Micro SD card troubles

[Rantz]

I have an 8gb Micro SD card that I use for my Nintendo DS (with M3 adapter). Recently, I accidentally removed the USB adapter from the computer while transferring files to the card.

Now my computer can't read the card anymore (I've tried with two different USB adapters), it just says I have to format the card before I can use it. But here's the thing, the DS can still read the contents of the card and use the files just fine. I'd like to avoid having to reformat if at all possible, since the files are all there and working.

[Aerith's Knight]

The problem with these little cards is that they are basically ungrounded hard drives. They are the only USB-drive things I still safely eject. :p

If your DS can read it, it could be that only the last file, the one it was transferring, is corrupted. Your DS would just ignore it, like other files you can dump on your M3.

How can't your computer read the card anymore? Does it lock up? Does it just not see the card anymore?

[Mirage]

Sounds to me like the file system has gotten a bit of corruption, and the DS isn't as picky on that stuff as the PC is. Do you have any way to backup the stuff that is on your memory card using the DS itself?

[Rantz]

The PC recognises the card, but when I try to open it in Explorer a dialogue tells me I have to format the drive in order to use it.

I don't think I can backup files using my DS, unfortunately. I have backups, just not very recent ones, so I'd be losing a good deal of save data.

Edit: I tried to reformat anyway. Now it's telling me that formatting was unsuccessful. :(

[Mirage]

There's no guarantee it'll work in this case, but if you use a somewhat more advanced partition manager like fdisk, you could delete the partition, and remake a partition exactly like the previous, and keep the data intact. I did it once many years ago but I don't remember exactly how :(. Maybe Clout or Aexoden remembers how!

[crono_logical]

I'd see if the thing's readable under linux first (bootable knoppix, ubuntu live CD and the like, or even PartedMagic CD if you want a small but decent one), windows can be naff with damaged filesystems :p

I'm not so sure you can repartition SD devices like you can normal USB devices - even repartitioning USB sticks (not HDs, they show up as a different class of hardware to the computer) is dodgy since Windows refuses to access beyond the first partition. It's ok if you want to hide linux-only stuff on a second partition though :p In any case, I doubt deleting and recreating the partition will help if the file allocation table itself inside the partition is corrupt - doing such a thing won't fix the corruption. You're best off getting the thing readable and copying the contents elsewhere, then reformat (all outside of Windows) :p

[Rantz]

I have an Ubuntu partition installed already, so I'll try that. Thanks.

Ubuntu sez (when I double click the card): "Unable to mount location".

I'm prepared to do a reformat if that's what it takes just to have the card working again, but I can't seem to do that either. Windows says "Formatting unsuccessful" or something to that effect as soon as I press format, and if I understand correctly I can't reformat it in Ubuntu until I mount it, which I can't.

[Aerith's Knight]

panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/sd_formatter.html

Professional format tool for SD cards.

If it's not succesful, I'll give you another program over email.

[Rantz]

The program says the card type is not supported. Mine is a Sandisk MicroSD, and that one appears to be for Panasonic regular SD.

Thanks for trying to help. :)

[Aerith's Knight]

PM me your email and I'll send you another one, a general one for every type of hard disk. (about 2 MB)

edit: Megauploaded it: USB format tool (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PFURDLLF)

[Rantz]

Each application gives a new error message. :p

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/8794/nopeu.png

[Aerith's Knight]

Lol, sorry, but I gotta bail out here. I'm out of answers. xD

[Rantz]

I guess I'll just use it as a "locked" storage and buy a new card for adding stuff on. :p

[Shlup]

Blow in it.

[Vyk]

I had a similar problem to this. My MicroSD for my phone, Vista started to hate it. Kept wanting to reformat it. XP read it just fine though. As did my phone. I defragged it then ran scandisk on it from XP and then Vista was fine with it. Sounds like you're having a bit more trouble though. I can't remember if the adapters for those have slide locks on them. Is it actually locked? Oh well, you've probably moved on by now either way lol

[Rantz]

I got a new card to add stuff on, although I'm still using the old one for the games already on it, so problem semi-solved.