SD card format error

[God mode]

I had a 400gb SanDisk ultra in my Switch which worked fine. I put it in the Deck and chose format. It took ages but when it had finished it said 2.9GB free of 2.9GB. I tried the format again and it says Format Error - The micro SD card failed validation tests and cannot be formatted. Contact your micro SD card manufacturer for support.
The card was fine till I put it in the Deck. It now can't be read by Switch or PC.
DiskGenius sees Partition(0) Linux Data partition 366.8GB If I try to read the card it says:
Error of partition formatting.(00000000) Unknown error.
Delete the partition and it shows free 366.8GB but then before I can format it, it changes back to Partition(0) Linux Data partition 366.8GB. This must have been done by the Deck as Switch doesn't use Linux.
I only have 1 other card a 512gb but it cost me £80 so I don't want it to be bricked like this one. Is there a correct way to format an SD on the Deck?

[Bronder2112]

Restart was the magic.. thanks

[EightEightTrample]

引用自 malocadi：

Just want to come in and say that I had the exact same SD card as OP as well as the exact same problem when trying to format. I was finally able to get the Deck to properly format and recognize the card by doing the following:

* Format the SD card initially using the Switch (it was failing in Windows)
* Stick the card in the steam deck
* Restart the deck completely (I think this is key)
* Go straight into Settings and format the card

This time around it went from testing, to formatting and finally showed up in the storage menu.

Want to add another recommendation of this method. Worked for me as well. Quick note on top of the basic steps outlined above: even if the Deck says formatting error again after following these steps, just pop the sd card out and then back in again and it should show up in your storage. Worked for me! Hope others find your incredibly helpful reply to be useful, too. Thanks so much, friend!

[SpiraTech]

You have to be really careful of fake cards. Any time you get a new memory device run it through h2testw with a full test.

[dmi3ich]

Is it possible to install games to sd card that is visible in Desktop mode, but fails to format in Game mode?

[Marlock]

引用自 dmi3ich：

Is it possible to install games to sd card that is visible in Desktop mode, but fails to format in Game mode?

as notedby @eighteighttrample above, the gaming mode sd card formatting might throw an error message even if the sd card was sucessfully formatted

after formatting: eject it, put it back in, check if it's listed (reboot with the sd card inserted to make sure it gets listed in the gaming mode interface too) and then try installing a game to it... should work fine

[Reverse Module]

Does the Steam Deck come with KDE Partition Manager? Easiest solution I can think of.

[Marlock]

I think yes, in desktop mode

a few observations from other threads:

• Gaming Mode's format utility frequently throws an error even if the formatting was actually successful
  
• in desktop mode after formatting you should safely eject and then reinsert the sd card to force Steam Deck to detect the new partition successfully
  
• in Gaming Mode you'll need to reboot the Steam Deck with the SD card still inserted to ensure it gets listed correctly everywhere
  
• formatting the SD card as ext4 on linux PCs works fine
  
• most SD cards that seem broken are actually just unformatted and can be recovered easily by formatting somewhere else

[Mister Shan]

Hi guys, I am having trouble with download speeds on my SanDisk card that was used in a switch. I was told that there might have been some sort of format error when I brought it over. I think there was some errors I got trying to format it but then it started working for some reason. The thread is kinda losing me, is there any easy solution to fix this?

[dmi3ich]

I have 2tb card from nonename and it is visible only in desktop mode and nothing from above doesn't help me format it in game mode. I continue using 512gb SanDisk card

[PopinFRESH]

引用自 dmi3ich：

I have 2tb card from nonename and it is visible only in desktop mode and nothing from above doesn't help me format it in game mode. I continue using 512gb SanDisk card

I'd lean toward a 2TB microSD card being a fake as I haven't seen any actual vendors producing a commercial 2TB microSD card yet.

boot into desktop mode, or connect it to a Windows PC and run h2testw on it with a full test. I suspect it will likely fail.

[Briggs]

引用自 dmi3ich：

I have 2tb card from nonename and it is visible only in desktop mode and nothing from above doesn't help me format it in game mode. I continue using 512gb SanDisk card

In general, if you buy an SD card online that doesn't have a recognizable brand, be prepared to find out you were ripped off. This is even truer for large capacity cards or cards that look like they're a good deal. Rule of thumb: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

edit: Also, know that those fake cards can work, and might even report their advertized capacity. However they tend to either fill up without reaching full capacity, or there is a program on the card that deletes the actual data (while leaving the files) so you don't know your data is gone until you try to read it.

[RaMuK]

引用自 malocadi：

Just want to come in and say that I had the exact same SD card as OP as well as the exact same problem when trying to format. I was finally able to get the Deck to properly format and recognize the card by doing the following:

* Format the SD card initially using the Switch (it was failing in Windows)
* Stick the card in the steam deck
* Restart the deck completely (I think this is key)
* Go straight into Settings and format the card

This time around it went from testing, to formatting and finally showed up in the storage menu.

This worked for me as well. Thank you good sir.

[Slutekins]

引用自 malocadi：

Just want to come in and say that I had the exact same SD card as OP as well as the exact same problem when trying to format. I was finally able to get the Deck to properly format and recognize the card by doing the following:

* Format the SD card initially using the Switch (it was failing in Windows)
* Stick the card in the steam deck
* Restart the deck completely (I think this is key)
* Go straight into Settings and format the card

This time around it went from testing, to formatting and finally showed up in the storage menu.

This didn't work for me unfortunately.

[Anf]

WORKING SOLUTION:::

Get minitool partition wizard

Right click your sd card when it shows in the program

click format

in type select ext4

let it format

boot steam deck

put in sd card after it's booted up (just incase it doesn't get read during startup I prefer the system to detect it when I've put it in when the deck is already on)

Check in settings > storage that your card shows up

--

The previous solutions didn't work for me but this did. Good luck!

[PopinFRESH]

引用自 Anf：

WORKING SOLUTION:::

Get minitool partition wizard

Right click your sd card when it shows in the program

click format

in type select ext4

let it format

boot steam deck

put in sd card after it's booted up (just incase it doesn't get read during startup I prefer the system to detect it when I've put it in when the deck is already on)

Check in settings > storage that your card shows up

--

The previous solutions didn't work for me but this did. Good luck!

Just incase you have some issues with installing / running games from your microSD card, this will not have created the filesystem with casefolding support.

You should be able to re-format it from the command line

sudo mkfs -t ext4 -O casefold /dev/mmcblk0p1

Note, if you haven't already you will need to set a sudoers password for the deck user in order to run elevated commands like the above.