I Wiped My 4gb Sd Card

[imhotep]

Is there anything I should know or was I just unlucky? I've only had the unit since Christmas and the SD card became unreadable and I was forced to reformat it.

What are the possible causes?

Is the USB cable a dodgy way to transfer data? (I did some file transfers with the cable and some with card reader.)
Is it dangerous to eject the SD card while unit is displaying the desktop. (I did this a couple of times)
Should I not transfer two files at once to SD card? (I did this once or twice)
Are 4GB cards an unstable, unratified standard?
Or was I just unlucky? I have a feeling this might be the reason.

Yes I am keeping backups now!

 

[yodaofborg]

Do you use Windows XP? You should ALWAYS right click on the drive letter of your card reader/GP2X (in My Computer) and then click eject.

If you remove the SD card without doing this you risk corruption.

If you are using Linux, the command would be eject /dev/sd* (where * is the letter of your mounted card, usually a)

Again, if you do not do this, Linux will not commit any changes to the SD card, and you risk data corruption if it attempts to wrie the data while you remove it (can happen if sync() is called).

If you use a mac, it is probably a simaler command to the Linux one, but the device will be in a different place.

If you use the GP2X to write files this is especially important! The GP2X writing to the card takes a lot longer than any card reader I have tried, and even saving a game with a low battery can cause this, sometimes (Duke3D is a good example) the save game is not written to the card straight away. If it tries to write it when the batterys run out, voila, trashed SD card >.<

 

[aapje89]

Do you use Windows XP? You should ALWAYS right click on the drive letter of your card reader/GP2X (in My Computer) and then click eject.

If you remove the SD card without doing this you risk corruption.

Totally not true.

The default when you connect an usb drive is the "optimize for quick removal" option.
This disables write caching, so you can disconnect this device without using the safe removal icon.

If you want to make sure its in this mode:
right click the device in explorer, choose properties, click the hardware tab.
select the gp2x, then click properties.
Go to the policies tab and see for your self.

 

[Alex.]

While on topic, is there a command that can be called from a batch script (Windows) to eject a card from the reader?

- Alex

 

[imhotep]

An update on my card situation:-

I reformatted and reloaded my card with all my apps, etc. and everything was fine for awhile and then the next day I got another trashed SD file system. This was due to my GP2X crashing as I was loading GnGeo.

Windows couldn't format the card but could see what files were on there. Windows reported it as a RAW file system instead of FAT32. Instead of going to disk management to straighten things out (as I have since learned), I formatted the card in a digital camera and this completely trashed it. Now windows cannot even read the card let alone format it, disk management reports it as 'unreadable' and none of my other devices can do anything with it either.

My next step is to access and hopefully format the card in another OS. Win98 or Linux have had people reporting success as they use different USB drivers. I hope it works as 4 GB cards are expensive.

 

[trooper]

Are you sure, And i mean sure that the expensive 4gb card is not defective ?.

Trooper

 

[imhotep]

Yes it may very well be. If it doesn't work on Win98 or Linux I will be taking it back to retailer.

The comments on the bottom of this article are plentiful and some of them have good ideas/techniques for recovering flash cards if anyone is interested. http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/20...b-flash-drives/