My Gp2x Destroyed My 1 Gb Sd Card :(

[statikeffeck]

My nearly brand new 1 GB RiDATA (66X PRO) card has been rendered seemingly unusable in any way by the GP2X, or possibly the NES Emulator.
Here's how it happened:

I was able to upgrade the firmware without problems using a 6-in-1 USB card reader to format the card & put files on it. Everything was dandy. I watched a movie, played some MP3s.... I also downloaded the NES emulator & started to play Mega Man 2 on it.
I forgot about the battery life as I was playing the game, and all of a sudden crazy white & multicolored lines appeared on the screen, and very garbled sound began to play out of the speakers. In seconds I shut the power off; I guessed that the batteries went too low.
I put new batteries in, and find that now the GP2X won't even get to the green loading screen unless I boot without the SD card in.

When I put the card into my reader and try to access it in Windows XP, the system hangs. Even worse: I also have Linux, and I use this command:

fdisk /dev/sda

It just waits for very long time, then reports

Unable to open /dev/sda

Is there any possible way to recover my SD card? Is there any possible way to prevent this from happening? Shouldn't there be a warning that the batteries need to be replaced soon? It cost me like $50 and it was specifically for use with the GP2X.

 

[darkplayer]

just go back to the store where you buyed the sd card and say that it wont work

 

[skeezix]

Try reformatting it in Linux; the fdisk is hanging trying to find the partition table .. so just format it fresh. If its fried.. then well, warranty swap

jeff

 

[statikeffeck]

just go back to the store where you buyed the sd card and say that it wont work

​

Well, like most things I buy, I bought it online. In this case, from Newegg.com. I suppose I could use their RMA process and get a replacement.... but is this a card issue, or an issue with the GP2X or its software?

If this a software issue, people should be strongly warned not to let their batteries run out while playing the unit, or they risk frying their SD card.

Update: Something I've never experienced before: my computer won't even boot if I have this fried card inserted in the card reader plugged into the computer.
Why would a BIOS be looking at a memory card in a USB device? for booting maybe...

 

[the_spiral]

I had a similar but crucially different experience with a 1gb. It worked fine until I took it from my card reader without ejecting. At first it wouldn't work in anything (GP2X or card reader), but I took it to someone who managed to read and format it. Now it still won't work in the card reader, but it will if I put it in my camera and r/w in that. Interestingly, though, the camera itself won't write to it. It's not really a big problem, just slow and inconvenient. The card reader still works; the camera's (smaller) SD card works fine in that.
Anyway, long story of little interest to most, but if anyone has theories I'd be very glad to hear them.

 

[Robster]

If your computer is hanging when the card is in the reader, then maybe you have a BIOS which allows booting from an attached USB device. Just go into the BIOS setup on your computer and turn that option off.

Perhaps your partition table is bad. You could wipe it (I think) by typing

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
fdisk /dev/sda
n (for new partition)
w (write partition table to card)

Let us know how you get on!

 

[statikeffeck]

Perhaps your partition table is bad. You could wipe it (I think) by typing

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
fdisk /dev/sda
n (for new partition)
w (write partition table to card)

Let us know how you get on!

​

alright, after I did the first line (dd) it took about 90 seconds to report this:

root@black mcbutler # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
dd: opening `/dev/sda': No medium found

then

root@black mcbutler # fdisk /dev/sda

Unable to open /dev/sda

I know that it is not my reader or Linux setup, because using these steps I was able to work on a different 256MB SD card. I've e-mailed the company (RiDATA); hopefully they'll honor their lifetime waranty.
Let this be a warning to others! There may be a bug in the NES emulator in regard to file reading/writing!

 

[Racemaniac]

would this be similar to the smc's?
if you remove them (or powr fails) while writing they're dead and there's no way of recovering them?
if so you're screwed, such things simply aren't covered by warranty..

 

[BBTroll]

I know this might sound stupid but... are you sure that /dev/sda is the correct device?

Try pluging your reader, plug in the card, and type dmesg | tail you should get something like

SCSI device sda: 2012160 512-byte hdwr sectors (1030 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
 sda: sda1

 

[statikeffeck]

Yes, I am sure the device is /dev/sda because I was able to perform the same procedures using a different 256MB SD card I have.

The interesting part of it is that the batteries ran out a while after the ROM was loaded in the NES emulator, and there was no save data going on. This raises a serious issue with this early NES port. Perhaps the SD card is not being properly de-activated after loading? I would let the author know, but I don't know if he can understand English.

Edit: If I let Linux boot with my reader plugged in WITH the 1 GB SD card in, my USB mouse is completely disabled! The best I can do is boot linux without the card in, then insert the card later.

here is dmesg | tail

intel8x0: clocking to 48000
hw_random: RNG not detected
libata version 1.02 loaded.
ata_piix version 1.02
ata: 0x1f0 IDE port busy
ata: 0x170 IDE port busy
ata_piix: probe of 0000:00:1f.2 failed with error -16
mtrr: 0xd0000000,0x1000000 overlaps existing 0xd0000000,0x100000
atkbd.c: Spurious ACK on isa0060/serio0. Some program, like XFree86, might be trying access hardware directly.
atkbd.c: Spurious ACK on isa0060/serio0. Some program, like XFree86, might be trying access hardware directly.

here is dmesg | grep sda

Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0

 

[trooper]

Do you have access or can you gain access to another device (Digital camera, PocketPC, PalmOS device etc) that can accept an SD card, So that you can at least try and format in on of them. I had a similar problem a couple of hours ago. I was playing about with the early beta of the psx emulator and watching the intro to Final Fantasy Tatics, I then tried to enter a game and the thing froze. I power cycled my GP2x and the card wasn`t recognised, So i took out the SD card and placed it in the card reader, Still no joy, The light of the reader just stayed on and the computer became unresponsive. I tried it in one of my laptops, Which has a built-in SD reader, Same thing. I then stuck the card in my phone, Couldn`t read the contents, But was able to format the card to FAT, Stuck it back in the reader, Formated it again to Fat32, Sorted.

Breath.

Trooper

 

[(naw)mcx]

oh so phones work for that too.....*wipes sweat off head*

 

[yaustar]

Is anyone else having similar problems? Not having access to a phone/camera that takes SD cards is quite worrying for me..

 

[statikeffeck]

Do you have access or can you gain access to another device (Digital camera, PocketPC, PalmOS device etc) that can accept an SD card, So that you can at least try and format in on of them. I had a similar problem a couple of hours ago. I was playing about with the early beta of the psx emulator and watching the intro to Final Fantasy Tatics, I then tried to enter a game and the thing froze. I power cycled my GP2x and the card wasn`t recognised, So i took out the SD card and placed it in the card reader, Still no joy, The light of the reader just stayed on and the computer became unresponsive. I tried it in one of my laptops, Which has a built-in SD reader, Same thing. I then stuck the card in my phone, Couldn`t read the contents, But was able to format the card to FAT, Stuck it back in the reader, Formated it again to Fat32, Sorted.

Breath.

Trooper

​

hmmm... this is good and bad news at the same time. Good because, based on what you say, it might be possible to recover my 1 GB card. Bad because I don't think I have access to a camera or other device that accepts an SD card. I'll ask around and see if I can try it. Will post results later.