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?

[PopinFRESH]

引用自 Pan d'Bear：

SteamOS 3.3.2. Has not fixed the issue for me; I’m not able to format any cards that I use.

引用自 lostgoat：

...If anyone runs into any other issues formatting sdcards it would be best to open a new thread and provide full details like which card you are using and which error message you see when you try to format.

[Sonic Meerkat]

i've tried both the sd formatter program and the switch formatting method and both had failed despite every other device working with my 1TB SD's

anyone else know any methods to get it to work, i have a sandisk extreme pro so it should absolutely be working

[simashevt]

Hi all,
Same issue : new 256GB sandisk failed to work on latest SteamOS 3.3.2.
Tried konsole, kde on desktop mode. See card on desktop mode, nothing on gamemode.
Tried win apps: minitool, AOMEI- no luck
Now trying sd card formatter.
So at the moment this is THE most expensive heroes 3 experience ive ever had!
Few questions to the community:
- Is format sd card a MUST for game mode? I mean maybe its just dont see some specific file structure or whatever? If i can see card in desktop mode, and i assume all format apps work just fine, maybe its in the game mode a tweak to force and recognise card?
- If we really need format. For those lucky and bold-can you please check you working sd card on any of the partition aps and show exact format settings? Is it GBT, ext4, 4Kb? Is it one partition per disk? whats the name of sdcard on desktop mode - mmcblk0 ?
- crazy idea, but. Is it possible to copy empty right folders of operational sd and after paste this to a new sd card so gamemode will see them, something like iso image?
So far its ridiculos- just because one linux app can not recognise sd card, we start investigating if sd cards are faulty, or partition apps works unperfect etc.

[Slickdragonslayer]

Go in steam settings on your deck and change to latest beta and try formatting it worked for me

[GiWiz]

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.

Just wanted to mention this worked for me too, thanks!

[lostgoat]

引用自 GiWiz：

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.

Just wanted to mention this worked for me too, thanks!

A lot of the recent reports we've had where following these steps was necessary was when the btrfs mod was installed. If you have any issues when using please remember to report it to their github/gitlab instead.

[KonkeyDong]

Not sure if this helps anyone, but I went into desktop mode after a couple of failed formatting attempts, safely removed the sd card in Disks & Devices, went back to Gaming Mode and formatting worked after that.

Samsung Evo 128GB

[Luckylil777]

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 also works using the partition manager in desktop mode.
On the SD card: clear and create a ext4 partition.
Restart Deck.
Format in Gaming mode.
Profit.

[simashevt]

Hi again,
Finally got it formatted this way: on windows using minitool app wipe data-create- ext4 with default settings. plug in deck, go to game mode.
BUT!
It only shows 30.7Gb free of 234.3 gb( sd 250gb) and showing mount point
/run/media/S
S - I named my sd card
Why is that? on YouTube it usually different mount point.
Any ideas I make it wrong?
Restarted deck to factory settings and done formatting sd again- same thing
Thanks for advise.

[PopinFRESH]

引用自 simashevt：

Hi again,
Finally got it formatted this way: on windows using minitool app wipe data-create- ext4 with default settings. plug in deck, go to game mode.
BUT!
It only shows 30.7Gb free of 234.3 gb( sd 250gb) and showing mount point
/run/media/S
S - I named my sd card
Why is that? on YouTube it usually different mount point.
Any ideas I make it wrong?
Restarted deck to factory settings and done formatting sd again- same thing
Thanks for advise.

Redo the format in game mode now that you’ve removed the malformed partition table

[lostgoat]

引用自 simashevt：

Hi again,
Finally got it formatted this way: on windows using minitool app wipe data-create- ext4 with default settings. plug in deck, go to game mode.
BUT!
It only shows 30.7Gb free of 234.3 gb( sd 250gb) and showing mount point
/run/media/S
S - I named my sd card
Why is that? on YouTube it usually different mount point.
Any ideas I make it wrong?
Restarted deck to factory settings and done formatting sd again- same thing
Thanks for advise.

Your sdcard is either fake or it has a large amount of bad blocks. The format process in gamemode is failing because f3 detects problems with your card.

Contact your sdcard manufacturer or the store at which you purchased the sdcard for an exchange.

[lostgoat]

Thanks everyone that has been providing support to other users when they run into formatting errors. Your help is really appreciated, and we've gathered a lot of data from the feedback in these threads.

If I may interject a tip. A quick way of knowing whether an sdcard is fake or not is via the error message that steam reports when a format operation fails.

For example, for a legitimate card you will see this message:

The microSD card failed validation tests and cannot be formatted. Contact your microSD card manufacturer for support.

For other failure modes, like the bug in SteamOS 3.2 that caused the format operation to fail sometimes, you will most likely see this error:

We encountered an error while formatting your microSD card (2). Please try again or contact Steam Support.

So the tip is, ask people what error they see when a format operation fails. If it is the first error it is a fake or unhealthy card almost all cases. If it is the second error, the card is a good card and the problem lies somewhere else (SteamOS, or bad OS config, etc).

[simashevt]

引用自 lostgoat：

引用自 simashevt：

Hi again,
Finally got it formatted this way: on windows using minitool app wipe data-create- ext4 with default settings. plug in deck, go to game mode.
BUT!
It only shows 30.7Gb free of 234.3 gb( sd 250gb) and showing mount point
/run/media/S
S - I named my sd card
Why is that? on YouTube it usually different mount point.
Any ideas I make it wrong?
Restarted deck to factory settings and done formatting sd again- same thing
Thanks for advise.

Your sdcard is either fake or it has a large amount of bad blocks. The format process in gamemode is failing because f3 detects problems with your card.

Contact your sdcard manufacturer or the store at which you purchased the sdcard for an exchange.

Are you sure? cause few post were describing same issue.
I dunno what app can I use to test sd blocks, but after formatting to fat32, was able to access card on laptop, write/read/delete sample videos was working- not a proper test I know.
Also when using konsole to do delete-create partition-format it I get the message
allocating group tables done
writing inode tables done
writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: mkfs.ext4: input/output error while writing out and closing file system...
What does it mean?

[lostgoat]

What error message do you see when you click format in game mode under Settings->System ?

[golephish]

Just wanted to say thank you! after formatting in windows didn't work, I then used the switch to format. finally using the steam deck to complete the process. I had previously tried NTFS and eXFat.