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

I made complaints on several Samsung Facebook pages and then endured a one hour chat with a CSR. During the troubleshooting with the CSR the card was briefly recognized but was corrupt and unable to be formatted.

I was actually going to go along with her and do the factory reset so that they would have record of all attempts being made to resolve the problem when the card was suddenly recognized several minutes after a soft reset. Here is the end of the session.

Visitor: I was just about to power the phone down and when the screen opened to settings the SD card has been recognized but it says it is blank or has unsupported files and needs to be formatted!
Valerina: I request you to format the SD card.
Visitor: It won't format. I tried twice and both times it shows it as blank and requiring format.
Valerina: I am sorry to know that.
Valerina: I request you to remove and re-insert SD card.
Valerina: Not to rush you, are we still connected on the chat?
Visitor: yes, i am doing it now
Valerina: Thank you.
Visitor: I have removed the card with the phone off, should I reinsert it now and power on?
Valerina: Yes, please go ahead.
Visitor: Now it is not being recognized again
Valerina: I am sorry to inform you that.
Valerina: As you have already tried with all possible steps to resolve the issue and the issue still persists. The issue might be with Software/Hardware part in the device. As this is beyond the Technical Support, the device has to be examined by the Technicians. To service the device from the Technicians you have to place a Service Request.
Valerina: As we have performed all possible troubleshooting steps and the issue persists, I suggest you contact the carrier or purchase store for any insurance or 30 days exchange warranty or I will be glad in filing a service request to send the device for repair
At least they made an effort, but they shouldn't suggest you to use your insurance for what is obviously a warranty issue.
 
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Same problem here (sd card unexpectedly removed) on Note II since few hours ago, without even using phone at the time. My card is 32GB SanDisk... The card still works, but gives me problems each time phone would go to "sleep". And every now and then it says its unreadable, so I have to remount it.

I think there might also be problem in Sandisk, since 99% of failed cards are sandisk made 32GB+.

I'll use warranty if it fails, but will also buy 32GB Samsung card, as I havent read one single problem regarding Samsung cards with Note II/SIII. It says somewhere that u should use Samsung microsd, so while I wont claim Samsung did something on purpose, but there is certainly a pattern. Maybe there is some minor difference in voltage or who knows...

Edited to add this:
I am now reformatting it to exFat, as by default it was in Fat32, but I doubt that will solve the problem. There goes 30EUR...
 
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I am now using my 8gb Samsung card that came with my old continuum. Battery monitor widget is writing its history files to it, so I can see how it performs.

Are there apps that can monitor the health of an SD card?

Tomorrow or Fridayi am going to visit the Verizon store and also see if Costco can pull up the receipt for purchasing the SD card and get that replaced.
 
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count me in my sd card which is 3 years old failed last night I got the card unexpectedly removed error I don't know whether the card just went bad or whether this has something to do with the phone. the good news is I don't really need the card because I don't download much music or take photos so maybe I'll just leave it, however I would like to know if the phone did something to the card
 
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After reading around, this seems to be very common problem, so i think every SIII and NOTE II will eventually kill sd card. Weird is the fact that most cards are Sandisk 32GB+; mine is 1.5 months old and worked perfect untill few hours ago. Even more interesting is the fact that i havent seen one Samung sdcard complaint. Maybe that's just a coincidence as most normal cards sold are probably by sandisk.

Anyway i did full format, so it will be done soon and I will report if the problem reoccurs. Any other ideas I could try with sdcard to make it work?
 
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After reading around, this seems to be very common problem, so i think every SIII and NOTE II will eventually kill sd card. Weird is the fact that most cards are Sandisk 32GB+; mine is 1.5 months old and worked perfect untill few hours ago. Even more interesting is the fact that i havent seen one Samung sdcard complaint. Maybe that's just a coincidence as most normal cards sold are probably by sandisk.

Anyway i did full format, so it will be done soon and I will report if the problem reoccurs. Any other ideas I could try with sdcard to make it work?

My card was a Samsung, see my post above.

Someone on XDA thinks it's heat-related, the card is too close to the processor.
 
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After reading around, this seems to be very common problem, so i think every SIII and NOTE II will eventually kill sd card. Weird is the fact that most cards are Sandisk 32GB+; mine is 1.5 months old and worked perfect untill few hours ago. Even more interesting is the fact that i havent seen one Samung sdcard complaint. Maybe that's just a coincidence as most normal cards sold are probably by sandisk.

Anyway i did full format, so it will be done soon and I will report if the problem reoccurs. Any other ideas I could try with sdcard to make it work?

My card was a Samsung card. 16 gb from my former phone (Samsung fascinate). The card isn't fried, but I kept getting the error that it needed to be formatted, or that it had been unmounted (when it hadn't been). On more than three occasions, every file on the card was wiped clean. Since the most recent incident, I've kept the card out of the phone. I'm using Dropbox, and I'm paranoid to even try putting the card (or any card) into the phone.

And no, the card was not handled a lot either. I removed it once from my original phone (to put into the new phone), and three times from the GS3.
 
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My card was a Samsung, see my post above.

Someone on XDA thinks it's heat-related, the card is too close to the processor.

I've been thinking the same thing. It's right next to the battery which gets very warm as well.

I'm hoping that I can get a new receipt and do a warranty claim with SanDisk and perhaps get some answers from them about a possible cause. Has anyone sent their card in for a warranty claim?
 
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This phone doesn't seem to get that hot to me. My old phone would get very hot, not warm, but HOT! It had pretty much the same location for the SD card slot, and it didn't cause any problem. I haven't put my card in this phone after reading all these posts. I think I'm going to put one of the cheap 2gb cards I have laying around in here and see what happens before I put my good card in. I really don't think the heat is the problem.
 
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My 32gb scandisk SD had the same problems, after using it a while it can't be read. Not to mention it is my 3rd copy. My 1st copy was bought from a local store which don't allow return/exchange (Warranty is valid but a lot of process in between), so i thought that i might get a bad/fake copy. So im force to buy another copy (scandik 32gb) at a big chain store retailer as it looks legit. After a while my 2nd copy get the same problem it cant be read or stated as blank SD card. Finally i bought my 3rd copy in Singapore airport in one of my trip, this time also scandisk 32gb but the android version. It works great for around 3 months until it died out yesterday!!! It is very frustrating!!

So guys if there is any solution pls post it T.T

Thanks
 
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My 32gb scandisk SD had the same problems, after using it a while it can't be read. Not to mention it is my 3rd copy. My 1st copy was bought from a local store which don't allow return/exchange (Warranty is valid but a lot of process in between), so i thought that i might get a bad/fake copy. So im force to buy another copy (scandik 32gb) at a big chain store retailer as it looks legit. After a while my 2nd copy get the same problem it cant be read or stated as blank SD card. Finally i bought my 3rd copy in Singapore airport in one of my trip, this time also scandisk 32gb but the android version. It works great for around 3 months until it died out yesterday!!! It is very frustrating!!

So guys if there is any solution pls post it T.T

Thanks

I guess if the card is completely dead, then there is no fixing it, since U can't even format it or anything. I did full format (not quick) to exFat yesterday (it was in fat32 originally), which took 1h+ to complete, but haven't had problems since. There is definitely something fishy going on. Yesterday it would complain every few mins about sd card being unexpectedly removed or cannot read on its own (typical symptoms of failing sd card), but now after formatting it works perfectly.

Well, since somebody also had problems with samsung card, I cannot even blame sandisk anymore. I daily access my memory card, but still - it shouldnt go bad in 6 weeks. I still have few 2gb cards several years old, one of which even survived swimming in Adriatic sea. Either this new cards quality control is crap compared to old ones, and/or Note II/SIII are killing sd cards over time, the length of which is pure gamble.

So, to all the people that never had problems, that's great for U, but that might and probably will change. :)

offtopic: Yesterday i was sure i need new sd card, so i found SDHC Samsung 32GB C10 (MB-SSBGA/EU) for 20eur in local store, which i think is a bargain for eu. Any thoughts on it? I have no intention on waiting for warranty claim if sandisk fails completely.
 
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I guess I'm going to have to just follow this thread, because I don't know what to do anymore. I want to get a new sd card, but I am lost on which one to pick now, because if it is just going to fail on me like my last 2 cards then whats the point. I already lost important photos that I needed for my photography class's exam and now I can't even access anything on my SD card, because it keeps saying SD card removed.

I managed to get a picture of the error that I keep getting

Screenshot_2013_01_10_08_38_04.png

Had the same problem. Did full format to exfat, and so far no problems for 2 days. I don't get it how that could actually fix sd card hw problem if there was any, but for now everything works perfectly. Try formatting (not quick, as that didn't solve my problem) to exfat or fat32. If your sd card dies completely, you won't be able to access it in any way, so it will be too late. I did the format only few hours after problems started so I haven't lost any data and was able to get sd card recognized on computer...
 
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Just got a new S3 and ordered the Samsung 32GB card off Amazon. To rule out that it came defective, at least, I'm going to run a health test program (H2test2 1.4) as soon as I get it.

it won't let me post links as a new user, but here's the urls without the link:

forums.sandisk.com/t5/Sansa-e200-series/test-your-microSD-HC-card-s-actual-transfer-rate-with-this-free/td-p/84325

sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/h2testw-14-gold-standard-in-detecting-usb-counterfeit-drives/]H2testw 1.4
 
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I have had not one problem with my 16GB SD card in the S3. Sounds like its your phone

Oh, okay. Your phone has had no issues. So it isn't a problem for you. "Sounds like its your phone", is an excellent point to contribute to the thread. I wish more people would. And no one should bother reading the thread before commenting either.
 
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To be honest, I think the lower the capacity of the SD card the less likely it is to be corrupted. Most of the problems are with 64GB cards and to a lesser extent, 32GB cards. I've had three 64GB Sandisk cards corrupt in two S3 devices.

This is a good point! The "read/write" function in the S3 may have difficulties writing the larger blocks. That could be why not as many users as you would think are having these problems. Just a thought.
 
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Where is what I found out.. Samsung is ignoring me. I am getting no traction with samsung... :(

SD card fried in new Galaxy S3 - Page 4 - Android Forums at AndroidCentral.com

Thanks for the info. It sounds very reasonable. I see many people theorizing that the problem is fairly limited to 32 and 64 gb SanDisk. The primary reason behind that is most likely those are the most common sizes people are using.

As an aside, I am not sure of forum rules here, but it is generally frowned upon to link to other forums. Since the post was your own you could simply cut and paste it.
 
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