typically report much higher storage than they actually have (e.g., a 4 GB card that reports that it's 128 GB). Once you try saving more than 4 GB on the card, you can start getting data corruption or a total crash of the card.

See if you can borrow someone else's Windows PC to test the cards.

You also haven't mentioned yet where you got these cards -- do you remember?

The cards are both 128 GB. That means the space on them should be less than 128 GB? How do I text this, again?

Also, how do I fix the formatting error on my phone if I don't have original cards?

 

[B. Diddy]

I got the cards from Mercadolibre. Shop, Circuitshop. I bought other items from Circuitshop with no problems

I don't know about Circuitshop, but Mercadolibre is an online marketplace, so the risk of counterfeits will be higher.

What I said about counterfeit cards is that they may claim to be 128 GB, but in fact are much smaller in size -- they're just programmed to report greater size. A geniune128 GB card would be 128 GB.

You can learn how to test the cards in the link I shared in post #2 of this thread.