Ok, so I heard of people having issues with the data on class2 SD cards being wiped...I actually had it happen to me but was able to fix it WITHOUT reformatting and/or losing data. The phone saw nothing on the SD card, my WIN7 64bit PC didn't either. I simply right clicked the corresponding drive in MY COMPUTER, clicked PROPERTIES, and the clicked the TOOLS TAB. In tools I clicked ERROR CHECKING and selected both CHECK DISK options. The process ran successfully, when it finished I popped the SD card back in the phone and BAM there it was! Fully recognizable and data intact! The next step is optional: remove the SD card and put it back in your computer and do a DISK DEFRAGMNENT on it, when complete put it back in the phone. After this you should notice faster loading and media scanning of the the card and its contents. I hope this helps!
borked SD card_fixed!
- Thread starter geosnipe
- Start date
Disk defrag'ing an SD card will have zero effect on performance. You will ONLY cause the SD card to have a shorter life span. I would NOT recommend to anyone to perform a disk defrag on any SD card or HDD. Disk Defrag was meant for conventional hard drives- because of how they link file types and data together. This process is completely different on an SD card and again is NOT recommended.
I have performed this operation 4 or 5 times since owning my phone with NO ill effects...yet. But I beg to differ on the speed aspect: icons for apps on the SD card do appear more quickly after performing the operation. I will take your reply into consideration-thanks.
*maybe the safer and more efficient way would be to backup the sd card, reformat in phone or PC, and then migrate data back to the SD card. Any thoughts?
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I respect your response. But how SD cards and HDD's work is by writing data to MULTIPLE locations within the SD card. They do this to prevent the card or HHD from wearing to fast within a certain "sector". Conventional hard drives will just through file types and add links to them in any old place on the drive filling up a sector with only 1kb of data over 100's of blocks. Conventional HDD's can NOT write to a block of data if it's written to with ANY data so a block capable of storing 4096k worth of data but only has 1k filled can NEVER be used by the system hence you lose 4095k worth of storage. Disk defrag re-organizes the drive to fill up all the dead space correctly. Thus providing you with quicker more accurate and more HDD space to use.
Again SD cards were designed to spread out this data to prevent wear in it's memory. By defraging this you stuff more data into its blocks forcing the card to read and write to the same block OVER and OVER again thus causing it to wear faster.
This is just advice it's your SD card use it how you want! LOL
*maybe the safer and more efficient way would be to backup the sd card, reformat in phone or PC, and then migrate data back to the SD card. Any thoughts?
The original reason for the post was NOT to defag but how I was able to RECOVER from a borked SD card. As i stated the defrag was OPTIONAL...
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this is good to know as my sd is "fried" according to my phone..after the GB install.. I don't have a card reader..so I am off to fine one..Tks for the find..
Angela
Angela
You will always want to minimze the "writes" so even formating the SD card will shorten its life span. Reall,y the question is how much will it shorten the life span. Lets face it a 16GB SD card costs 22 bucks. And most people will have a phone for maybe a 1yr or 2 years. Most likely the card won't fail in that amount of time. SD cards are already blazing fast without a need for really any formatting or backup /restore methods IMO.
I would suggest just getting the mod to PREVENT the card from doing the "SD card checking" that thing is painfully slow and annoying anyway.
I personally wouldn't do a backup /format/restore. that's just way to many writes (ESP if you have a lot of data on the SD card) - I suggest just backup the SD card to a computer at normal intervals. Nothing is more of a PIA than to lose stuff on a drive be it a SD or a conventional HDD when they fail.
If you want to keep your SD card humming along. Don't keep stuff on there you never use (back it up and delete it off the SD card).
P.S. I am glad to know that you fixed your SD card by using the error checker. That is going to help out a ton of people who borked there SD card installing gingerbread!
Just found this: https://www.sdcard.org/consumers/formatter_3/
* Maybe a good alternative to using the windows utlility.. any thoughts?
*What is the service life of an SD memory card?
This depends on how your product in manufactured. SD standards-based memory cards, like most semiconductor cards, store information in flash memory. The current technology along with normal usage typically gives the card a lifespan of 10 years or more, allowing consumers to upgrade their devices for many years and reduce consumer electronic waste.
I have never heard of a program specifically designed to format SD cards before(though have never really looked) nor have I heard of the SDCard.org site - but I am intrigued to find out if this is a legitmate program, if so then awesome find!
Update:
So I did some digging - even though their whois data is a bit "shady" in my opinon. It does appear to be legit the board executives appear to come from respected technology companies such as Canon, Sandisk, Panasonic, etc. However I could find no 3rd party sites to confirm the legitimacy of the site or news articles from news.google.com that even mentions SDCard.org.
With that sad I did another search on HP, Sandisk's site for a SD card formatter that they make - could not find one at all. Appears odd that they at least Sandisk supports a .org for a SD formatter but yet doesn't publish a tool or even LINK to it on there website. While my search was in no way indepth. I stand by by original statement until an OEM or popular OS's support the formatting of SD cards specifically I would only recommend a format in extreme circumstances only and should not be done on a regular basis to increase performance. Simply delete the apps or files on the card that are no longer needed, formatting is not necessary.
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I took a chance and used it yesterday- NO ill effects to report yet. Although, copying data back to the card did seem a little lengthy. Anyhow, just thought I'ld let people know...I dont mind being a tester even if I do lose end the end. Better me then a true newbie as I can usually fix my way out of most self inflicted problems..lol
I would think the benefits of having a working SD card would outweigh the possibility of writing too many times to it and it not working at all, considering the formatting was done to make a non functioning card function again.
In other words, it was already effectively broken, I don't see why taking steps to fix it are being criticized, even if those steps may reduce the life of the card somewhat.
In other words, it was already effectively broken, I don't see why taking steps to fix it are being criticized, even if those steps may reduce the life of the card somewhat.
It was not the formatting that caused the SD card to work it was the error checking utility... But obviously if the card is already effectively broken and a format is required to fix it, then you format it. You just don't want to do general formatting of a "Working" SD card.
Me neither.... The point of this thread was to show how I was able to recover my borked SD card effectively using the check disk tools in windows without any formatting. Then the thread detoured off to another area of SD performance/optimization and life span. BTW, was yours borked? If so, did my suggestion work for you?
No man, I'm holding off on the GB upgrade til there's something stable where all features work... I avoided the EC09 ROM completely due to the SD card risk (though I use the radio) and the CM7 supposedly has camera flash problems, and I need the flashlight widget to work with the LED so I don't have to carry around a flashlight (I find myself in dark places for work)
Landshark
Well-known member
- Jan 11, 2011
- 4,434
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My $.02 - I don't think icanectc was so much criticizing the method described in this thread for repairing a borked sd card so much as he was throwing a caveat out there about the dangers and risks of performing a format or defrag of the sd card. There would probably be plenty of people who would read the OP and think "Oh I should do this just as a preventive measure." And if the cautionary information provided by icanectc is accurate, then it is good information to know and is a benefit to the community. I think geosnipe and domenici are correct that if the sd card is borked there is no harm in trying geosnipe's method. So everyone should take all the information in this thread into consideration. The more information we all have about all aspects of our phones, the better off we will be.
My 2 cents as well. I think everyone here is trying to do the right thing and all have some valuable information.
Great info Geo on the error checking routine to fix your card.
And Ican is correct also, in general extra writing to Flash memory is a bad thing, but that can sometimes get blown out of proportion.In general Defragmenting was created for Mechanical Hard drives where proximity of data can make a real difference in access times. Flash memory works differently, but there can be some advantages over time to realigning the data. However you are much better copying the data off the card and formattting it with a utility designed for flash cards such as the one on the mentioned site, then recopying the data back. This will restore alignment with the minimum number of Writes. Defragmenting a flash card will cause extra wear over this method.
This is because defragmenting programs utilize the storage on the card to write data to and then from. Also since erasing a file actually still leaves the data in the cell it just tells the OS that the cell is now open, this process can lead to a problem called Write Amplification that can slow down further writes.So if this SD card formatter works correctly it will actually erase the cells while it formats.
In general there are 2 types of Flash memory MLC and SLC. The specifications for each of these show average write value of MLC at 10,000 times per cell before the writes can begin to fail with SLC it is 100,000 times per cell. Most SDHCcards are SLC to support the higher write speeds. MLC are used in Consumer level SSD's and in general look to have a lifspan in average use of about 10 years. So with SLC being able to handle so many more writes you should see a much longer lifespan.With that being said every write to a Flash Nand is one more nail in the coffin. So Ican is correct that in general we should try to minimize things like defragmenting. A copy and reformat is a much better way to go. But that being said I would only do this once maybe twice a year if you are a heavy user with Lots of files.
For more info on this you can check out Anandtech, it is the best technology site on the web in my opinion, because they actually work with manufacturers to fix issues. Here is a link to an older article on SSD's that addresses some of the issues here. Word of warning it can get a little deep.
AnandTech - The SSD Relapse: Understanding and Choosing the Best SSD
Great info Geo on the error checking routine to fix your card.
And Ican is correct also, in general extra writing to Flash memory is a bad thing, but that can sometimes get blown out of proportion.In general Defragmenting was created for Mechanical Hard drives where proximity of data can make a real difference in access times. Flash memory works differently, but there can be some advantages over time to realigning the data. However you are much better copying the data off the card and formattting it with a utility designed for flash cards such as the one on the mentioned site, then recopying the data back. This will restore alignment with the minimum number of Writes. Defragmenting a flash card will cause extra wear over this method.
This is because defragmenting programs utilize the storage on the card to write data to and then from. Also since erasing a file actually still leaves the data in the cell it just tells the OS that the cell is now open, this process can lead to a problem called Write Amplification that can slow down further writes.So if this SD card formatter works correctly it will actually erase the cells while it formats.
In general there are 2 types of Flash memory MLC and SLC. The specifications for each of these show average write value of MLC at 10,000 times per cell before the writes can begin to fail with SLC it is 100,000 times per cell. Most SDHCcards are SLC to support the higher write speeds. MLC are used in Consumer level SSD's and in general look to have a lifspan in average use of about 10 years. So with SLC being able to handle so many more writes you should see a much longer lifespan.With that being said every write to a Flash Nand is one more nail in the coffin. So Ican is correct that in general we should try to minimize things like defragmenting. A copy and reformat is a much better way to go. But that being said I would only do this once maybe twice a year if you are a heavy user with Lots of files.
For more info on this you can check out Anandtech, it is the best technology site on the web in my opinion, because they actually work with manufacturers to fix issues. Here is a link to an older article on SSD's that addresses some of the issues here. Word of warning it can get a little deep.
AnandTech - The SSD Relapse: Understanding and Choosing the Best SSD
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chkdsk didn't work for me. :-(
HOWEVER, i did find a util that recovered most of the files
File Recovery Util --> PhotoRec - CGSecurity
HOWEVER, i did find a util that recovered most of the files
File Recovery Util --> PhotoRec - CGSecurity
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