Help Samsung Galaxy S3 KILLS SD CARDS!!!!!!

[ScornedNexus]

Okay,
So I had a PNY class 10 for less than a year in my evo 4g, worked flawlessly. Bought a Sprint Siii, formatted my PNY and used it fine for a few months then all of a sudden one day my phone said I had a blank or unsupported SD card and that I had to format it. Of course I lost all my pictures and such. I tried all the programs to recover, tried adapters on the computer, I followed all the suggestions. Then gave up and tried to format it, that didn't even work, seeing that I could not format it... Hey I just thought according to all the smart people (sarcasm) online it must be dead, even though I never had an SD card die on me in any of my other 50 devices that used various SD cards.

So I just felt horrible for buying a budget SD card PNY, I didn't think was that bad, but now knew it was trash since it just died on me less than a year, and back when the EVO was out class 10 16 gig was expensive that was almost 4 years ago.

This time I thought I was not going to skimp on the card, I went straight for SanDisk Ultra 32 GB MicroSDHC Class 10 UHS-1 from Amazon even made sure according to those wonderful lemmings online on posts about this, it was an official SanDisk SD card that I had to cut open.

So Got my new card everything was peachy keen for about a month, and please get the wonderful irony in this, last Friday I bought my mom an Siii from Sprint because they were having a sale for them for $50. I thought to myself I had to upgrade her crappy SD card and I ordered her the same card...It comes I install it in her new Siii and less than an hour later the SD card in my phone says either SD card removed. Insert a new one. or SD card is blank or has unsupported files. So it appears my Siii struck again... I immediately took the SD card out of my mom's phone and told her its better to use the internal storage. Of course all my pictures and things are gone. Over 400 pictures! back up back up you say... okay I have after my last lesson most of them are on my dropbox but still not all of them. YET THIS SHOULD NOT HAPPEN TWICE IN A ROW. I refuse to just believe that "SD cards just die" I call BS maybe once in a while but not like this.

I think there is a problem with this phone and Samsung will never admit it since they sold over 30 million phones and are the envy of Apple, but I was hoping that someone on here could prove it, figure out how to fix the SD cards to recover the information or prevent this, and or take some kind of poll to see how common this is with the Siii I have a feeling this is a known issue to someone/I will not be buying another sd card to use with a phone again. This experience is abhorrent.


I've found this youtube video youtube.com/watch?v=1fjNkQkQZ2U




Update*
So I wanted another SD card my phone space is full. I bought an Amazon basics class 4 8GB 1 week later its fried. Thanks Samdung. I'm probably not using you again.

 

[valorian]

My phone hasn't killed my SD card. I had the original SD card in for three months with no issues. I had since upgraded to a 32GB SanDisk and it has been working fine for a little over a month now.

This isn't an issue with the Galaxy S3s. Sounds like you may have a faulty phone.

 

[SilentJ20]

I've been using the same 16GB microSD that came with my original Motorola Droid over 3 years ago. Never had a problem. Your title sounds very accusatory. Try taking the phone in, should be a warranty issue if it's a faulty phone. Hope you get it fixed.

 

[sherlock5545]

Or maybe it's only your phone having problem? Surely there had to be more than only few complaints if all the units were actually affected by the issue, no? I am running the same SD since 6 months ago, not a single issue.

 

[Bexy]

As others have said, seems like its an issue with your phone. For it to happen twice especially.

 

[Heisenberg123]

no issues in 3 months and im constantly moving and removing stuff from the sdcard,

 

[SUroot]

Just to echo everyone else, it may be a fault with your software / hardware causing this. Dirty unmounts and many other things can cause corruption of the File System...

A rogue app you have installed could even be the culprit. I am using the Same Kingston I used in my HTC Desire without issue

 

[pjw73nh]

I've only had my phone 2 months but I have had 4 different SD cards in it. Becasue of my excessive synch testing I have moved several GBs of pix and music back and forth from then several times without issue. Granted it's only been a couple months so it's not a greeat baseline. I will tell you though that recently I went to AMAZON to buy an SD card and even after great reviews, when I went to add it to the cart I got a warning that said something like

"Many of our users reported issues with this item. it is temporarily unavailable until we can determine if we have problems with our inventory or the manufacturer".

So there may be issues with the cards too. I would suggest bringing the phone in and let them deal with it.

 

[OverByter]

If you read the reviews on Amazon concerning the SanDisk 64 gb sdxc cards with the S3 you'll find numerous others who have had cards suddenly fail. Total failure, no formatting on the phone or the computer.

 

[quest7]

I read on another site, that since Google/android is doing away with SD card slot, that the new update I think its 4.2 will not be design for an SD card. Samsung will have to do a work around(update) for your card to work.

Now, I may be wrong.

 

[SUroot]

The MicroSD card we have now already has such a work around. Android isn't currently designed to have (large) Internal Memory AND an sdcard. The S3 mounts it's internal memory as /sdcard then the actual sd card is mounted as /extSdCard

All it is is a mount point. I could code that in from source myself.

 

[WAWood8]

I can vouch for the S3 killing SD cards.

We have two S3 phones and BOTH have destroyed their respective SD cards. And, NO, these were not fake cards and were not bought on eBay; they were both expensive cards, and they both died -- at different times.

So, if your card has not been destroyed -- count yourself lucky.

 

[ScornedNexus]

I've actually read several times that others have had this problem. Samsung sold 30 million phones its unlikely all are affected. I have noticed the SD card seems slightly moved over to one side than straight. Do you have this?

I'm not sure if kills if the proper term but corrupts it in a way that nothing can format, understand, or read it.

 

[SUroot]

Buy kingston. Life time warranty so if something does kill it, at least you're not too out of pocket. Yes I know this is not a preventative measure.

 

[KOLIO]

Buy kingston. Life time warranty so if something does kill it, at least you're not too out of pocket. Yes I know this is not a preventative measure.

+1

Ditto for SANDISK, lifetime warranty.
Can't go wrong w/either card, whether it be KINGSTON or SANDISK.

 

[Shocky]

I've had a 64GB card die in my Galaxy S3 however allot of 64GB Sandisk cards were found to be faulty.

Had no problems with the replacement so hopefully it was just the card.

 

[Phil1927]

For those of you who have had problems, are you all using 64Gb cards? I'm using a 16Gb card but am expecting my 32Gb card to arrive in the post any day (sandisk) but I'm nervous of putting it in after reading this thread.

 

[natureboy72]

For those of you who have had problems, are you all using 64Gb cards? I'm using a 16Gb card but am expecting my 32Gb card to arrive in the post any day (sandisk) but I'm nervous of putting it in after reading this thread.

I had 2 sandisk 32gb cards(bought from RadioShack and Best Buy) die after a month of use. I put in my old sandisk 16gb and haven't had an issue(knock on wood) maybe its the larger cards?

 

[Szadzik]

I had 2 sandisk 32gb cards(bought from RadioShack and Best Buy) die after a month of use. I put in my old sandisk 16gb and haven't had an issue(knock on wood) maybe its the larger cards?

I've had 32GB card since I got my S3 a few months back and before that it was in another phone and nothing has happened.

It is only about what you do with the card, how you take it out, connect the phone to PC and disconnect it and what files you have on there. The OP might just as well have had a virus that killed the cards.

One way or another, S3 has no widespread problem with cards as the title might suggest.

 

[mrhomiec]

usually when i see posts like this, it's always a rant on SanDisk cards. i haven't used a SanDisk card in years after one failed on my DS flash card =P

after that time, i was strictly sticking with Kingston and Patriot. until Samsung released their own micro SD cards plus the benefit of the whole "water-proof and shock-proof" guarantee on them.

been using a Samsung 32 GB since then, no issues.

 

[phil75231]

I have used a Sandisk 64g card from day one since I got my s3 about two months ago. No problems whatsoever. It should be noted that my phone is not rooted or flashed.

 

[nytmare]

I have to agree with the OP. When I purchased my original S3, I continued to use the 8gb card I had in my DX. The S3 fried it in a month (same issues as as the OP). I decided to get a good card so I purchased and SanDisk 32gb SDHC Ultra, Class 10. Prior to installing it, I dropped my S3 and it broke. I had insurance, got a new one, installed the 32gb card in the second S3 and within about a month in a half, it fried as well. I'm currently on a PNY 16gb SDHC, Class 10 and it has so far lasted about 2 months. Needless to say, I back up on a frequent basis.

There's a similar thread over on the Android Central S3 forum where this has happened to other owners as well. Maybe it's a bad batch of phones. I love this phone, but it has issues.

BTW... not rooted.

 

[ac29593]

I have always used SanDisk with no problems. Just bought a 64g the other day to replace the 16g I had for over a year with no issues. Just plug and play.

 

[tabathamax]

Sorry to hear that you lost all your pictures due to the problem..have you ever thought about using Drop box it works great and will upload you pics automatically from the Galaxy s3 once set up. I have had no problems with my SD card...hope you get your problem resovled.

 

[qandres12]

Class 10 sd card are actually good for smartphones, all they do is transfer data faster. Any of the lower sd card from sandisk are better to use on smartphones