My Android phone has a 64gb SD card that has gradually be filling up.  It reports that it has approx 8gb spare, but the phone started throwing up the odd error about problems reading/writing to the card.

Didn’t think too much of it as the phone also reports it is full and thought it was related.  I’ve put the card into my Chromebook and after spending ages deleting old video and photos, I ejected and then re-inserted the card only to find all the deleted stuff was back on the card.  I tried putting the card into a USB stick for reading SD cards with the same results.

I’ve messed around a bit and the Chromebook keeps slapping my wrist as it detects the card being unplugged without ejecting, I changed the name of the card but it won’t change it a second time.  I can view photos and videos on the Chromebook but when I try to copy/transfer them onto the Chromebook or direct to another SD card it thinks I’ve pulled the card out, tells me off, and then see’s the card inserted again, it’ll do this about 3 times before ignoring the card.

I’m sure I bought it somewhere reputable but I am wondering if its a fake card that is miss-reporting its size, and is now so full that it cannot do anything (including deleting stuff).  Has anyone got any tips or tricks to copy the data on the card, its not so much the photos as they are mostly backed up to the cloud, but there are apps using it for storage and I’d quite like to transfer all that stuff to the new card.

Getting a windoze laptop in a couple of weeks but would like to at least get my phone working properly again, once I have the PC I will try a low level format on the card…

SD cards, especially microSD are finicky. Well known brands can just suddenly crap out. I’ve got stacks of cards that have died. Some recoverable, some die totally and can’t be recovered even with the best tools, low level formats and partitioning. Some just not recognised at all.

Been told from hardware work guys that you have to look for specific brands and chipsets, though I don’t know what those are myself.

I’ve often stuck with SanDisk or Samsung with better results but been told even those can be poor depending on the model or batch.

Thanks, yeh the last card was Sandisk and Ive bought another (cheap, but its Halfords so should be genuine)

64gb is under £20 on their website which is half the price of Argos/Sainsburys etc.  I didn’t realise microSD was so flaky.

You bought an SD card from bike / car retailer? Ok….
Personally I’d get one from somewhere like e buyer, loads of deals usually.

What’s wrong with a car retailer? They don’t make the cards, but they should be sourcing them via a kosher wholesaler. Same as Argos and supermarkets.

Ebuyer, probably ok but could be sourcing cards from anywhere.  Amazon who are fulfilling orders for all sorts, all bets are off…no better than eBay. Fakes are highly likely.

Amazon who are fulfilling orders for all sorts, all bets are off…no better than eBay.

Sandisk have warrantied every SD card I’ve had go wrong from Amazon (prob 2 or 3 from the same batch now I come to think of it).

I usually don’t buy from “fulfilled by Amazon” vendors though…

There have always been loads of fake cards around and they can get into the retail chain in all sorts of ways.

They also wear out eventually – they have a finite number of reads/writes.

Personally i would get another card for your phone now and not do anything more with the bad card until you can get access to it on something a bit more useful than a chromebook.  When you can, back up the content on it and reformat and then be wary of relying on it.

I just bought some disc file recovery software (about £100) to get data of SILs only harddrive containing all her family photos (that youngest nephew had part formatted by plugging in to his Android tablet).  Got them all back but without original folder structure and possibly for a lot of them the original file name.

Might be worth it for you (or happy to have a go with it if you post the card to me after exhausting your own options).

Throw it in the bin and get a new one.  Life’s too short to be pissing about with crap SD cards.

If you get it to a PC, look at Recuva.

Thanks Simon, I’ll have a play when I get my replacement laptop,  I would send it back for warranty but don’t really want to send 54gb of personal photos and app data for the sake of a £20 card. Like you say,  confidence in the card will be low even if I can get it working again.

hmmm, chucked my SD card packaging away and then plucked it out of the bin when I noticed a black label peeking out from inside.  Peeled the packaging open fully and there is a 12 month code for some file recovery software called rescuepro.  Fingers crossed it will work 🙂  The software is labelled on the front but not very obvious so most people must not even notice it.