SD card unformats itself

[martinkas]

I have a Dell Axim, and I use a 256 MB SD card and a Linksys 802.11b CF card at the same time. It happened to me now a few times that the SD card suddenly was no longer formatted or recognized by the system, or filled up with lots of "." folders. It seems that this happens when I removed the Linksys card, even when I turned off the PPC first. Anybody else have problems with this? Do I have a faulty card? Is there anything I can do?

Thanks,

Martin

[PPCRules]

Let me guess .... Sandisk card, right?

or not? What brand is it?

[martinkas]

Yes, it is a ScanDisk. Is there a problem with the cards?

[PPCRules]

I don't have one, so no first hand experience, but there has been discussion on this and other sites about problems people are having.

Maybe try a search for 'Sandisk sd' and you should be find some discussion and maybe what people are doing about it.

[vincentsiaw]

i also use the sandisk 256 mb, but so far no problem yet, anyway if you buy sandisk card, it should have some sort of waranty, if your card is faulty, why don't you try to complain to sandisk, who knows they give you a new card :roll:

[Dave Beauvais]

If the card is defective, SanDisk will send you a new one. However, they take their damn time giving you an RMA number to send the defective card back to them. For my recent headaches with SanDisk, please see this thread (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7466). According to UPS tracking info, they received my defective card on Tuesday afternoon. It will be interesting to see just how long it takes for the replacement to arrive.

As I said in that thread, I will never purchase another SanDisk product again, no matter how attractive the price may be.

--Dave

[Stealthboy]

So what happened with Sandisk Dave? Did you finally ever get your replacement card?

I recently purchased a Sandisk 256MB SD card with Cruzer from www.ecost.com for $68 and have had file/folder corruption problems with the card from day one. I tried reformatting it on a WinXP PC and using FlashFormat on the pocketpc using FAT16 or FAT32 as suggested in some of the forums and still had problems using it in the PocketPC. It works fine when reading and writing solely with the Cruzer.

I emailed Sandisk yesterday about the problems and asked if there is a known compatibility issue with some of their cards and Axims, but have not heard back from them yet. I decided to stop by the Best Buy near my office and purchase a different SD card. Unfortunately, the only 256MB one they carry is a Sandisk. I bought it anyway ($109 ouch) and have been testing it out for the last 2 hours, by installing programs via activesync on it (this almost always failed with the other card) and it's working flawlessly.

I did notice that the (2 week) old card is labelled "AR0301LR TAIWAN" and the new one is "AR0303LR TAIWAN". Maybe the AR0301LR batch is not compatable with the AXIMs for some reason? I'm definitely returning the 301 card.

[Stealthboy]

Update...

A tech at Sandisk emailed me back and said that there are no known issues with their 256MB SD Card and Dell Axims. I let him know about my solution of getting a AR0303LR card instead. It can't be that simple...

[Brad Adrian]

I, too, had a SanDisk SD card that I used with my Axim. After a couple of days, the same thing happened to me. I replaced the SD card with a different brand and haven't had a problem since.

I can't imagine that there's any kind of interaction going on between the Dell and SanDisk cards; I think it's just crummy cards.

[Dave Beauvais]

So what happened with Sandisk Dave? Did you finally ever get your replacement card? ...
Honestly, I meant to update that thread with the outcome of this whole situation, but forgot. I did get my replacement card, but it was three days short of a month from the date they received my defective one to the date the replacement arrived on my doorstep. In total, it was nearly two full months from the date the original card died to the replacement arriving. Totally unacceptable.:evil:

The replacement card seems to be working okay, though just yesterday I tried to delete a WMV file from the card using File Explorer and was told it couldn't be deleted. Refreshing the folder list showed the file wasn't there anymore, but Storage Tools v1.5 (http://www.softwinter.com/storagetools.html) on the PPC and chkdisk on my WinXP box found several lost clusters and two cross-linked files. I had this same problem with the previous card.

Since you mentioned numbers on the back of the card, the replacement has AR0302LR stamped on the back, and is made in China. The original card -- which was included with the Cruzer -- was made in Taiwan and had 0206LR stamped on it. (No "AR" at the beginning.)

I still maintain that I will never purchase another SanDisk product.

--Dave

[Stealthboy]

Update...

A tech at Sandisk emailed me back and said that there are no known issues with their 256MB SD Card and Dell Axims. I let him know about my solution of getting a AR0303LR card instead. It can't be that simple...

And it wasn't. I'm having the same problems with the new card. I'll be returning both of the Sandisk cards and purchasing a different brand also.

[PetiteFlower]

for the record, I've had no problems with my 256k sandisk sd card...it has AR0301LR Taiwan on the back.

[targetdrone]

My Sandisk 128mb SD card pulled 'The Amazing Vanishing Data Trick' last night. I am going to Best Buy to change it later today. This just sucks. I didn't lose anything I didn't have backed up, but it was very inconvenient.

[Stealthboy]

Following up...

I returned the two "bad" Sandisk cards and replaced them with a Lexar 256MB SD card. It has been working flawlessly for the last week. Dave, I will be avoiding Sandisk cards from now on also.

BTW, www.ecost.com has the Lexar 256MB SD cards for only $49 after a $20 rebate and free shipping and their customer service has been superb through the return process for the "bad" Sandisk card.

[wizardmaster2k]

i have also had this problem. a lot of "." folders also appear and some data is lost. this only happens when i send data to the card from active sync. before i updated my ROM, i never had this problem. just last night i took my card out for a few seconds then re-inserted it, and it wanted me to format it. this made me mad, lost all of my data. it came with the cruzer for 69$ from ecost.

[yschang]

After reading all your unfortunate stories,
even though I'm not using a Sandisk card,
I now back up the whole content of my SD card regularly as well...
Just in case... :wink: