Hi, i’ve just bought a nokia n8 and thought i’d buy a 32gb micro sd hc card to download my music on to. While downloading the music onto the card the computer started running really, really slowly so I stopped the download but the computer was still very slow so I tried to turn it off which it wouldn’t do and in the end I had to switch it off. Now when I try to use the sd card it says it needs formatting but it won’t let me format it. It also shows the card size as 8mb. I’ve tried looking around on the internet and trying different formatting tools but none work. I’ve read about partitioning tools but as you can gather I don’t have much of a clue with this type of stuff.

There seems to be a lot of knowledgable IT guys on here and wondered if someone could help or point me in the right direction?

can your card reader/PC cope with a 32Gb card?

How to Test Faulty Memory Cards

Sounds like a fake 32Gb card, I had one, which was only 256mb.

good point milkie – I got a fake 4Gb a couple of years ago off ebay. I threatened the seller with the fuzz etc and got a refund but now only buy cards from reputable retailers like 7dayshop, crucial or Play.

The card did show 32gb before I started using it. Might be a stupid question but how do I check my computers card readers capability?

The card has probably been told to report a capacity of 32GB, but in fact is nothing like that.

Did it cost less than about £60? You know the saying, if it’s too good to be true…

Yeah it was off Ebay, supposedly good make, Kingston class4. I transfered 1 album to make sure all was ok then tried to transfer my whole library about 31gb and only got about 10% of it on then as I said started going really slow. As with most things like this am now wiser and should have checked that it was in fact 32gb with the above tool! I’m guessing that it has corrupted the card beyond repair? Try and get my money back I suppose but didn’t pay by paypal so don’t hold out much hope. Thanks all for your help, if anyone thinks it can be repaired/recovered let me know.

Whether or not it says it’s a good make means nothing… if I was going to fake SD cards, I’d copy the big brands!

Was it from a reputable seller, that’s the real question. As per Flaperon, about the cheapest you’ll get one is £60.

Copying one album won’t show you it’s ok if it’s reporting the wrong capacity. Almost certainly a fake. Try formatting it in the phone (use the file manager, under applications, office) and try copying stuff again. Does it fail about the same point again? If so, fake.

Having had very similar problems, sounds like a fake to me. Try http://www.sdcard.org/consumers/formatter/ If that doesn’t work, I’d just buy another one from a trustworthy dealer.

Is the PC running Windows Vista by any chance ? (I used to have lots of problems on Vista with copy times…solved with Windows 7!) Might not be the card…if you have access to another computer (XP or Windows 7) try again. If it’s Vista best I know is to copy small chunks at a time if / when it plays funny buggers.

(but doesn’t explain the 8Mb problem)

What happens if you stick it in the phone and format it there?

Seems extremely likely that the card is fake – Kingston is a major target for fraudsters in China who manufacture counterfeit and fake capacity memory items (USB flash drives, memory cards MP players etc)- even some reputable retail stores have been known to sell fakes without realising!

I suggest you download h2testw (there is a link to the download on my WordPress blog) – as you bought it on ebay (where 99% of flash memory is fake) it is fairly likely that one of our team may have written a warning about your seller!

they’re ^ watching us you know 😯

I contacted the seller explained the problem and asked for a replacement or my money back and said that if I was offered a replacement I would be checking it to make sure it was 32gb. To be fair to him he offered me a refund so hopefully that will come through and i’ll buy one from a reliable source. Lesson learned!!!