Question SD card problem - loading books to new kindle fire 7 SD card with 32 gig capacity. After a couple hundred books it says card is full.

[pookiebr74]

I recently got a new Kindle Fire 7 with expandable memory slot. Have a 32gig SD card in it, installed as portable memory. Want to load my ebooks for an upcoming trip and after I get to 1000 books it says the card memory is full and wont allow me to load any more. I use Calibre as my book manager. Have tried unmounting card, reformatting it, reinstalling it, etc without luck. Any suggestions would be appreciated. These are basic ebooks - not graphic heavy at all. no PDFs - all azw3 formats.

 

[B. Diddy]

Where did you get the card from? If it was anywhere besides a well-known retailer, I'd be concerned about the card being counterfeit (meaning that it's actually smaller than 32 GB, but was programmed to report that it has 32 GB). This is more common with cards that claim a much larger capacity, like 256 GB, but it's not out of the question.

Try the methods here to test: How to Spot a Fake MicroSD Card and Avoid Being Scammed

 

[pookiebr74]

Its a Sandisk brand from Amazon. I have also tried several other cards - another from Sandisk as well as 2 other brands just in case

 

[B. Diddy]

It's still worth testing the cards. Also, can you see what the filesize of each book is?

 

[joeldf]

When you buy from Amazon, you have to look at the listing carefully. There is a "Ships from" and a "Sold by" line. If the "Sold by" is anyone other than Amazon or the manufacturer themselves, avoid them if you can, especially if the price seems so much lower than other listings of the same kind. A lot of times, these SD cards are sold by third party resellers, and only ship through Amazon.

Of course, not every non-Amazon seller is untrustworthy. So, if you do go that route, you kind have to read through the seller reviews and rankings to get an idea if they are really any good. Just as you would an eBay seller.

Other than that, I personally wouldn't get a card less than 128 GB. You can easily get one for less than 20 bucks. Even walking into a Walmart. 1000-some-odd books seems like it could max out a 32 GB card.

 

[pookiebr74]

It's still worth testing the cards. Also, can you see what the filesize of each book is?

Which of these do you think works best? Do I need to dump and reformat the card first before testing? Also should I format as NTFS or Fat32 to use for portable storage.
The majority of my books are small - usually 0.1-1mb in size. The largest one I have to 12 mb but it’s a jpeg rich forensic science book so I keep it on my computer.

 

[BerryBubbles]

Just sneaking in here to say that Kindles support the Fat32 format & the card does need to be at least UHS, Ultra High Speed.

Sneaking back out....

 

[B. Diddy]

Which of these do you think works best? Do I need to dump and reformat the card first before testing? Also should I format as NTFS or Fat32 to use for portable storage.
The majority of my books are small - usually 0.1-1mb in size. The largest one I have to 12 mb but it’s a jpeg rich forensic science book so I keep it on my computer.

It won't hurt to reformat the cards (just as long as you make sure to backup whatever's on it beforehand). And definitely FAT32 -- NTFS is not supported by Android.

 

[pookiebr74]

It won't hurt to reformat the cards (just as long as you make sure to backup whatever's on it beforehand). And definitely FAT32 -- NTFS is not supported by Android.

Good to know! I’ll try it soon as I get off work and back home. Will post results.

 

[cmgam]

Hi

Android also supports exFat

Regards

 

[B. Diddy]

Not sure if this is completely up to date, but Amazon's support page specifies FAT32 support only: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GMRDCX9BUV3L7TKA. (Keep in mind that Fire OS is a fork of Android, so it won't be exactly the same as conventional Android devices.)

 

[joeldf]

Hi

Android also supports exFat

Regards

"Android" does.

But not on Fire Tablets running FireOS 6 and newer. FireOS is a forked Android OS, so Amazon has to pay all the licenses. And they have chosen not to pay Microsoft to support exFat.

If the tablet is around the 2017 model range or older, running FireOS 5, I think exFat is supported on that.

 

[Windroid 2483]

From what I'm reading here: It could be that the card is counterfeit, and is really a lot less then 32 GB. It could also be that the card is too small. Here's my advice:

#1: Test the card (using the software from the article B. Diddy gave you) to see if it really is 32 GB, if you have not already done so. My guess: It will be 32 GB (or slightly below). Just remember to to first, back up any data on that card you want to save.

#2: Replace the card with a higher capacity card, and this time, buy it directly from SanDisk/Western Digital (or another reputable SD card manufacturer)! Don't trust cards and drives from Amazon, even if they say "SanDisk".

#3: Repurpose the old card, if it's not counterfeit. Maybe you have a camera laying around which could use the card. Or you could use something like this adaptor to turn it into a USB thumb drive.

 

[pookiebr74]

Sorry for the delay- checked the card I was using and it failed the fakeflash test so I tried another I had previously used. It passed. Loaded it as portable storage and kindle formatted it. Got about to the same amt of books as last time and it gave me the same message - card is full. The books I read are short stories, 3-6MB in size. No graphics. Using azw3 and occ mobi format. When I look at the SD storage on my file directory when kindle is plugged in, it shows over 25gig of useable space left on card. Anyone have any other suggestions? I saw several postings with site regarding kindle and SD cards but havent had a minute to read them yet. Thank you for passing them along.......

 

[B. Diddy]

I merged your latest post into the original thread.

How old is this previous card? If it's pretty old, at this point I would suggest going to your local bricks and mortar electronics store (like Best Buy) and buying a new card (which should be quite inexpensive), and testing that.