[Solved] SDHC memory card problem.

[teetee]

Machine: TP X41 Tablet,
SYSTEM: MS windows XP tablet 2005 SP2 w/ SDHC patch.
Memory card: A-DATA 16GB SDHC turbo (Class 6)

I think my two-week old 16GB SDHC card just died on me.
The computer's settings and software didn't change before and after I re-inserted the card in.

I purchased this SDHC card two weeks ago from Newegg and used it mainly for data storage/backup. The card has been working fine until now. Today I removed the SDHC card from the laptop, put another SD card into the memory card slot and got some photos out of it for uploading. Then I removed the SD card, put the SDHC card back in. Suddenly all the files on the card were gone and the card was complete empty. When I checked the size of the card by clicking on the "properties", the card showed it had capacity of 6.46MB(originally 14.9GB). Man this is really depressing since I already had some photos and video clips from some big events at school and all the backup files stored on this card.

Anyway newegg's return policy requires original package which I don't have. For computers I always kept the shipping boxes but for something like this, I threw away the packaging stuff almost as soon as I got the card out. I guess I am the perfect example of people who don't read the fine print always suffer.

[tfflivemb2]

Have you tried rebooting your system and see if it recognizes it? Sometimes there is a delay in reading additional storage.

[teetee]

Have you tried rebooting your system and see if it recognizes it? Sometimes there is a delay in reading additional storage.

Yes I did. It showed very consistent size of 6.46MB with nothing on it.

I didn't try to write anything on it or format it because I had a slight hope that the data on it might still be there.

Thanks for the suggestion. If I can't get it to work tonight I will call newegg tomorrow to see if they would take my return/exchange request.

[syedj]

Sorry about the loss of pictures and other data.

Just a thought...

Did you happen to format this card on a digital camera before putting it in the laptop? Some older firmwares on Canon (and possibly others) do not support the newer bigger format SDHC cards and by default make partitions the maximum size that they can support. If thats the case you might need to use a partitioning software to remove this partition and recreate a new one of the full size of the SDHC card.

[teetee]

After I did some search tonight, I got an impression that it's nothing but just the partition table somehow got screwed up. I downloaded and made a linux liveCD (fedora8), boot up the computer by the CD, did a fdisk /dev/mmcblk0, deleted the old partition, created a new partition, write the new partition table, unplug the external cdrom, boot the computer in windows, log in as administrator, format the SDHC card and wala, my 14.9GB SDHC is back!!

Some thoughts:
1. Nice to have a linux liveCD that recognizes SDHC controller around.
2. I still don't know how the card's partition table got corrupted in the first place. I was trying to make a bootable USB flash drive and maybe the drive format tool was messing with the card?
3. Windows maybe easy to use(or easy to get used to) but linux + fsf is limitless!

[syedj]

Great! I am glad you were able to recover your lost space.

These little Linux bases CDs are awesome and worth their weight in gold when one needs one.

I think the lesson to be learned for the future here is to take out all the other unnecessary media whenever one is playing around with these tools.

[teetee]

Great! I am glad you were able to recover your lost space.

These little Linux bases CDs are awesome and worth their weight in gold when one needs one.

I think the lesson to be learned for the future here is to take out all the other unnecessary media whenever one is playing around with these tools.

Thanks for the comments Syedj. Good luck on your marketplace sell.