Damaged SD card, please help

[jiminie]

When I used the usb adapter it said it was a 2 gb card but it was 32 gb. right click> format. Have you tried using the normal sd card adapter instead?

Good suggestion. I will try the SD Card Adapter. Thanks.

 

[jpittelkau]

Using 32GB Cards in the Droid X

I've done a few laps over the 32GB card issue...here's what's up:

- The Droid's software cannot format 32GB cards. If you format the card in the phone, it will report as damaged and be unusable.

- The Droid cannot recognize cards that have a volume name. If you format the card using Mac OS X's Disk Utility, which requires you to name the volume before you can erase it, the card won't be recognized by the phone.

- To use a 32GB card in the Droid X, the card must be formatted as FAT-32 on a PC and not have a volume name.

If your Droid X is reporting a 32GB SD card as damaged, take the card out, put it in a card reader, plug it into a (Windows) PC and format it as FAT-32. Stick it back in the phone, let the phone "prepare" the card, and it will work.

 

[iHad a G1]

what ^ guy said. The incredible is the same way. Why are you formatting in phone anyways?

 

[jpittelkau]

I formatted the card in the phone without really thinking about it. I just figured this would be the reasonable/appropriate/safe thing to do before using a new card in a device that has marketing literature/instructions claiming 32GB support.

Little did I know this would spiral into many cycles and frustration because I'm on a Mac. I'd format the card in the phone, it would be damaged. Then, stick it into my Mac, and it would show 2GB. I'd format the card in the Mac. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This led me to get access to a coworker's PC so I could run the utility H2TestW to verify the card was not a fake. In this process, I reformatted the card on the PC, which led to the discovery that the card "magically" started working in the phone.

Many, many cycles and a huge waste of time. Also, it took a week to get a response from Motorola tech support, which was useless.

PS: Props to Sandisk, who has a page on their site about this issue. At least they are trying to get the word out that their cards do, indeed, work:

32GB microSDHC card not detected after formatting in Google Nexus One or Motorola Droid phones