Another SD Card bites the dust

Kirby Johnson · Feb 10, 2017

Another 64 Gbyte SD card suddenly stopped working this morning. I use mostly the SanDisk "Ultra Plus" cards.
This one was marked XC I. I got a few some time ago from Ebarf which were fake capacities, so now I buy all of them locally. The last few have come from WalMart.

This one just suddenly could not be read. The computer initially said it needed to be formatted. Of course that failed, and the card was pretty much dead. This is the second time this has happened in the past 6 months or so.

My laptop and desktop machines are Dells with built in card readers, so it should not be the fault of the machines, and everything else is name brand stuff like Canon or Samsung, which should not destroy a card. Just curious.

chapy23 · Feb 10, 2017

maybe try to format it using a Linux machine, it's more powerfull.
it can also be material defective :-(

good luck.

glen e · Feb 10, 2017

These cards are pretty indestructible, I'd investigate your hardware.

chapy23 · Feb 10, 2017

@glen e is right, maybe try with another card reader or another usb port.

Kirby Johnson · Feb 10, 2017

chapy23 said:
maybe try to format it using a Linux machine, it's more powerfull.
it can also be material defective :-(

good luck.

Actually that is where it failed in a Mint Cinnamon machine. I went through several iterations of installing the exFat fuze packages until I finally tried another card and discovered it was my card, not the machine. Went over to a Win 7 machine and verified it was the card.

I mean, it is not the end of the world, and there was not anything on the card which was not a copy of something, how much are SD cards now for 64 Gig, $19 or so? Still p***** me off.

chapy23 · Feb 10, 2017

if you are not able to create partition using FDISK linux and format with mkfs.ext, forget it i will never work neither in a Win X machine :-(

Philltayl · Feb 10, 2017

chapy23 said:
if you are not able to create partition using FDISK linux and format with mkfs.ext, forget it i will never work neither in a Win X machine :-(

Beware your Android/IOS/DJI devices all use UNIX.......

chapy23 · Feb 10, 2017

You know what @Philltayl i work all day with Nux thing.
My main day PC is Debian 8.x and i sysadmin 40 boxs running Linux

My phone is Notes 3 running custom ROM build by myself.

So, no problem with that OS

Kirby Johnson · Feb 10, 2017

Appreciate all the replies. Yup, tried all that. Tried different cards in different machines and it is def the card. I do not agree that SD cards are virtually indestructible. I have destroyed several of them over the last 5 years or so. I used to think the same, and they are pretty impervious to the elements and physical abuse. I even dug out my old Samsung S5 phone and tried it in it and it reported defective card. So maybe I just have bad electricity.

Philltayl · Feb 10, 2017

chapy23 said:
You know what @Philltayl i work all day with Nux thing.
My main day PC is Debian 8.x and i sysadmin 40 boxs running Linux

My phone is Notes 3 running custom ROM build by myself.

So, no problem with that OS

Sarcasm is lost on you.....

Mr. Salty · Feb 10, 2017

Kirby Johnson said:
Appreciate all the replies. Yup, tried all that. Tried different cards in different machines and it is def the card. I do not agree that SD cards are virtually indestructible. I have destroyed several of them over the last 5 years or so. I used to think the same, and they are pretty impervious to the elements and physical abuse. I even dug out my old Samsung S5 phone and tried it in it and it reported defective card. So maybe I just have bad electricity.

If you've destroyed several you might want to consider whether you or your equipment is the problem. At the very least I don't know why you'd keep buying a brand of card that keeps failing on you.

Have yo had the cards replaced by SanDisk under warranty?

AlecW · Feb 10, 2017

I killed one with static electricity the other day. I literally saw an arc between my finger and the card as I put it in my computer.

Kirby Johnson · Feb 10, 2017

Mr. Salty said:
If you've destroyed several you might want to consider whether you or your equipment is the problem. At the very least I don't know why you'd keep buying a brand of card that keeps failing on you.

Have yo had the cards replaced by SanDisk under warranty?

First you assume a lot when you say I have destroyed the cards. All I said is that they stopped working.
There could be a lot of things you do not understand. Between the car and truck and boat stereos and other equipment, several phones, a few tablets and maybe a dozen cameras, and a laptop or two, and the little drone, there are a lot of these little things crawling around. If I have lost a few it is a small percentage.

Kirby Johnson · Feb 10, 2017

Kirby Johnson said:
First you assume a lot when you say I have destroyed the cards. All I said is that they stopped working.
There could be a lot of things you do not understand. Between the car and truck and boat stereos and other equipment, several phones, a few tablets and maybe a dozen cameras, and a laptop or two, and the little drone, there are a lot of these little things crawling around. If I have lost a few it is a small percentage.

Look fellows, I am sorry I even posted this. I simply wanted you to know that these things do fail without warning. In case you some day eventually find your card unreadable, it does happen, so don't blame your drone.

I would be really surprised if Canon, Nikon, Sony, or Samsung would let a bug out into the wild that destroys SD Cards.

Mr. Salty · Feb 10, 2017

Kirby Johnson said:
First you assume a lot when you say I have destroyed the cards. All I said is that they stopped working.

I wasn't assuming anything. I was quoting you directly. Copied and pasted: "I have destroyed several of them over the last 5 years or so."

Kirby Johnson · Feb 10, 2017

Mr. Salty said:
I wasn't assuming anything. I was quoting you directly. Copied and pasted: "I have destroyed several of them over the last 5 years or so."

Sorry I re read my post. I should have said thrown away, the second time there.

jwmcgrath · Feb 10, 2017

When I bought my drone, the cash register automatically prompted the associate to suggest a micro SD card... and obviously since I didn't own the drone yet, I didn't know everything there was to know...

So I accepted his recommendation, checked the box and noticed it would accept a 64GB card and bought the one he recommended.

Sadly, that didn't do it. Wasn't fast enough. No biggie, I'll use it in something else.

Anyway, before experimenting any more, I contacted DJI and asked for a recommendation and they sent me three:

Lexar 633X Class10 16GB MicroSDHC UHS-I SD card

Panasonic 16GB MicroSDHC UHS-3 SD card

Sandisk Extreme 16GB MicroSDHC UHS-3 SD card

My point? I found it very curious they didn't have a 64GB recommendation. I replied and asked if they had one but haven't received a response.

In the mean time, it's a habit of mine to use smaller cards and change them more often to avoid losing more than one flight worth of recording, so I'm happy.

I tried and bought four of the Lexar and have had no problems since.

Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

Kirby Johnson · Feb 10, 2017

jwmcgrath said:
When I bought my drone, the cash register automatically prompted the associate to suggest a micro SD card... and obviously since I didn't own the drone yet, I didn't know everything there was to know...

So I accepted his recommendation, checked the box and noticed it would accept a 64GB card and bought the one he recommended.

Sadly, that didn't do it. Wasn't fast enough. No biggie, I'll use it in something else.

Anyway, before experimenting any more, I contacted DJI and asked for a recommendation and they sent me three:

Lexar 633X Class10 16GB MicroSDHC UHS-I SD card

Panasonic 16GB MicroSDHC UHS-3 SD card

Sandisk Extreme 16GB MicroSDHC UHS-3 SD card

My point? I found it very curious they didn't have a 64GB recommendation. I replied and asked if they had one but haven't received a response.

In the mean time, it's a habit of mine to use smaller cards and change them more often to avoid losing more than one flight worth of recording, so I'm happy.

I tried and bought four of the Lexar and have had no problems since.

Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

Thanks for the info. Very interesting. I think I may have been lured into trying to buy and use the absolute biggest thing which will fit, especially as memory prices have gone steadily down. And with sharing cards with phones and million pixel real cameras, it is tempting. And you are right, about smaller cards. I always am in a hurry to see what I have shot and pull everything off the card every flight. Doing the arithmetic, with a 3A I probably can not even put 16 gigs on a card on one battery. Funny thing is, there are gobs of the 4, 8, and 16 cards in the little container where they all live.
Thanks again. Advice well taken.

jwmcgrath · Feb 10, 2017

Kirby Johnson said:
Thanks for the info. Very interesting. I think I may have been lured into trying to buy and use the absolute biggest thing which will fit, especially as memory prices have gone steadily down. /QUOTE]

Yes, so was I. I guess I had a newbie moment... I've been playing with DSLR's for years and it's always been my habit to use more/smaller... oops.

With a P3S, I can't fill 16GB on a battery so it's perfect... fly, change the battery and card, fly again!

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jwmcgrath · Feb 11, 2017

Interestingly enough, I got an email just this morning from DJI!

Treeice.Chen (DJI)
Feb 11, 18:21 HKT

Hi Jeff,

Currently we do not have a recommended list for larger capacity card.
But please make sure the card meets Class 10 or UHS-1.

Best Regards,
Treeice

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