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Everything Else => Sharp Zaurus => Model Specific Forums => Distros, Development, and Model Specific Forums => Archived Forums => 5x00 Hardware => Topic started by: doc on June 14, 2004, 12:12:27 pm

Title: SD fdisk not working (Help???) (Advice???)
Post by: doc on June 14, 2004, 12:12:27 pm

I have already submitted to SanDisk for an RMA and should be sending it in for a replacement, but here is what I ran into.

I couldn\'t read files from the card and it originally had a Fat16 filesystem on it.  This is the 2nd time this card went bad, but this time it won\'t let me put a new filesystem on it...or repartition!!!

Though well I\'d better try and reformat so incase it happens again, so then I could fsck it if it has a problem.

Tried:
fdisk /dev/mmcda

Said that the device didn\'t have a valid partiition table.

Created a new table with a single Linux 83 primary partition and wrote it to disk.

I ran fdisk again (just to check) and it still said there was no vaild partition table.

I went through the same thing (rebooting) between to ensure the partition table was re-read and still it was unreadable???

It\'s like it isn\'t writing the partition table to the device.

At that point I called SanDisk and got an RMA number.  But any other advice before I send it back?

I ordered a new 256 card (Viking) from Amazon (see this post) http://www.zaurususergroup.com/index.php?n...c&p=31281#31281 (http://www.zaurususergroup.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&p=31281#31281)
for only $53 - $20 rebate = $33 bucks.  

When I get it and if/when I get the new SanDisk card what is the general  consensus...should you reformat the cards to Linux partitions or should you use the original manufacturer\'s partition on there?

Title: SD fdisk not working (Help???) (Advice???)
Post by: wirawan0 on June 14, 2004, 01:30:59 pm

I\'m not quite sure what to answer your question. I\'m not an SD expert either. My experience with a Lexar SD card has been bad (only once, though--it may have been a tough luck?). Some people seem to suggest that SanDisk cards are bad:

http://www.zaurususergroup.com/index.php?n...ghlight=sd+ext2 (https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=4596&highlight=sd+ext2)

http://www.zaurususergroup.com/index.php?n...xt2+reliability (https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=3646&highlight=sd+ext2+reliability)

But I saw something else this morning -- forget where, though. I\'ll post it if I find it later. If you\'re too cautious, it may be better to give up SanDisk (return it) and use Panasonic instead. Some folks gave a higher appraisal for that brand. But I\'ve never used one.

Title: SD fdisk not working (Help???) (Advice???)
Post by: doc on June 14, 2004, 01:44:25 pm

Here is further info on the error message.

fdisk /dev/mmcda

\"Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel
Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them. After that the previous content will not be recoverable.\"

p

Disk /dev/mmcda: 16 heads, 32 sectors, 965 cylinders of 512 bytes

n
p
1
defaults for start/end

p

Device           Boot     Start     End     Blocks     Id     System
/dev/mmcda1                  1     965      247024     83     Linux

w

The partition table has been altered
calling ioctl() to re-read partion table.

******************

Then when I run fdisk /dev/mmcda   again....same error and no partion table has been written???

Title: SD fdisk not working (Help???) (Advice???)
Post by: wirawan0 on June 14, 2004, 05:58:46 pm

What scary was that I experienced the same problem before I eventually gave up and send the card (Lexar) back to the mfg. Let me elaborate on that tomorrow. But I don\'t have good \"help\" for your problem. Sorry.

Title: SD fdisk not working (Help???) (Advice???)
Post by: stinga on June 14, 2004, 07:21:38 pm

I had a similar problem with my Lexar 256 SD card. I wasn\'t able to write a partition table to the card.  I tried

umount /dev/mmcda1
e2fsck -c -c /dev/mmcda1

This reported a bad block at position 0 where the partition table is usually written. After no luck reformatting it on a card reader and a digital camera(suggested by
Lexar support), the card is now on it\'s way back to the manufacturer.

Title: SD fdisk not working (Help???) (Advice???)
Post by: doc on June 22, 2004, 12:27:26 am

Back to my question: Should you use FAT16 format?  Or should you fdisk and mkfs a linux file system.
I tried that on a new Viking memory and it is not auto detected and mounted.  I switched it back to a vfat file system and it automounts it when I plug it in.  Do I have to change something else when you put a linux filesystem on it for the Qt software to auto detect it?  But the original question was...is it best to use linux filesystems on SD or leave it VFAT so your PC running XP can see it?

Title: SD fdisk not working (Help???) (Advice???)
Post by: cascadefx on June 22, 2004, 07:24:27 pm

Quote

Back to my question: Should you use FAT16 format?  Or should you fdisk and mkfs a linux file system.
I tried that on a new Viking memory and it is not auto detected and mounted.  I switched it back to a vfat file system and it automounts it when I plug it in.  Do I have to change something else when you put a linux filesystem on it for the Qt software to auto detect it?  But the original question was...is it best to use linux filesystems on SD or leave it VFAT so your PC running XP can see it?

Had the same problem.  

It came from me pulling the card without unmounting it using either the command line controls or the tast bar SD icon/applet.  Totally killed the card and made it so I couldn't fix it with standard tools available on the Z.

My solution...

Run to Walmart and ask the clerk if she'd mind if I used one of their display cameras to reformat my memory card that "my camera" can't seem to handle.  

Popped it in and a few minutes later the camera's format operation finished.  The card has been working fine ever since.