Kodewerx

My MicroSD suddenly stopped working, so I plugged it into my computer and this message appeared.



So I didn't mind reformatting the card. I back it up occasionally.
But I noticed the size. It's supposed to be 2GB. Only today, after it corrupted, it was changed to 848 MB.



I hit format, and this popped up.



Write protected... I've only used this card for flashcarts.
My brothers tend to turn off the DS while it's loading the system/game. I don't know if that had anything to do with the situation, but...

Does anyone know how I could get rid of the write protection and format it properly again?


(My dad wants to refresh the whole thing with magnets lol)

MicroSDs don't have a write protect switch. Neither do MiniSD cards: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _Cards.svg See the "Lock" switch? When it's in the down position (toward the arrow) enables write protect.

What is this Panasonic SD Formatter? That's just wrong. Windows has the capability to format drives, including SD cards and flash drives. Why use third-party software when you can use the built-in functionality? (OK, in some cases third-party software is preferable! For example, Windows' built-in CD burning sucks ass. I use InfraRecorder.)

Format the card from the command line:


If you have a *NIX (and you really should!) it's easy to do a full low-level erase by zero'ing the entire flash, create partitions, and format it to FAT32:
(Assuming the dev node is /dev/sdb)


... I think that's right. I haven't actually tested it, but that's the basic idea. If you actually need to create an MBR (unlikely, unless you want to boot from it) you can always use the MBR provided by FreeDOS.

_________________
I have to return some video tapes.

Feed me a stray cat.

Yeah, I searching some info about MicroSD write protection and all the help I saw was telling me to move my lock switch to the opposite side. And yeah, MicroSD's don't have lock switches so it didn't really get me anywhere...

Oh about the Panasonic SD Formatter. I was reading a guide on GBAtemp about properly setting up an Acekard. I saw one thing on that guide that I didn't do, and it was the formatting. So I read it and they wrote something about Panasonic being better than Windows when it came to SD formatting. Lower chance of freezing/corrupting or whatever. I thought I may as well go with it, if it was important enough to be included in the guide.
Nero ftw

gahh...



:(

I'm not really familiar with NIX... should I look into that?
And if I use a microSD for my AceKard, would that be considered booting from the microSD?

You can use dd in a *NIX environment to write any raw data to the card, and then read it back, to make sure the MicroSD card is actually functioning properly. I don't know of a way to do the same thing in Windows. Windows is not known for its power user features.

_________________
I have to return some video tapes.

Feed me a stray cat.

I think I could help you, but it has nothing to do with the Micro thing. It's a bug with Windows XP. Sometimes it says Write Protected for me, but thats just a regular SD Card with the switch. It says Write Protected when the switch is UP for me (meaning unlocked).

So I just unplug the SD Reader, and plug it back in (Mine comp. is a desktop).

_________________
I have a USB Gecko, and I can create a few codes thanks to the Enhacklopedia. I play CoD: MW: Reflex. I own my own forums, and you can find many codes for different games there. Go to http://hax4wii.tk/ and sign up to see the codes. Thanks.

Para, the Panasonic formater is just a program that supposedly "properly" formats sd cards. It says that the windows formater doesn't do it right or something like that.

The problems might lie in your card reader, some tend to mess up frequently depending on where you bought it from. Same with the sd card, some cards are just cheap Japanese imitations.

Or your card is just fucked up, ya know shit happens, sorry bro.

_________________
"I'm a Molar, Wisdom Tooth, get the fuck out of my gums!"

There's a "proper" way to format a disk to FAT32? As far as I know, FAT32 is FAT32. That's difficult to fuck up, even for Microsoft.

Just saying.

_________________
I have to return some video tapes.

Feed me a stray cat.

I dont quite understand the reason for it either, i remember reading about it one time and it said something about how it "properly" formats an SD card, because they have a special structure or something like that.






I didnt format my SD card with it and I havent noticed any slowdowns or anything of that sort.

_________________
"I'm a Molar, Wisdom Tooth, get the fuck out of my gums!"

That doesn't make any sense. The real problem with reading from flash media is "random access". FAT32 has a tendency to become fragmented when many files are copied/moved/deleted. Defragmentation puts all the file pieces into contiguous regions, so that the SD can "stream" several blocks (512 bytes) without requiring an intermediate "seek" command between each block.

I call bullshit.

_________________
I have to return some video tapes.

Feed me a stray cat.

They also tell you to never defrag an SD card either....

_________________
"I'm a Molar, Wisdom Tooth, get the fuck out of my gums!"

Aside from the specification of how to format it, that's probably sensible information. If you write it all at once it's probably not going to be all fragmented to shit, but if you defrag it and the defrag'ing process involves lots of writing you really will be wearing down the card.

As for whether it's even noticeable wear, I have no idea, but in general wasting writes is a bad idea.

_________________

Yeah, the write limits are about 10,000 per block, even on substandard flash media. If you defragmented every day, it would still take more than 5 years before you started seeing bad blocks. By that time, you'll want a bigger SD ... and Nintendo's next system will be out, anyway. Hell, if you formatted and wrote new files to it every day, there would be no difference in the life expectancy of the flash ROM.

I think this wikitemp thing is hilarious! Thanks for the laugh.

_________________
I have to return some video tapes.

Feed me a stray cat.