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This is just a quick heads up. It was new to me and I had never came across the issue before on here, so I am posting my results.
I was doing some routine maintenance on my PC and I had accidentally left one of my external USB Stick drives in the machine. I noticed that in the Defrag options, it now gave me an option to Defrag the external drive. I thought to myself, thats kinda cool, I bet my 6gb Micro SD card on my phone could benift from a good defrag. I quickly popped my Micro SD card from my phone, plunked it into a USB Key Reader and told Diskeeper to Defrag the Micro Card. I was thinking, this should be great, I have thousands of files on my Micro Card, a good Defrag should be a cool thing. A few mins later it said it was done so I pulled it out and put it in back in my phone.
The next day I went to launch TomTom and it took 5 mins just to launch the app. I thought it had froze or something. I was fighting with it, driving me nuts. I re-installed TomTom, still taking 5-8mins now to load the app. When I tried to get directions it would take up to a min just to plot a route. (should only take a few seconds) I re-flashed the phone with a new ROM, then reinstalled TomTom and it did not help at all. Everything on the storage card was taking forever to load. Even the music apps were bogging down really badly.
Today, I yanked the Micro Card out of the phone, placed it in a USB key and copied the contents to a temp Dir on my desktop, formated the card, then wrote some data to the card and formated again.
Finally I put all my data from the temp Dir back onto the card and put the card back in my phone. Launched TomTom and took about 5 seconds rather than 5 mins to load. Everything is back to perfect.
I was hoping to Increase speeds with the Defrag of the Micro SD card and in fact it killed it horribly.
Lol, good to know. I would have thought the same thing!
a little common sense would have told you that would be a bad idea.
defragging is designed to 'defragment' files and put the most used files all together at the start of the drive. meaning a hdd head doesn't have to do a lot of skipping about for one file. then yet more skipping to find the next file, and a whole load more skipping to find different pieces of that file, etc etc.
the fact that solid state media doesn't have a drive head renders defragmenting unnecessary, plus as SSDs also have a limited number of write cycles the excessive writing required to move files around the card reduces its lifespan.
hope this helps
It depends
After owning several Pocket PCs with various expansion types, defragging has it's benefits and it's pitfalls.
(The following comments are based on percieved experience. I've not done any benchmarking.)
I've found using cheap card readers can definitely cause problems with cards, particularly when defragging. It can result in various errors in the files and sometimes even render the card unreadable/unwritable. Even reformatting has no effect. To solve the problem I've often had to use a digital camera to reformat the card before it can be read/written by a PC via card reader.
Multi-media files seem to be the type of file that benefits most from a contiguous file that needs to be read/written by the Windows Mobile device. Particularly video. Why this is so, I do not know. But when watching video or listening to audio skipping and stuttering seem to be much less aparent when the file is contiguous. Also, I've been able to resurrect some .jpg files unreadableby my WM device by doing a defrag. Again, no idea why.
Almost any file that needs to be constantly read seems to benefit from a contiguous file, e.g. GPS maps.
Safest way to make files contiguous is to copy the contents of the card to a hard disk, reformat the card, then rewrite to the card.
Just my 2 cents.
Would be interested in anyone else's observations, particularly with media files.
Defragging files on flashcards is pointless - skipping from sector to sector in a row takes as much time as to skip into random sectors...
Frequent writes on cards descrease their lifetime... So that - defragging anything else than hard disks is harmful for media.
maybe unrelated, but is the option "encrypt files in the storage" (or something sounds like that) from within the windows mobile's settings pose any danger? i.e. conflicting with PIM backup files etc.
thanks
Please read
Just found this article
dave852 said:
a little common sense would have told you that would be a bad idea.
defragging is designed to 'defragment' files and put the most used files all together at the start of the drive. meaning a hdd head doesn't have to do a lot of skipping about for one file. then yet more skipping to find the next file, and a whole load more skipping to find different pieces of that file, etc etc.
the fact that solid state media doesn't have a drive head renders defragmenting unnecessary, plus as SSDs also have a limited number of write cycles the excessive writing required to move files around the card reduces its lifespan.
hope this helps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well said, SD cards and USB drives are flash drives and as so they don't need defragmentation and also as it was mentioned in the quote, it reduces it's lifespan.
Cheers
With Sandisk offering a 5-year limited warranty for their ordinary microSDHC and a 10-year limited warranty on their Ultra microSDHC cards and an expected minimum life of 15 years and maximum of 75 years (according to a Sandisk forum moderator) does it really matter what you do?
With storage memory sizes and formats moving so fast, who expects to keep using these things bought today on a daily basis on 5 or even 10 years' time?
a stupid trick: connect your blackstone to the PC in "drive mode", and defragment it from the PC by right-clicking on the disk drive, properties --> tools-->defragment!
...no need of special software...
i knew that it is not reccomended to defragment flash drives/cards
Why would you defrag? No heads to move to the appropriate sector, no gain from defrag.
On other devices i used PocketMechanic very often to defragment cards, repair of loose clusters and such card stuff. Allways without any problem.
But PocketMechanic doesn't work stabil on the HD, be careful!
no moving parts of flash mean seektime is very very low
and as such fragmentation dont slow things down
and flash having a limited number of writes before it dies
like a cd-rw/dvd-rw just more of them
so defragging flash mem lowers it's life because of the writes
and dont speed things up because seektimes is not an issue
memory cards are older than the blackstone!
tons of information on the topic, let's start from the internal one:
http://wiki.xda-developers.com/inde...ocket PC memory cards? Do I need this at all?
I think we may look at memory cards in the same way as a SATA SSD. In this case you can consolidate free space, which is excessively lighter on the writes than an old fashion full defrag.
Software that offers this option is available, and one example is Perfect Disc 10 and 11 (to my experience/knowledge).
So my advise is that if you need to defrag your SD card, which is a type of solid state drive, try to use free space consolidation only. This will be much easier on the wearing of the cells. I'm not quite sure of the P/E specs of SD Cards, or if they provide some wear leveling, but I'm reluctant to believe the latter is provided today for SD Cards like it is for most SATA SSD's.
I think SD card defragmentation is worth it when you have a HUGE and SLOW SD card.
I have a 32Gb SD card (from Kingston) in my Nexus One. I use Google Music Beta, Google Listen and Titanium Backup a lot! Since I reinstall/often upgrade my phone (I'm a geek after all and I'm totally happy!), the Music Beta Cache if often wiped out, I do daily Titanium Backup tasks and at least 3-5 podcasts are downloaded/wiped everyday.
This means a lot of fragmentation is "building up" on my SD card. Since, it is a slow SD, I often experience sluggishness or long load time even after a "fresh" install. The OS must read large files that are splitted on my VERY slow SD card, this does not help!
The problem is to get real numbers to prove this, It is mostly noticeable by navigating through the UI and/or loading some apps.
This was my 2 cents...
Anyone ever use this utility?? It seems like it would be a great tool to use!!
http://www.wizcode.com/devblog/comments/wizcode_announces_defragment_mobile_beta
talon4x4 said:
Anyone ever use this utility?? It seems like it would be a great tool to use!!
http://www.wizcode.com/devblog/comments/wizcode_announces_defragment_mobile_beta
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Why don't you install it and give it a shot? Then let us all know how it goes.
By the way, they do have a support forum. Here's a direct link to the Defrag topic -> http://www.wizcode.com/forums/viewforum/35/
It's an excellent utility tool, although one glad to have only when need arises. It is great for scanning the SD card for errors and repairing them, as directory FAT table can causes mayhem when out-of-whack. There's actually two copies of the directory that PMP checks for also.
Finally, as controversial as defragging a SD card can generate, there's no question everything runs faster and smoother done once in a while or after adding/deleting large files.
Handago regularly substancial discounts and Wizcode has 50% off sales.
Looks like mines already too screwed up to be helped
I think I'll hold off until I get a larger card. Right now I only have a 2gb card which isn't big enough for anything so I only have a couple programs installed to it. Which means it probably isn't too heavily fragmented.
Thanks for the info!!
PMP is very picky about defragging ONLY an error-free card. Running the error scan (select repair) even several times until the full report shows 0 errors. Then, the defrag can process.
Mounting the same card in card reader on a PC will very likely also complain about errors or even suggest reformat.
wouldn't it be easier to back up your sd card on your pc the format the card and copy your files back to the sd card.
Directory errors on a 2GB SD card with just music and videos and directory errors on a large 8/16/32GB card with majority of applications, Windows system dll's off-loaded to SD, etc are two entirely different scenarios.
Wiping and reload is obvious solution for one, but much, much more can be at stake grappling with damaged directory data (SD cards have no controllers like CompactFlash, so the directory is all there is).
Even copying a filled 16GB SD card WITHOUT errors to PC folder can be tricky, frustrating experience. Some programs won't transfer. Some lose licenses. I've found copying blocks of data one-at-a-time essential for success, paying particular attention to Application Data, caches, thumbnails and any files made up of minuscule data bits.
It's not the videos that's troublesome, it's system files constantly accessed that can crumble.
Fixing errors BEFORE attempting copying a 16GB SD to new 32GB SD helps a smooth transition, which isn't as rudimentary as would seem.
I don't understand how files get fragmented on a sd. There is no moving parts like a hard drive. I belive there is no gain from trying to defrag a sd card. you are better off checking file intergity than trying to defrag.
bmhome1 said:
Fixing errors BEFORE attempting copying a 16GB SD to new 32GB SD helps a smooth transition, which isn't as rudimentary as would seem.
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That is fixing disk errors not defragmenting. Defragmenting is physically moving pieces of files so they can be accessed faster. sd cards don't pull and dump files like a hard drive they are accessed at locations on the sd. no moving parts so there is really no way for them to get fragmented. Solid state drives work the same way there is no reason to ever defragment a SSD. As always with transfering files there is alway a chance of data loss or corruption weather file integrity is good or bad.
Assassin5150 said:
sd cards don't pull and dump files like a hard drive they are accessed at locations on the sd. no moving parts so there is really no way for them to get fragmented. Solid state drives work the same way there is no reason to ever defragment a SSD.
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That is not true. Fragmentation occurs in solid state memory, same as HDDs. Fragmentation is due to the way the file system works, not because a drive is mechanical or not.
http://www.wizcode.com/articles/comments/flash_memory_fragmentation_myths_and_facts/
Same goes with SSD's. They fragment, and just because there are no mechanical parts, does not mean you will not see a performance drop due to fragmentation.
"It is a misconception that SSD does not suffer from file system fragmentation. . . While this is a significant improvement, mechanical seek time only makes up a part of total access time . . . Zero mechanical seek time certainly does not mean zero I/O time. No matter how fast an SSD can be, its I/O time can never be zero. File system fragmentation affects I/O time in an SSD even when the mechanical seek time is zero."
http://rtcmagazine.com/articles/view/101053
This is a quote fron Intel. Do I need to defragment my Intel® Mainstream Solid-State Drives (using Windows* Disk Defragmenter* or similar program)?
No. SSD devices, unlike traditional HDDs, see no performance benefit from traditional HDD defragmentation tools. Using these tools simply adds unnecessary wear to the SSD. It is recommended that you disable any automatic or scheduled defragmentation utilities for your Intel SSD.
http://www.intel.com/support/ssdc/hpssd/sb/CS-029623.htm#5
Corsair also suggest that defragmenting should not be done as well.
The whole point of defragmenting is to move files on a standard hard drive so they can be accessed faster by the limitations of a mechanical hard drive.
It seems that defragmentation of an SSD from a performance standpoint is debatable.
But you are saying that solid state devices do not create fragments, which is false.
by design they fragment. It's called wear leveling to prevent wear from one sector of the memory block or page. if not it would use one specific block or page over and over causing premature failure. all flash memory and ssd use the same type of wear leveling. Yes defragmenting flash memory or a ssd will not increase performance and will cause more wear doing more harm than help. SSD and flash memory life expectancy is based on a number read/write cycle. That's why I suggested formatting the sd card instead of defragmenting which is nothing but hundreds or thousands read/write cycles.
I did state defragging SD cards IS controversial, but there's more than the standard retort against doing so. Visit the Wizcode statements and THEIR concepts and decide independently, if not only worth doing, but actually beneficial for performance.
It's when one finds a heavily populated SD card that won't even mount on PC desktop anymore, that in fact there's repair solutions available.
PMP is TWO tools: 1st: error detection and repair and 2nd: OPTIONAL defragging.
It's pointless to dismiss a utility without actually using it.
bmhome1 said:
It's pointless to dismiss a utility without actually using it.
Click to expand...
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I can use windows to scan and fix errors on a sd card. There is no bennefit to defragmenting a sd card as I stated just more wear. So I am going to dissmiss a product that someone is trying to sell me that doen't give a real solution to a problem but actually does more harm than good. But it's your money do what you want with it.
What is actually wearing on a card? There's no moving parts like a HDD. Fragmentation can occur on any read/write media. As it gets used, files get deleted (installing and uninstalling programs), moved (photos and music), and other I/O operations that cause things to get scattered. Defragmentation can optimize how things are stored. No, there isn't the problem of the write/read heads jumping all over the disk to find fragmented data, but by defraging the card you limit the space lost from improper cluster size usage.
SSD running an OS and SD storage for 99% PLAYBACK have NO relationship.
Simply, does a 1.5GB video run smoother not broken up into 20 pieces vs one contiguous file? Absolutely, no matter what it's stored on.
That's enough reason alone to have PMP onboard.
It's free, fully functional 30 day trial. It's 2.5MB. It's $7.50 - 15.00 invested after liking enough to buy. What is the issue?!?
Oh, precious write cycles used up. I doubt my 32GB SD won't get retired long, long before 100,000 cycles.
Anyways, I defragged ONCE so far, and don't expect to EVER again...unless mysterious slowdowns creep up.
Then simply run the damn app and find out exactly what it reports and act accordingly...
or blame Win6.5, Sense, card speed or whatever less-informed conclusions to dream up.
Personally, I don't have the time.
Also, anyone who has actually transferred 15GB from SD to PC and back knows how agonizing long the process. And error checking/repair using Windows desktop is equally endless waiting. That is, IF that's an option, what do you do when the SD card can only be reformatted offered?
Miami_Son said:
What is actually wearing on a card? There's no moving parts like a HDD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Solid state memory is limited to a certain number of read/write cycles before failure (unlike HDD, which can theoretically be re-written infinitely . . . its the mechanical parts that fail). And de-fragging solid state memory actually requires many read-write cycles. Assassin is right about that.
But its controversial how long it will actually take to make an SSD or SD card fail. Some have theorized decades, and even de-fragging it on a regular basis isn't going to make much of a difference. Some claim the life spans of these devices will be much shorter. The formats have not been around long enough to really know.
Just as with hard drives, the greater the FREE space on the SD card starting out, the quicker and less taxing on write cycles. In other words, DON'T wait until your SD card is close to full (at least 10% minimum free space traditionally) and expect defragging to go smoothly and/or fast. The less free space available the more churning processing.
My 32GB card freshly loaded with 15GB from retired 16GB SD and numerous movies (totalling around 17GB) had low level of fragmentation (under 15%) and defragged quickly (five minutes) due to all the free space to shuffle files. The most fragmented file was a 1GB video for some reason. It was hardly a drama event, greatly helped by exceptionally informative GUI during processing.
Pocket Mechanic Pro has been around almost a decade, going back to Win Mobile 2002. It defragged my 2003 iPaq's very, very expensive 4GB SD card too many times to count. That card is still in use today.
The wear cycle concern is blown WAY out of proportion. Since 2001, I've been abusing dozens upon dozens CF, SD, SDHC and microSDHC filling up repeatedly, reformatting, defrag when needed, never a single burp from any (anybody want 32MB CF cards
Ironically, Intel's first SSD launch didn't go so well. The lightning speed fell off a cliff very quickly, due to guess what. Their next-generation SSD revised algorithms addressed slowdowns along with the timely introduction of trim command. This was all in the past year. It's hardly time yet to become didactic regarding SSD's.
.......right in the middle of a super demanding day, the message "damaged SD Card / Reformat" appeared on my Epic, when I least expected it (inopportune is the word)............ changing firmware is never without its more interesting moments, + this may or may not be a symptom (went froyo to gingerbread), however,........... am sharing this post to the Epic community, as i sense this to be an important enough issue...........no one really knows the specific cause of sd card corruption + failure: it's variable + always somewhat circumstantial (ie, saw it mentioned elsewhere that overheating from an overclocked cpu could cause damage as well)...................so, moving forward I simply want to contribute as a brief description, here, how i was able to recover (most) of the files from my 'damaged micro sd card:'
First, when i saw 'damaged sd card / format card' on the phone, when it became possible 4 me to do so many hours later, instead of 'formatting' I replaced the damaged card for a new one (pny 16gb sdhc class 10)...booted the phone everything was fine (15.91gb space available)........as expected, no files in the SD Card......................next:
(1) placed 'damaged' sd card into the reader that came w/ the device, and mounted to pc, selected the drive (followed by confirmation beep 'device detected' sound, then the language: 'd:\ not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable' came on the screen..........went to RUN and typed CMD........from new window, I typed Chkdsk d: /r and the PC began reading the contents of the damaged SD card (most of the android zip files etcetera were there, as were a number of files w/ no content) + next i typed 'exit' (no quotations, just the letters) to return to the windows desktop.......OK, so now the only files missing are the pix + video mov's (far as I can remember).
..........(2) next, to recover pix + video, from the pc desktop i opened ZARecovery (if you do not already have it go to Data Recovery Software, Solutions, Tutorials, Forum - ZAR Data Recovery and download the free recovery program from that site).
.............(3) from the ZARrecovery main page, selected sd card as device, selected 'next', selected 'root' folder for all files that ZAR was able to detect as recoverable, entered destination folder name (for transfer of recovered pix + video to PC....note: NEVER to sd card itself!), + lastly, selected 'start copying selected files'.........and that was it, closed ZAR + began viewing the content of the recovery folder to get an assessment of what had actually been recovered, and what had been lost.................fortunately 4 me, the loss was minimal, as I tend to create backups (Nandroids, every half year; pic, videos, email attachments = pretty regularly).
Hope this helps those of you that have been experiencing microSD Card damage (from whatever source).
Remember, + not to speak to the Choir, but can not to overstate this: BACKUP............. BACKUP............. BACKUP.............BACKUP
MODS STICKY THIS!!!!
Sent from my SPH-D700 using xda premium
I see you took my advice, nice.
PLEASE STICKY!
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Thank you to the Mod that stickied this. Sonarchist...you have arrived!
sonarchist said:
.......fortunately 4 me, the loss was minimal, as I tend to create backups (Nandroids, every half year; pic, videos, email attachments = pretty regularly).
Hope this helps those of you that have been experiencing microSD Card damage (from whatever source).
Remember, + not to speak to the Choir, but can not to overstate this: BACKUP............. BACKUP............. BACKUP.............BACKUP
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yikes! I make nandroids before I do anything I consider major like updating Superuser when the reviews are sketchy, or when I do something like apply a new patch, a new tweak, or anything that I think could give me trouble. As I have my phone tuned absolutely perfect, where I want to bring my phone back to normal with a minimum of work.
I guess I am lazy. I nandroid every 3 to 7 days.
mouseglider said:
I nandroid every 3 to 7 days.
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Click to collapse
.....you're awesome!.......my personal history, when I find stability, is to live w/ a perfect set-up for as long as i can surf that wave (hence: nandroid every 6 mo's)........but this is being idealistic.........for example, when testing a beta ROM, an average of at least 6-9 nandroids in the sd card thru several versions of the beta, and at least 3 in the Nandroid Folder in the pc (which is altogether another story: visualizing + creating a pc backup that is operative in a worse-case scenario.)
sonarchist said:
.....you're awesome!.......my personal history, when I find stability, is to live w/ a perfect set-up for as long as i can surf that wave (hence: nandroid every 6 mo's)........but this is being idealistic.........for example, when testing a beta ROM, an average of at least 6-9 nandroids in the sd card thru several versions of the beta, and at least 3 in the Nandroid Folder in the pc (which is altogether another story: visualizing + creating a pc backup that is operative in a worse-case scenario.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I should add that one of the reason I nandroid so often, is that if I do it every 3 to 4 months (on my wife's epic because she travels) when she gets back, I have a ton of updates to catch up on - mine of course is always up to date.
mouseglider said:
I should add that one of the reason I nandroid so often, is that if I do it every 3 to 4 months (on my wife's epic because she travels) when she gets back, I have a ton of updates to catch up on - mine of course is always up to date.
Click to expand...
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Haha! Same with me and my GFs...she never updates! So if your sd card crashes you will seriously need this tutorial since all your nandroids are there.
Awesome info. Thanks for sharing!
kennyglass123 said:
Haha! Same with me and my GFs...she never updates! So if your sd card crashes you will seriously need this tutorial since all your nandroids are there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am so paranoid about sd crashes and corruption because I have had my share when upgrading to the next bigger card (had a 2,4,8,16, and now 32gb in each epic) that I sync my epic cards to my PC on two separate drives for both my wife and myself (my PC has three physical (not virtual)l hard drives C, D, E) every 3 to 4 weeks. So for her, I am pretty safe except for those long updates in between her trips home. I feel pretty safe in case I do something stupid, which I do from time to time.
I actually tried to convince her to get an iPhone, because I think there would be less updates than Android, but she won't give up the physical KB. Not that I don't like updates, but I set her epic to be a 98% clone of mine, so we each have a lot of apps and each app is eventually updated and often!
mouseglider said:
I should add that one of the reason I nandroid so often, is that if I do it every 3 to 4 months (on my wife's epic because she travels) when she gets back, I have a ton of updates to catch up on - mine of course is always up to date.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
NITDH.......you don't want that!........(nandroid-in-the-dog-house)....lol
.........arrival of the backup evangelists!
kennyglass123 said:
Thank you to the Mod that stickied this. Sonarchist...you have arrived!
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........a hi-5 to the Mods for Sticky'ing this: thanks guys!....... props to kennyglass123 + xopher.hunter for suggesting it to 'em.............nothing more stressful than going down that gopher hole attempting to recover data, it's no picnic!...........so am hopeful that we can salvage some valuable data + find ways to hinder that inevitable moment when the sd card reads 0%.............as they say, there's many more ways than 1 to skin a grape, or in this case, a corrupt microSD Card.
There is an undelete beta app on the market. Check it out.
Also, check out testdisk for when the partition table is fried.
Also, recuva. Pretty awesome, by the makers of ccleaner.
sent from my always aosp epic
mouseglider said:
I am so paranoid about sd crashes and corruption because I have had my share when upgrading to the next bigger card (had a 2,4,8,16, and now 32gb in each epic) that I sync my epic cards to my PC on two separate drives for both my wife and myself (my PC has three physical (not virtual)l hard drives C, D, E) every 3 to 4 weeks. So for her, I am pretty safe except for those long updates in between her trips home. I feel pretty safe in case I do something stupid, which I do from time to time.
I actually tried to convince her to get an iPhone, because I think there would be less updates than Android, but she won't give up the physical KB. Not that I don't like updates, but I set her epic to be a 98% clone of mine, so we each have a lot of apps and each app is eventually updated and often!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gr8 backup regimen..........'best practices' worthy.........given the 1,000 cumulative hrs leading to your perfect setup, worth all the special handling to keep devices singing!
props on the recovery
Mine took a dump today but it may be a total failure. I just got home and this is what the preliminary tests show. I would appreciate any input.
chkdsk
The type of the file system is RAW.
CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives.
testdisk
Capacity incorrectly showed at 8225kb/8032kb (16gb card)
Analyze feature reports a Partition Rear Error
As a sidenote, the TitaniumBackup sync-to-Dropbox feature has probably saved my butt as far as apps/data goes. I highly suggest using it to protect against dead cards.
Sadly SD cards and USB sticks are very unreliable when it comes to data. They are easily damage and anything slight can cause them to be corrupted.
This is a great guide, glad you were able to restore your data!
Most data in flash type memory cards (excepting physical cracks in the microSD Card housing + damage to the memory chip itself) can be recovered w/ several DIY software programs available on the android market..........ugothkd shared a few of these, several posts up.........in the event that there is NO BACKUP available to you + having exhausted all personal DIY recovery avenues, there are still ways to step-up the process and very likely recover some of your data..........am quoting the following language from Recoverfab (maker of enterprise flash readers to the trade):
'In general, there are two reasons why the data on memory flash devices (cards, USB-sticks, SSD) becomes inaccessible.
Logical damage prevents access to the data/pictures on the drive, but the drive is still physically recognized by the computer operating system. In this case some specialized types of recovery software can help. Sometimes free recovery tools like Zero Assumption Recovery can also solve this problem.
Physical damage causes the drive to be unrecognized by the computer's operating system, making it impossible to access the contents of the flash-memory chip. This type of damage happens in more than 80% of all known cases. These are most frequently caused by electrical problems that lead to physical damage. Flash devices consist of a memory chip and a controller. The controller writes and reads the data from the memory chip. In most cases, recovery is possible from a flash device with a damaged controller and mostly undamaged memory chips.
Formatting is required? The controller of the memory card is not in the position to inform the PC operating system about the characteristics of the memory card. Therefore, the PC assumes that the memory card is not formatted and requests formatting. One might think that the memory card problems would be solved by formatting, but unfortunately it does not work due to the damaged controller. Instead, the computer will communicate that formatting is not possible. Such an error is a clear indicator that no kind of software (including special formatting or rescue software!!) will be able to access the memory card.
.....Recovery Process: If the flash storage device is not recognized in the computer or it is impossible to access the data on it, there is only one way to get the data: unsolder the memory chip from the printed circuit board and directly access the raw data with a programmable chip reader.' <end quote>
OK......that was a long quote!.....worth repeating, if only to begin to address the sort of things that can damage / corrupt SD Cards (+ also to give those of you that really want to recover your lost data super badly some HOPE).
Heat, liquid, dust, some of the things that WILL damage your SD Card (numerous other things can corrupt your data as well) .....then you hear cases of individuals that have NEVER HAD ANY DAMAGE WHATSOEVER...........some burnin' Q's: is the fragile nature of the card itself doomed to failure? ...If the card is going to fail eventually, what kind of data would you be willing to risk storing in there?...... if the data is that important to you, would you be willing to make a 'twin' copy? (twin SD Card could be swapped quickly in case of ER) ..... + lastly, has anyone here found a fail-safe or fairly sound way to run voluminous or frequent data transfers between your device's SD Card + pc?
sonarchist said:
Most data in flash type memory cards............. if the data is that important to you, would you be willing to make a 'twin' copy? (twin SD Card could be swapped quickly in case of ER) ..... + lastly, has anyone here found a fail-safe or fairly sound way to run voluminous or frequent data transfers between your device's SD Card + pc?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup, I have a spare twin identical card Lexar 32gb class 10 waiting in the wings as a backup.
I use a program that can transfer and/or sync in many different ways my card to my PC, which I do every three or four weeks. It is called FolderMatch v3.44. I am sure there is a newer version out, but the one I have does the job
I simply plug my USB cable into my PC and the other end into my epic and simply choose synchronize, then chose make left folder (my PC) to be the same as the right folder (my epic) - depending on how many files you are syncing determines the speed of the sync. Works good for me!
quick99si said:
Mine took a dump today but it may be a total failure. I just got home and this is what the preliminary tests show. I would appreciate any input.
chkdsk
The type of the file system is RAW.
CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives.
testdisk
Capacity incorrectly showed at 8225kb/8032kb (16gb card)
Analyze feature reports a Partition Rear Error
As a sidenote, the TitaniumBackup sync-to-Dropbox feature has probably saved my butt as far as apps/data goes. I highly suggest using it to protect against dead cards.
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ZAR has an 'unformat' option for Raw File Systems, you may want to explore if there is data remaining in your SD Card that you may want to recover (there's a brief tutorial posted on their website) ........ here's a glimpse:
"Unformat is the process of data recovery from a storage device (which can be a hard drive, a camera memory card, an USB pen drive) that was formatted.
The step-by-step tutorial below describes the procedure to recover data when the drive was accidentally formatted and you want to unformat the drive Windows reports "raw filesystem", or the drive is "not formatted" <end quote>
The above makes reference to a specific type of recovery (accidental format of a drive, as an example), but the application will recover from a number of file types + systems............worth checking it out.
*edit* as another example, 'accidental format of a drive' can also refer to split-second decisions we make when we guickly hit 'reformat sd card' on our device the very first time we ever encounter a 'corrupted external card / reformat?' type of message........in the moment, life goes on + it's only later that we begin to think of the lost data..................however, chances are pretty good that the data is recoverable (files are still inside the 'reformatted' sd card, only unreadable, ie RAW).
Hi,
It's the 2nd time that my SDcard stops working. Overall using SDcards on my SGS3 and now SGS4 - I have lost 4 cards (in a period of 1.5 years).
I am making sure that I am buying a Class-10 cards and they are usuaully 16Gb or 32Gb (the one that I've just lost is a Polaroid 16Gb class-10 - not the cheapest one).
What I see right now is that some folders has files that seems to be corrupted. For example DCIM folder has a file that looks like uAMERA (instead of CAMERA) and its at a size of 0b (this is a folder obviously and I cannot modify that name anymore).
All the files under the Titanium backup has weird names now.
My questions are:
1. Is there any type of tool (something like an 'fsck', etc.) that can actually try to recover whatever got corrupted on this card?
2. Is there any recommendation, anyone who had a good experience using an SDcard over 6 months or so, What should I buy as the next SDcard?
3. Is there an application that will check the SDcard 'health' and will, hopefully alert, that something is starting to get wrong with the SDcard? (not sure if that is even possible).
Thanks,
Gil.
Positive experiences using Samsung class 10 cards. Used a 32GB-version for over two years in my SGS2 and now a 64GB one in the SGS4, all without any problems whatsoever :good:
Get Samsung microsd card. Been using it since I got my S4 and no problems so far.
After i had a few cheap memory cards fall apart, i now only buy Samsung as they are very durable, see below.
Samsung Memory cards can endure 24 hours submerged in water and survive being run over by a 1.6 ton vehicle (SDHC, SDXC), not to mention the perils of airport x-ray machines, magnetism and extreme temperatures.
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Click to collapse
John.
I can recommend you an ADATA micro SD cards (as well as SD cards). It`s got great performance, stability and price. Now i`ve got my third one which is 32GB ADATA mSD card with 28Mb/s read and 18Mb/s write. (five or lifetime warranty depends on country)
I recommend Samsung microsd! I never had problems with my 32 GB microsd
Enviado de meu GT-I9505 usando o Tapatalk 2
I've had 2 issues with my SanDisk 32GB Class 10.
First time it stopped mounting and kept trying to "repair itself." Brought it to pc.. the card had all my files but it was super laggy. I couldn't access anything, even though the files were there. I ended up formatting. Worked afterwards.
Second issue was it un-mounting and showing blank or unsupported files.. I was watching an episode of The Simpsons, the next file I opened was a Family Guy episode.. that's when it decided to stopped working. Restarting phone didn't work so I shut down and removed the sd card.. worked after reinserting.
None of my files were corrupted/virus
But so far..its working. Good thing I sync with Dropbox.. would have lost all my pictures and video's..
I'm using Transcend MicroSDXC 64GB UHS-I. At first i got bad memory, the card stop working or got error after copying 31GB of data or if i format the memory (non-quick format) it will give error after 51%.
After replacing the card, it looks ok now.
My G S4 just did the same thing... uAmera or the microAmera folder... All photos are gone. Tried recovering with no luck so far. Anyone else experience this?