Something wiped my SD Card

[semibru]

I've got a 32GB SD card installed in my S3. Last night, I got an error while in QuickPic that the SD card was unreadable (or something like that) while viewing an album on the SD card. I rebooted and now it appears that all but the DCIM directory on the SC card. (There was also a pictures folder, among others.)

My two suspects are QuickPic - the app I was using at the time - and Google+. Google+ had been in the process of backing up 400+ photos on the SD card. I'd get a notification every few hours that new photos had been loaded, but didn't realize until after the SD card wipe that it was actually backing up anything other than my most recent photos.

Anyone have similar issues? I have a backup of most of the photos, but nervous that I'll lose them again.

On a related note, anyone else find it frustrating how you have navigate through the file structure to even get to the SD card?!?

 

[SpringerRider]

Did you partition your card?

 

[semibru]

Nope. Just inserted/installed the SD card and formatted it using the phone.

 

[lbkiml]

formatting it usually wipes the card

 

[semibru]

formatting it usually wipes the card

Of course. I fomatted it on day 1 and moved my galleries to it. It was working fine for 3 weeks until last night.

 

[breeze]

On a related note, anyone else find it frustrating how you have navigate through the file structure to even get to the SD card?!?

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Can you be a little more descriptive of the process you have to go through?

Also are you sure your SD card is not faulty?

 

[semibru]

The path to the internal storage for the DCIM directory is /mnt/sdcard/DCIM. This appears to be the same as /sdcard.

The path to DCIM on the external SD card is /mnt/extSdCard/DCIM.So, this forces you to go up a level in the directory.

Until you figure this out, it's just confusing. For example, if moving a picture in QuickPic from your internal storage to SC card you start at /mnt/sdcard/DCIM. The temptation is to go up to root to find the external SC card, but you end up where you started if you choose /sdcard.

So not sure why they call internal storage SD Card.

 

[HomePC]

I have had similar issues. Here's a copy of my post on another forum:

S3 keeps Mounting and Unmounting

Maybe this should be a separate thread, but there aren't too many out there regarding the external SD Card.

I too, have SD Card issues. My 16GB card wasn't recognized by the S3; it told me to insert a card. I tried pulling the card, reformatting it on a Windows PC using the exFAT file system. The card still was not recognized by the S3. I finally deleted all partitions on the card, using the Windows PC, and the S3 still would not recognize it.

Finally, I re-enabled several bloatware apps that I had disabled by the App Manager. That seemed to fix the problem. I was able to mount and format the card with the S3. I'm guessing some app is working very closely with the driver for that SD Card slot. On a related note, I had "Advanced Task Killer" installed and set to run every hour with a kill level of "SAFE" and a security level of "LOW". My card would periodically unmount. I'm guessing the ATK killed some important process. I have since, reconfigured ATK to not run at all. It is still installed though.

BUT!!!!,,, since then, my card has unmounted twice but I manage to get it remounted...... Once the S3 said the card was damaged. I won't store any info on it until things settle down. I have an 8GB card laying around, I may give that a shot to see how it reacts.

 

[semibru]

HomePC- that really sucks... I feel your pain.

I noticed last night before reformatting again a new directory on the card, LOST.DIR. After some more research, I realize this is symptomatic of a somewhat mysterious problem for Android owners. Basically, it's an issue where your files are scrambled and put in this LOST.DIR directory. As best I can tell, there's no way to recover them unless you get lucky and add extensions to the new file names. (I've also tried a few utilizies that folks suggested, but with no luck.

Some blame the SD card quality and/or class, others blame apps. I'm using a Polorid Class 10 32GB card, so I'd expect quality there. If it fails again, though, I'll spend the bucks on a SanDisk.

Here's a link in XDA with more info:
LOST.DIR & sdcard data corruption - xda-developers

If you see apps acting funny, that's definitely a sign that there could be an issue with the card. I just wish I knew whether an app corrupted the card, or a bad card caused the apps to misbehave. There are also several reports of the LOST.DIR director getting larger and larger as more files become corrupt, so check frequently and backup up your files.

Good luck.