I/O error on sd-card

[eviLjazz]

Sandisk SD Cards seems to be a major pain in the $%&. I\'ve used a 256 MB SanDisk SD Card in my Zaurus for several months. Corruptions once a week. Interestingly enough these cards work without problems in my digicam.

Last week I finally bought a new 512 MB Lexar 32x High-Speed SD-Card (rated ~4.7MB/s). This thing screams!
Access/filecreation and -deletion times are fast. And I haven\'t had any problems copying very small, average and big files to this card. Finally a good card for running even big programs directly of.

[wirawan0]

Well, it hasn\'t yet answered my question. Why are there problems with SD cards with Z? It just doesn\'t make sense to me! If the Z is supposed to be able to accept SD cards, then it should be compatible with it. The only possibilit(ies) are: (1) the Z\'s hardware interface is buggy, or (2) the card uses a bizzare (nonstandard) protocol, or (3) there\'s bug in the Z\'s OS. Can anybody point out to why the SD cards could cause so many problems in Z? Has anybody discussed it in ZUG forum(s)?

[mh]

Hi

I have got a new Sandisk 512MB SD-card and tested it for a while (my previous card failed bigtime and I had to return it to the vendor). This new card will unfortunately also become corrupt if I run it as a usual card (normal mount parameters). I found out that adding the sync parameter to the fstab file fixes my problems, anyone seen the same? The major drawback is that the performance sucks now...

Could the problems be related to concurrent read/writes?

/Marcus

[mpray]

I have similar problems as well, but they seem to be related to my Z more so than the SD cards I have.

I first had a PNY 256 mb for a while which worked fine.  I then copied some mp3s onto it using a proprietary program for my mp3 player.  Apparently that borked it for my Z, which has since refused to read any SD card, including a store-bought SanDisk 128 I got a few days ago.  With the new card, dmesg simply says "VFS: Disk change detected on mmcd(60,1)" or something, but doesn't mount it or even read it.  When I "mount -t vfat /dev/mmcda1 /mnt/card" it says "mmcda1 is not a valid block device."  I've tried just about anything.  I might try updating the sd modules, but I doubt that would change anything.  Its definately the fault of my Z, because my mp3 player still reads both cards, as well as my computer, both windows and linux.

I'm about ready to give up with SD cards and use the empty SD card slot to store used gum or something.

[gen2]

Well, it hasn't yet answered my question. Why are there problems with SD cards with Z? It just doesn't make sense to me! If the Z is supposed to be able to accept SD cards, then it should be compatible with it. The only possibilit(ies) are: (1) the Z's hardware interface is buggy, or (2) the card uses a bizzare (nonstandard) protocol, or (3) there's bug in the Z's OS. Can anybody point out to why the SD cards could cause so many problems in Z? Has anybody discussed it in ZUG forum(s)?

Ditto.

I've spent hours looking for some definitive information on the apparently epidemic SD problems (besides "it works" and "it doesn't work" and "try fsck"). And of course my 1G Sandisk bit the dust days after formatting to ext2!

Are there any gurus out there who can set this stuff straight? Or at least offer some detailed information about what's going on here, like where the problem really is...

many thanks for the help

[roter_planet]

hallo,

i recently tried a kingston sd-card and it worked really great without any problems so far.
i've tested it since 2 weeks. really no problems. i don't know what sandisk is going to intend, but their sd-cards are bullshit (cf is working!!). i've tested 3 ones and neither of them worked. i can only recommend the kingston sd-cards! Don't buy sandisk sd-cards.
the are not working! it's wasted money!!

stephan

[ScottYelich]

I don't know if this is entirely true, or partially true (ie: depending on brand, etc).

I have seen it mentioned that simple doing a newfs (are people calling this a format?)
is ok -- as long as the partition table isn't changed.

I don't know if changing the partition ID from, say, fat to extX is too much, or if it
is resizing that is too much.

I have an SD that had no problems after using as ext2 under a c700.  After I used
it in my 760, it went flaky (in both).

I now have 2 more 512mb SDs... I have done a "newfs" on one of them, and I have
not had any problems -- but I have not tested it heavily.. and I have not pulled it
while writing or shut off the power while writing.  

my 256mb card doesn't have any problems.

my 512 with issues is lexar.
my 256 without issues is lexar.
my two new 512s are sandisk ($79ea, couldn't resist)

I also don't know if formatting in a camera helps/fixes the issue.
My new camera takes Cf (I figured they were larger capacity and cheaper --
I get 9000 pics at low res with a 1GB cf!  400 at max res)

Scott

[xiaman]

well i've been trying to get my Z to load to a ext3 for a while after reading posts hear i went out and got a kingston sd card , tried again and now it works.
i don't get the input output errors any more.
so i must tell everyone don't buy scan disk cards .

[didac]

I use Sandisk 512 MB and 1.0GB cards,
Both have the same problem with ext2. (I formatted with and without the cfdisk step, single and multiple partitions, all the same problems)

I reformatted the 512 MB back to vfat and it works OK now, but I didn't transfer a lot of files to it using my Z up to now.
Yesterday I suspended my C860 (kathrin rom) while xmms was on pause from playing a directory on the SD card. After resume I had to reboot it before being able to run an e2fsck on the SD card. The whole directory of mp3's was removed during the file check.
Copying files to the SD card using sftp from my pc works like a charm until I suspend my Z, afterwards the files are often(but not always) not to be found on the SD card.
Copying a lot of files from the CF card to the SD card sometimes is problematic, the other way around always worked up to now.
It looks like a sync problem to me, that could explain why standard sandisk (a bit slower than the rest?) have more problems.
I'll try setting the sync option in my fstab file.

My first post, I like PdaXrom.

didac