Is It Possible For A Sd Reader To Damage Sd Cards?

[Alex.]

As of late, my el-cheap-o SD card reader started to mess up every now and then: I plug the card in and its name is not registered in the Windows Explorer, and its file system is seen as 'RAW'. This first happened to a cheap 512mb card, which was damaged to such extent that it cannot be read or formatted by any device. Unfortunately, my good Sandisk cards start showing the same symptoms. Is it possible the reader can damage the cards in such a manner?

Thanks!

 

[Squidge]

It can delete the file system, make the card partitionless, etc, but its difficult to damage the card as such. Some card readers will refuse to talk to a card thats completely blank however, so you may want to pop it in your gp2x and run mkfs on it (if thats available on the gp2x, I've not looked). An alternative is to dd a card of the same size via samba).

 

[poodle]

I suppose it's not impossible that a reader could damage a card, but it's not likely either. Damage data certainly, damage hardware unlikely.

But in your OP, you mention an instance where the card was damaged. I think you answer your own question, unless I'm misunderstanding you.

In any case, if I felt like a card was damaged from the cheap reader, I wouldn't continue to use it. Get another reader just to be safe.

 

[Alex.]

I suppose it would be for the best to just buy a quality Sandisk reader. Till then I'll use the GP2X.

Thanks for your insight!