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Mounting A 64gb SDXC Card In The S3

nigsy

Android Enthusiast
Feb 22, 2011
474
158
Devon
Picked up a 64gb SDXC Kingston card and thought I would share how I got it mounted and working.

After a bit of research, many people were saying that the card should work out of the box, or reformat to NTFS first. Or just stick it in the phone, go to storage, and format it from there. Didn't work for me. I'm rooted, so booted into custom recovery tried to 'mount & format' from there; again no go.

I run Linux (openSUSE) on my PC, put the card in the reader, wouldn't mount. Turns out the default file system exFat32 is quite picky about what can a can't read it.

So this is the fix that worked for me:

You need access to a Windows 7 PC (Really couldn't get it to work with Vista)

Download SDFormater from here:

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

This will reset the card to the default file structure.

Now, we need the card in a file structure the S3 will read, namely FAT32; the problem with this is Windows can only see / format 32gb of FAT32. You will now need MiniTool Partition Wizard from here:

MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition - CNET Download.com

Install it to windows and run.

Your card will now show as F:/ (Or whatever drive it's in)

Right click on it in the window and select 'reformat'. Choose FAT32. Click Apply on the menu bar and it will reformat all 64gb.

You should now be good to go!!
 
Picked up a 64gb SDXC Kingston card and thought I would share how I got it mounted and working.

After a bit of research, many people were saying that the card should work out of the box, or reformat to NTFS first. Or just stick it in the phone, go to storage, and format it from there. Didn't work for me. I'm rooted, so booted into custom recovery tried to 'mount & format' from there; again no go.

I run Linux (openSUSE) on my PC, put the card in the reader, wouldn't mount. Turns out the default file system exFat32 is quite picky about what can a can't read it.

So this is the fix that worked for me:

You need access to a Windows 7 PC (Really couldn't get it to work with Vista)

Download SDFormater from here:

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

This will reset the card to the default file structure.

Now, we need the card in a file structure the S3 will read, namely FAT32; the problem with this is Windows can only see / format 32gb of FAT32. You will now need MiniTool Partition Wizard from here:

MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition - CNET Download.com

Install it to windows and run.

Your card will now show as F:/ (Or whatever drive it's in)

Right click on it in the window and select 'reformat'. Choose FAT32. Click Apply on the menu bar and it will reformat all 64gb.

You should now be good to go!!

According to the user manual for the S 3 the phone only supports microSD
 
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If you have a look here:

SPECIFICATIONS | Samsung GALAXY S3

It states up to 64gb, but doesn't mention card type. I guess the original spec was up to 32gb SDHC because there were no 64gb SDXC cards at the time?? Dunno. All I know is it works - Just loaded 29gbs of music onto it, and in the process of adding some films.

Yeah I was probably looking at an old user manual
 
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Isn't it somewhat of a false economy if you need to go through so much hassle in order to get it working ?

If I would have to go through all that to make an SD card work, then I would always think that it could go wrong at any time / stop working / break / burn / explode etc.

It's the challenge of getting these things to work :D

32gb is not enough for my needs.
I have another 12 months on my contract so getting the S4 which is designed to take these cards isn't an option.

I know the process now, so if I need to do it again, it'll take less than a minute.
 
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Thanks, useful to know.

Only thing I'd ask is why didn't you use Gparted if you run Linux distro for formatting instead of Mini Tool? Have never trusted Mini Tool since back in my HTC Desire days, so have Gparted on my Win 7 PC running through VMWare and was only partioning tool I trusted when setting up a mix of Ext and Fat32 portions on SD cards.

Appreciate its a different problem you got around, and cant remember all the formats it supports but think Gparted would cover them all wouldn't it?

Just imho I personally wouldn't trust Mini Tool is all :)
 
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Thanks, useful to know.

Only thing I'd ask is why didn't you use Gparted if you run Linux distro for formatting instead of Mini Tool?

Just imho I personally wouldn't trust Mini Tool is all :)

Would have normally used Gparted, I makes me feel ill just booting up Windoze!!
I couldn't get the card to mount in Linux as exFAT, and didn't see the point in converting it to ext4 in W7 then move it to my PC and use Gparted to convert it to FAT32 in openSUSE.
 
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Thanks, useful to know.

Only thing I'd ask is why didn't you use Gparted if you run Linux distro for formatting instead of Mini Tool? Have never trusted Mini Tool since back in my HTC Desire days, so have Gparted on my Win 7 PC running through VMWare and was only partioning tool I trusted when setting up a mix of Ext and Fat32 portions on SD cards.

Appreciate its a different problem you got around, and cant remember all the formats it supports but think Gparted would cover them all wouldn't it?

Just imho I personally wouldn't trust Mini Tool is all :)

Would have normally used Gparted, I makes me feel ill just booting up Windoze!!
I couldn't get the card to mount in Linux as exFAT, and didn't see the point in converting it to ext4 in W7 then move it to my PC and use Gparted to convert it to FAT32 in openSUSE.

I just use the gparted live CD ;)
 
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Would have normally used Gparted, I makes me feel ill just booting up Windoze!!
I couldn't get the card to mount in Linux as exFAT, and didn't see the point in converting it to ext4 in W7 then move it to my PC and use Gparted to convert it to FAT32 in openSUSE.

Fair enough, just thought since Gparted is Linux you'd be able to run full thing straight from Linux OS. Bizzare but sounds like having W7 pc plus Gparted already set up is less of a faff!
 
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What do you plan on using a 64gb card in your phone for? You take a lot of videos, pics?

I'd love a 64GB card so I could put all my music on there. I can only fit about 1/2 on my 32GB card.

nigsy... GREAT instructions... thank you! Out of curiosity, did you find any good deals on a 64GB card? I can't find any good deals that have made it worthwhile yet.
 
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The short answer: Because I can :D Seriously, I prefer to have all my music on my phone rather than streaming it. With all my music, pictures, movies etc, I only have 19 gigs free. When do we get support for 128 gb microSD cards? :p

I prefer to store my music as well. Streaming is a bit iffy imho. I've only got 8 gigs of mp3s though, but I plan to be over 10 shortly. I applaud your collection.
 
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Is there an app that will allow me to format these 64gb SDXC cards on the phone to FAT32? I don't have an SDXC compatible card reader, so formatting it on the PC will require more hardware to buy.

I've done some reading, and some people are having success having the card work right out of the packaging, while others aren't. I did learn that exFAT is a licensed format that Samsung had bought the rights to use...so on a stock phone, you should have decent success making it work right out of the box.

CWM and Cyanogen however aren't licensed to work with exFAT, so if you want to use CWM recovery, or a AOSP/KP ROM, those aren't supposed to be able to read the card unless formatted to FAT32.

So I am left wondering...if I get one of these 64gb SDXC cards that's formatted to exFAT...how do I format it to FAT32 in the phone? Furthermore, how do I ensure that all 64gb gets formatted. I know Windows has trouble formatting FAT32 beyond 32gb. I'd need an app that would allow FAT32 up to or beyond 64gb.
 
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Originally Posted by nigsy View Post
Picked up a 64gb SDXC Kingston card and thought I would share how I got it mounted and working.

After a bit of research, many people were saying that the card should work out of the box, or reformat to NTFS first. Or just stick it in the phone, go to storage, and format it from there. Didn't work for me. I'm rooted, so booted into custom recovery tried to 'mount & format' from there; again no go.

I run Linux (openSUSE) on my PC, put the card in the reader, wouldn't mount. Turns out the default file system exFat32 is quite picky about what can a can't read it.

So this is the fix that worked for me:

You need access to a Windows 7 PC (Really couldn't get it to work with Vista)

Download SDFormater from here:

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

This will reset the card to the default file structure.

Now, we need the card in a file structure the S3 will read, namely FAT32; the problem with this is Windows can only see / format 32gb of FAT32. You will now need MiniTool Partition Wizard from here:

MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition - CNET Download.com

Install it to windows and run.

Your card will now show as F:/ (Or whatever drive it's in)

Right click on it in the window and select 'reformat'. Choose FAT32. Click Apply on the menu bar and it will reformat all 64gb.

You should now be good to go!!

easy steps to follow but still i cant get minitools to format my sdcard. for some reasons when i right click my sdcard the format options are all in grey

Sans_titre.png
 
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