What's the best way to format a microsd card for Android

[Marob Katon]

I had a Samsung 128GB microSD Card in my Samsung Galaxy S3
but files kept getting corrupted.

So, I'm putting a Sandisk 32GB card in the Android 4.3 phone
instead.

The 32GB microSD card was previously used on a Canon camera,
so I probably need to format it.

What's the best way to format an SD card in Android?

[David Taylor]

I would stick it in the PC and format it FAT32.

--
Cheers,
David
Web: http://www.satsignal.eu

[Gordon Levi]

If you can use MS Windows or Mac OS the SD Association recommend this
one <https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/>. I would follow
the format with a check using H2testw. I have not provided the
download address for H2testw because I did not find the original site
so I don't know if the ones I found add extra junk to the download.

[David Taylor]

On 11/04/2016 10:36, Gordon Levi wrote:
[]

> If you can use MS Windows or Mac OS the SD Association recommend this
> one <https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/>. I would follow
> the format with a check using H2testw. I have not provided the
> download address for H2testw because I did not find the original site
> so I don't know if the ones I found add extra junk to the download.

Download: http://www.heise.de/download/h2testw.html

[Marob Katon]

David Taylor wrote:

> Download: http://www.heise.de/download/h2testw.html

Thank you for that pointer.
Here is a google translation of that German-language web page.

H2testw 1.4
Rating: (223 ratings, weighted: 4.47 Points) 4.5 5 223

With H2testw it is easy to verify the integrity of USB sticks or other
flash memory under Windows; Thus it can be stated precisely whether the
read by the operating system memory size of the medium corresponds to the
truth. but basically the freeware investigated any media, including
regular hard drives - internal or external - as well as network drives.
So If you want a new storage medium on the accuracy of the manufacturer's
information study or test a disk on elderly functionality is H2testw a
good choice. For Linux and Mac users, there is a free alternative to F3,
which can be operated, but only via the command line.
background

Some manufacturers of USB sticks make a trick to use that pretends the
operating system more memory than is actually installed physically in the
stick. To be equipped with 64GB and sells about 128GB advertised USB
sticks. If more than 64 gigabytes of data described, rereading would
produce only empty files. The resulting loss of data usually falls on
late, so it's recommended new storage media with H2testw be checked for
integrity before use. In English-speaking countries, the fight against
the sale of fraudulent sticks is known as "Fight Fraud Flash" or "Fight
Fake Flash".

operation
To a fake identify the software operates on a simple principle: The
storage medium is described completely with partially randomly generated
data, which are then read again from the stick. If the read data does not
match with the generated that is a potential reference to nonexistent
physical memory. As other sources of error, however, are not excluded, a
disk should be examined at least twice. The downside is that the process
for (supposedly) large disks may take a long time. For volumes with cable
various cable also should be tested, as well as for a possible source of
error could be. In theory, also check disk already described, however, it
may happen that H2testw overwrites this data, it should be in the disk is
a fake. Therefore, of all important data to back up should be applied
before the storage medium is checked with H2testw.

[Fritz Wuehler]

> What's the best way to format an SD card in Android?

It's best to format the media in the device that will actually be
using it. In an android device, you go to settings>storage>erase SD
card.

[Arno Welzel]

Use the function in Android to format it (Settings - Storage - Erase SD
Card or similar).



--
Arno Welzel
http://arnowelzel.de
http://de-rec-fahrrad.de
http://fahrradzukunft.de

[Marob Katon]

Fritz Wuehler wrote:

> It's best to format the media in the device that will actually be using
> it. In an android device, you go to settings>storage>erase SD card.

I had seen that, but I wasn't sure if "erase" just didn't do a "delete"
and not a "format". The card was last in a Canon camera, so, I wanted
a format, and not just a delete.

[Marob Katon]

Arno Welzel wrote:

> Use the function in Android to format it (Settings - Storage - Erase SD
> Card or similar).

I wonder why they call that "erase" and not "format"?

[nospam]

In article <neithn$1i63$2...@gioia.aioe.org>, Marob Katon

because the card gets erased.

[Gordon Levi]

I believe that the SD Association explains that in the link I provided
<https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/>. If you only want to
use the card in one Android phone then it may be reasonable to assume
that the phone will choose the best format for you. Otherwise, it
seems sensible to adhere to the standards set by all the manufacturers
of SD cards.

[Frank Slootweg]

Probably because 'format' is rather meaningless to the current
generation of users. Only we old geezers know what it means.

[And then there's 'wipe'! :-)]

[The Real Bev]

I'm just so TIRED of catering to lazy/stupid/ignorant people. I blame
Gates.

> [And then there's 'wipe'! :-)]

I have an alias on my computer for rm -rf called 'nuke'. That way I
just have to make sure I'm in the proper subdirectory.


--
Cheers, Bev
================================
Eat right. Stay fit. Die anyway.

[Arno Welzel]

Because ordinary users may not understand what it means to "format"
something.

[Arno Welzel]

The Real Bev schrieb am 2016-04-12 um 19:41:

> On 04/12/2016 08:42 AM, Frank Slootweg wrote:
>> Marob Katon <marob...@examples.com> wrote:
>>> Arno Welzel wrote:
>>>
>>>> Use the function in Android to format it (Settings - Storage - Erase SD
>>>> Card or similar).
>>>
>>> I wonder why they call that "erase" and not "format"?
>>
>> Probably because 'format' is rather meaningless to the current
>> generation of users. Only we old geezers know what it means.
>
> I'm just so TIRED of catering to lazy/stupid/ignorant people. I blame
> Gates.

Blame Jobs as well and maybe even Douglas Engelbardt for inventing the
idea of a mouse, graphical UI and software which easy to use without any
special technical knowledge in the first place, many years before Apple
and Microsoft even existed:

<http://arnowelzel.de/wp/en/in-remembrance-of-douglas-engelbardt>

[notbob]

On 2016-04-12, Arno Welzel <use...@arnowelzel.de> wrote:

> Because ordinary users may not understand what it means to "format"
> something.

But, they my know what "erase" means and it doesn't always mean
the same as "format". The two terms are not always synonymous.

nb

[The Real Bev]

I wish I wanted to watch that :-( It's unfortunate that so many things
that make life easier also make people dumber.

--
Cheers, Bev
====================================================================
"We thought about one of those discount store caskets, but, frankly,
we were worried about the quality." -- mortuary commercial

[Arno Welzel]

Which is not relevant in this context. In the end the SD cards is usable
and all data on it got erased.

[notbob]

On 2016-04-12, Arno Welzel <use...@arnowelzel.de> wrote:

> Which is not relevant in this context. In the end the SD cards is usable
> and all data on it got erased.

No doubt due to the fact all those 'roid devices do not have more than
one format, whatever it may be. Lemme guess: some sorta vfat. ;)

nb

[Marob Katon]

Marob Katon wrote:

> I wonder why they call that "erase" and not "format"?

I guess you must be correct if an "erase" is actually
a "format".

On the other hand, everyone uses Windows and pretty much
everyone knows that erasing a file isn't the same as
formatting the hard drive.

Likewise with Cameras, as my Canon camera has a "format"
and an "erase" and they're different (as you well know).

So, it never occurred to me that Android uses "erase"
to mean "format".

Thanks for being patient with me on that.

[Marob Katon]

nospam wrote:

>> I wonder why they call that "erase" and not "format"?
>
> because the card gets erased.

Between you and me, "erase" and "format" are two totally
different things, but, in both cases, the data *does* get
erased, I agree.

But, they're not even remotely similar otherwise.

Having said that, if the "erase" on Android is really a "format",
I'm ok with that. I just didn't know it so erasing it wasn't
what I was looking for.

I was looking for a format because I had no idea what format
the card was (having been pulled out of a Canon camera) and
I didn't even look to see what format it was in the Canon
camera because it didn't matter.

I wanted the "Android format" format (whatever that is).

[nospam]

In article <nek25a$1hsb$1...@gioia.aioe.org>, Marob Katon

<marob...@examples.com> wrote:

> >> I wonder why they call that "erase" and not "format"?
> >
> > because the card gets erased.
>
> Between you and me, "erase" and "format" are two totally
> different things,

actually they aren't.

erasing is done by formatting.

erasing *could* be done by zeroing all sectors but that's time
consuming and nobody wants to wait for that.

> but, in both cases, the data *does* get
> erased, I agree.

that's all that matters to the user.

[Marob Katon]

nospam wrote:

> actually they aren't.
> erasing is done by formatting.

At this point, saying erasing and formatting are the same is only
to say that they mean the same thing on Android, but they don't
mean the same thing in, say, Windows.

I learned what a format was from my experience of Windows, and it's
definitely not the same thing there as an erase.

Neither is it the same thing on my Canon camera.

> erasing *could* be done by zeroing all sectors but that's time
> consuming and nobody wants to wait for that.

Erase can be done a ton of ways, for example, Windows just forgets
about the file and the first character of the file name, but an
erase is still not a format in any definition anyone can imagine
except on Android (apparently).

I'm ok with that.

It's just not something I would have intuitively thought.

>> but, in both cases, the data *does* get
>> erased, I agree.
>
> that's all that matters to the user.

+1

[Arno Welzel]

You are wrong. ExFAT is also being used - mostly for cards with more
than 16 GB.

[notbob]

On 2016-04-13, Arno Welzel <use...@arnowelzel.de> wrote:

> notbob schrieb am 2016-04-12 um 23:06:

> You are wrong.

Not by much.

> ExFAT is also being used - mostly for cards with more than 16 GB.

"exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table) is a Microsoft file system"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT

Yeah. Big difference. Babble on....

nb

[nospam]

In article <nel4hn$ubq$1...@gioia.aioe.org>, Marob Katon

<marob...@examples.com> wrote:

>
> > actually they aren't.
> > erasing is done by formatting.
>
> At this point, saying erasing and formatting are the same is only
> to say that they mean the same thing on Android, but they don't
> mean the same thing in, say, Windows.

if someone wants to erase a memory card, hard drive or whatever, they
format it. done. it's erased. their data is gone.

nobody but you cares about the low level details.

> > erasing *could* be done by zeroing all sectors but that's time
> > consuming and nobody wants to wait for that.
>
> Erase can be done a ton of ways, for example, Windows just forgets
> about the file and the first character of the file name, but an
> erase is still not a format in any definition anyone can imagine
> except on Android (apparently).

that's deleting a file, not erasing a volume. it's also horribly
primitive.

[The Real Bev]

On 04/13/2016 02:46 AM, Marob Katon wrote:
> nospam wrote:
>
>> actually they aren't.
>> erasing is done by formatting.
>
> At this point, saying erasing and formatting are the same is only
> to say that they mean the same thing on Android, but they don't
> mean the same thing in, say, Windows.
>
> I learned what a format was from my experience of Windows, and it's
> definitely not the same thing there as an erase.

To me, 'format' means 'completely destroy the structure (and contents)
that was there and lay down a new one which might be completely
different from the old one'. 'Delete' means 'remove one or more files',
but they might or might not be recoverable depending on how the deletion
occurs. 'Erase' might mean either of those things, they should be more
explicit, but I would have thought it was closer to 'delete' than
'format'.

> Neither is it the same thing on my Canon camera.
>
>> erasing *could* be done by zeroing all sectors but that's time
>> consuming and nobody wants to wait for that.

Something like that is frequently called 'wipe'. If you're really
serious, it might include multiple write/wipe cycles.

> Erase can be done a ton of ways, for example, Windows just forgets
> about the file and the first character of the file name, but an
> erase is still not a format in any definition anyone can imagine
> except on Android (apparently).
>
> I'm ok with that.
>
> It's just not something I would have intuitively thought.
>
>>> but, in both cases, the data *does* get
>>> erased, I agree.
>>
>> that's all that matters to the user.
>
> +1

--
Cheers, Bev
====================================================
Children, your performance was miserable. Your parents will all
receive phone calls instructing them to love you less.

[Arno Welzel]

The Real Bev schrieb am 2016-04-13 um 21:14:

> On 04/13/2016 02:46 AM, Marob Katon wrote:
>> nospam wrote:
>>
>>> actually they aren't.
>>> erasing is done by formatting.
>>
>> At this point, saying erasing and formatting are the same is only
>> to say that they mean the same thing on Android, but they don't
>> mean the same thing in, say, Windows.
>>
>> I learned what a format was from my experience of Windows, and it's
>> definitely not the same thing there as an erase.
>
> To me, 'format' means 'completely destroy the structure (and contents)
> that was there and lay down a new one which might be completely
> different from the old one'. 'Delete' means 'remove one or more files',
> but they might or might not be recoverable depending on how the deletion
> occurs. 'Erase' might mean either of those things, they should be more
> explicit, but I would have thought it was closer to 'delete' than
> 'format'.

In the good old days when I was a young man ;-), there was only magnetic
storage and punched cards and punched tape (ok - the punched tape was
about to fade away - but I remember the daily use of punched cards when
I was a young boy ;-)). And the harddiscs these days didn't come with
servo tracks but only used mechanical stepper motors. The same was true
for floppy discs. To store data on this kind of storage you needed to
write a magnetic sector structure first - this was called "formatting".
To erase a medium you could just use strong magnets - and "format" it again.

But this did not last very long. Above about 40 MB per harddisc the
mechanical precision of stepper motors was not good enough to address
individual tracks - and so the idea of "servo" tracks and the use of
voice coils instead of stepper motors was invented. The manufacturer did
the "formatting" during the manufacturing process where specialized
machines created the servo tracks and the sector structure (trough a
hole from the outside of the harddisc case which was then sealed
afterwards - you can sometimes still can see the sticker on the side
which covers the service hole).

When the harddisc is used a controller moves the read/write head in a
fluid motion without any steps at all along the disc surface and tries
to find the signal of a "servo" track to lock on. A real "format"
procedure was not possible any longer. "Formatting" was the procedue to
check if all existing sectors between the servo tracks are readable and
to record the damaged parts in a "bad sector table", so they did not get
used any longer.

The latter one is what Windows does when "formatting" a harddisc - just
reading all sectors and recording the bad ones in the FAT or MFT so they
don't get used by accident when writing a file and recording the good
sectors as "free" in the FAT or MFT. And even this is not precise any
longer since modern harddisc always present all sectors as "OK" and do
the defect management with spare sectors on their own.

When "formatting" a flash memory you even don't check sectors any longer
- you just create a new logical file system. There may be bad flash
cells, but it is the responsibility of the flash controller to skip
those cells and use sectors from the "spare" section - that's the reason
why SSDs have a certain amount of "spare" area and why SD cards just
fail sometimes - because SD cards are much simpler than SSDs and there
is no sophisticated defect management, since SD cards where never
intented as reliable mass storage like harddiscs or SSDs (don't get
fooled by the "secure digital" - "secure" means "secure data by copy
protection" not "secure storage").

But back to the end users perspective:

How many smartphone users could really explain the difference between
"format" and "erase"? And if Android only offers one function anway to
format/erase an SD card - what would be more understandable for end
users? "format SD card"? "erase SD card"?

[Arno Welzel]

Don't get fooled by the name.

And: "exFAT has been adopted by the SD Card Association as the default
file system for SDXC cards larger than 32 GiB."

The problem: While there free implementations of file system drivers for
FAT this is not the case for ExFAT which is covered by patents.

[The Real Bev]

Nifty info, thanks.

I've been told that files aren't really deleted from SD cards, those
bits are just marked for deletion later and new writes go onto new bits
and when the card fills back the system goes back and starts
deleting/erasing and rewriting from the beginning. True?

> But back to the end users perspective:
>
> How many smartphone users could really explain the difference between
> "format" and "erase"? And if Android only offers one function anway to
> format/erase an SD card - what would be more understandable for end
> users? "format SD card"? "erase SD card"?

BUT what if the filesystem is changed? Supposedly this is what
A6/MotoG#2 does to the card, which prevents it from being read on any
other device?

--
Cheers, Bev
===============================================================
"To prove my love for you, I had these flowers killed. Put them
in water and it will prolong their slow, agonizing death."

[notbob]

On 2016-04-13, Arno Welzel <use...@arnowelzel.de> wrote:

> .....this is not the case for ExFAT which is covered by patents.

Gee, Microscum has never done that. ;)

According to one Linux wiki, I can mount an exfat drive using FUSE and
reformat it to a Linux FS. Not having any exfat drives, I cannot
confirm it.

nb

[Marob Katon]

The Real Bev wrote:

> To me, 'format' means 'completely destroy the structure (and contents)
> that was there and lay down a new one which might be completely
> different from the old one'.

You are correct.

A FORMAT traditionally allows for two things that I don't know if the
Android ERASE has:

1. You can change the underlying structure, and,
2. You can avoid bad blocks.

Can the Android "ERASE" do either of those formatting tasks?

[Marob Katon]

Arno Welzel wrote:

> How many smartphone users could really explain the difference between
> "format" and "erase"? And if Android only offers one function anway to
> format/erase an SD card - what would be more understandable for end
> users? "format SD card"? "erase SD card"?

It's more confusing because there are many formats but only one erase.

[The Real Bev]

I'm clueless. The whole android thing seems the opposite of
transparent. App manuals are frequently nonexistent or inadequate, apps
frequently don't work, and the OS itself is less than forthcoming about
a lot of stuff. OTOH, it's not like this phone is a lifetime investment
or that I use it for anything that I don't do already with other things
-- like a computer, a camera and a phone.

--
Ch rs,
B v
=======================================
My f ck ng k yb rd h s l st ts v w ls.

[Marob Katon]

The Real Bev wrote:

> I'm clueless. The whole android thing seems the opposite of
> transparent. App manuals are frequently nonexistent or inadequate, apps
> frequently don't work, and the OS itself is less than forthcoming about
> a lot of stuff. OTOH, it's not like this phone is a lifetime investment
> or that I use it for anything that I don't do already with other things
> -- like a computer, a camera and a phone.

I agree. While I like Android, and I love the openness of Android
over iOS, and I love the fact that free apps exist for Android that
do things that I can't do on iOS, I don't like that Android does *not*
seem to be even close to a polished system.

It's a mixmash that is a royal mess.
Too bad.

Hopefully Android 9 or 10 will finally get usability into the mix.

[The Real Bev]

On 04/13/2016 06:25 PM, Marob Katon wrote:
> The Real Bev wrote:
>
>> I'm clueless. The whole android thing seems the opposite of
>> transparent. App manuals are frequently nonexistent or inadequate, apps
>> frequently don't work, and the OS itself is less than forthcoming about
>> a lot of stuff. OTOH, it's not like this phone is a lifetime investment
>> or that I use it for anything that I don't do already with other things
>> -- like a computer, a camera and a phone.

I'm ashamed to say that I use the camera in my phone more than my REAL
camera just because it's more convenient.

> I agree. While I like Android, and I love the openness of Android
> over iOS, and I love the fact that free apps exist for Android that
> do things that I can't do on iOS, I don't like that Android does *not*
> seem to be even close to a polished system.
>
> It's a mixmash that is a royal mess.
> Too bad.

I run slackware. I'm used to hardship :-)

> Hopefully Android 9 or 10 will finally get usability into the mix.

Not if it follows Firefox...


--
Cheers, Bev
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"What fresh hell is this?" -- Dorothy Parker

[Arno Welzel]

The Real Bev schrieb am 2016-04-13 um 22:20:

> On 04/13/2016 12:47 PM, Arno Welzel wrote:

[...]

>> But back to the end users perspective:
>>
>> How many smartphone users could really explain the difference between
>> "format" and "erase"? And if Android only offers one function anway to
>> format/erase an SD card - what would be more understandable for end
>> users? "format SD card"? "erase SD card"?
>
> BUT what if the filesystem is changed? Supposedly this is what
> A6/MotoG#2 does to the card, which prevents it from being read on any
> other device?

This is still nothing else than erasing the blocks on the flash memory
to write different data. The filesystem itself is also nothing else than
data written in flash memory blocks.

[Arno Welzel]

To avoid bad blocks on a flash memory is the responsibility of the flash
controller, not the operating system. So even if one would try to find
bad blocks you would never find any. And you also can not change the
underlying structure - the size of memory blocks on a flash storage is
fixed. You can only write a new file system - and this is, what Android
does.

[Marob Katon]

Arno Welzel wrote:

> To avoid bad blocks on a flash memory is the responsibility of the flash
> controller, not the operating system. So even if one would try to find
> bad blocks you would never find any. And you also can not change the
> underlying structure - the size of memory blocks on a flash storage is
> fixed. You can only write a new file system - and this is, what Android
> does.

Oh. That's useful information.

So a flash card "format" isn't the same as a "hdd" format in that you
can't avoid bad blocks "just" with the format?

Is that correct?

[Arno Welzel]

Yes. And even a HDD format would never show bad blocks since modern HDDs
also do defect mapping internally - only of the number of bad blocks is
too high, the media may show errors.

[Daniel James]

In article <dn7os4...@mid.individual.net>, Notbob wrote:
> According to one Linux wiki, I can mount an exfat drive using FUSE and
> reformat it to a Linux FS. Not having any exfat drives, I cannot
> confirm it.

I don't think you've read that quite correctly.

You can mount an exFAT drive using FUSE and use it on Linux without
reformatting. That's how I read and write the 64GB card from my Android
tablet on my Debian box.

You can reformat an exFAT drive (destroying all the information on it in
the process) on a Linux system without using FUSE.

--
Cheers,
Daniel.

[Harold R]

Daniel James wrote ... on Thu, 14 Apr 2016 17:52:18 +0100 ...

> I don't think you've read that quite correctly.
>
> You can mount an exFAT drive using FUSE and use it on Linux without
> reformatting. That's how I read and write the 64GB card from my Android
> tablet on my Debian box.
>
> You can reformat an exFAT drive (destroying all the information on it in
> the process) on a Linux system without using FUSE.

I think you have to add exFAT first though I'm not sure.

Here's the command to install exFAT on Debian-based linux:
$ sudo apt-get install exfat-fuse exfat-utils

I'm not sure what you do after that though.

[Daniel James]

In article <neoisv$l0s$6...@news.mixmin.net>, Harold R wrote:

> I wrote:
>> You can reformat an exFAT drive (destroying all the information on
>> it in the process) on a Linux system without using FUSE.

I didn't mean that quite as it came out.

You can reformat a volume that is currently exFAT *as something else*
under Linux, without using FUSE -- indeed, without having any means to
interpret the old filesystem at all.

> I think you have to add exFAT first though I'm not sure.

If you wanted to reformat as exFAT you would need to install the exFAT
drivers, and also the exFAT tools.

> Here's the command to install exFAT on Debian-based linux:
> $ sudo apt-get install exfat-fuse exfat-utils

That's right. exfat-fuse gets you the FUSE userspace exFAT driver,
exfat-utils gets the tools you need to, for example, format or relabel
an exFAT volume.

> I'm not sure what you do after that though.

Anything you like <smile> ... once you've installed those packages exFAT
"just works". If you insert an exFAT SD card, for example, it should be
recognized and mounted automatically just as a FAT32 SD card would be.

--
Cheers,
Daniel.

[notbob]

On 2016-04-15, Daniel James <dan...@me.invalid> wrote:

> "just works". If you insert an exFAT SD card, for example, it should be
> recognized and mounted automatically just as a FAT32 SD card would be.

Then what is its advantage? You get to play in M$'s garden?

Big whoop. 8|

nb

[Daniel James]

In article <dncd2q...@mid.individual.net>, Notbob wrote:
> Then what is its advantage? You get to play in M$'s garden?

You're playing in MS's garden if you use FAT or FAT32, so exFAT is no
different.

The advantage of being able to use exFAT is that it is the default
format for SD and micro-SD cards larger than 32GB, so if you use a 64GB
card it will probably have been supplied in exFAT format and you'll be
able to use it (in devices that support cards of that size) without
reformatting.

For these large cards, exFAT allows smaller allocations on the card
than plain old FAT32 does, so the space on the card is used more
efficiently. The maximum file size is also increased from 2GiB.

The larger maximum file size is the only advantage on smaller cards.

--
Cheers,
Daniel.