Steam Deck

Steam Deck

Galebourn 2022 年 5 月 1 日 上午 1:57
The microSD card failed validation tests
I know there are several threads about SD card errors, but I couldn't find any good solution so far.
I bought a SanDisk Extreme microSDHC 3 (A2) directly from the SanDisk store on Amazon and I'm very sure it's not a fake. The first time I tried formating my SD card for the Steam Deck, it seemed to go well and I even got a timer to tell me how long it'll take. After the timer finished, it told me there was an error.
I formated the SD card on my PC and put it back into my Steam Deck, but now whenever I try to format it for Steam, it says "The microSd card failed validation tests and cannon be formated. Contact your microSD card manufacturer for support."
I read that formatting an SD on your Deck for the second time might brick your SD, but this hasn't happened to me yet and I tried several times.
I also tried formatting the SD to ext4 and putting all the steam library files on it, but that didn't work, either.
Did someone who had this validation test error actually get their SD card to work afterwards? The card is perfectly fine and I won't buy a new one, just because Steam doesn't like it.
引用自 lostgoat:
whenever I try to format it for Steam, it says "The microSd card failed validation tests and cannon be formated. Contact your microSD card manufacturer for support."

That error message indicates that the card does not match its advertised specs. E.g. the card advertises it supports 512gb of storage, when in reality it only has 1gb of space available.

If you would like to validate the card yourself to confirm whether steam's results are correct or not you can use f3 on linux or h2testw on windows.
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正在显示第 1 - 15 条,共 26 条留言
Marlock 2022 年 5 月 1 日 上午 4:20 
it's a bit embarassing to see so many threads with sd card issues on the Deck, because despite not perfect this is definitely not this big of an issue on linux PCs...

Valve must have messed something up, but I have no idea what

and also an ext4 formatted sd card should work just fine AFAIK, not sure what minor config the Deck expects to be different so that this is recognized too

edit: it should use ext4 with casefolding
https://www.steamdeck.com/en/faq
What file system format does the microSD card use on Steam Deck?

Steam Deck microSD cards use ext4 with casefolding - Steam Deck formats SD cards to the proper format.

edit2: maybe this helps steam detect it if formatted as ext4 (with casefolding) on a linux PC instead of directly on the Deck
https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/t5tljb/steam_deck_and_sd_card_formats/
format the SD card as a ext4 format. Then you need to copy the steamapps folder from your pc library to the card. All of your game will be in your subfolder named common so unselect the ones you don't want. Then pop in the SD card to the deck and restart it if they don't show up right away.
最后由 Marlock 编辑于; 2022 年 5 月 1 日 上午 4:26
一名 Valve 员工已表示此帖子解答了原先的主题。
lostgoat 2022 年 5 月 2 日 上午 7:09 
whenever I try to format it for Steam, it says "The microSd card failed validation tests and cannon be formated. Contact your microSD card manufacturer for support."

That error message indicates that the card does not match its advertised specs. E.g. the card advertises it supports 512gb of storage, when in reality it only has 1gb of space available.

If you would like to validate the card yourself to confirm whether steam's results are correct or not you can use f3 on linux or h2testw on windows.
Marlock 2022 年 5 月 2 日 下午 4:07 
@lostgoat
so that message should only popup if the card in question is a fake? is there any othe circumstance that could trigger this warning, such as having a partition in some other format then some free space?

i'm asking because OP seems to have succeeded in using the card outside steamos3, so it could be an insidious fake or a false alarm by the validation for some reason
最后由 Marlock 编辑于; 2022 年 5 月 2 日 下午 4:07
lostgoat 2022 年 5 月 3 日 上午 11:18 
The message should only pop-up if the card is fake, or if it is in a very bad health state. In either case the card should probably be avoided since using it could result in data loss in the near future.

i'm asking because OP seems to have succeeded in using the card outside steamos3, so it could be an insidious fake or a false alarm by the validation for some reason

Fake cards operate normally until their internal capacity is exhausted. Afterwards they will start overwriting old data. Because of this they may appear to be working properly for a period of time, but they are actually discarding data behind your back.

We have also found that these fake sdcards tend to only be compatible with FAT filesystems. Once you format them to ext4 the tricks these cards employ to report a tampered size fall apart and the formatting operation will take a long time to execute and ultimately fail. This is why we don't proceed with formatting operation when we detect a fake card, and instead opt to just re-initialize to a FAT filesystem.
最后由 lostgoat 编辑于; 2022 年 5 月 3 日 上午 11:19
Galebourn 2022 年 5 月 7 日 上午 10:33 
I really appreciate the help, but I can pretty much guarantee that the SD card is fine.
It came formatted as exFAT and I successfully formatted it to ext4 as well. I put over 400gb of files on the card and I used h2testw to verify the card is fine (which took 12 hours). It's brand new and directly from SanDisk.

The very first time I tried to format the SD card with my Steam Deck, I didn't even get the "failed validation" message. It went all the way through and gave a generic error message at the end of the process. Only after trying to format my card for the second time was when the "failed validation" error came up. I THINK it created a weird and very small partition on my card that can't be erased. Nothing shows up in Partition Wizard though.

For anyone interested, this right here is the link to the card I bought:
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B07P7M6K35/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

(I hope linking this is fine, I'm not trying to sell this or anything)
MJ711 2022 年 5 月 8 日 上午 10:49 
引用自 Galebourn
I really appreciate the help, but I can pretty much guarantee that the SD card is fine.
It came formatted as exFAT and I successfully formatted it to ext4 as well. I put over 400gb of files on the card and I used h2testw to verify the card is fine (which took 12 hours). It's brand new and directly from SanDisk.

The very first time I tried to format the SD card with my Steam Deck, I didn't even get the "failed validation" message. It went all the way through and gave a generic error message at the end of the process. Only after trying to format my card for the second time was when the "failed validation" error came up. I THINK it created a weird and very small partition on my card that can't be erased. Nothing shows up in Partition Wizard though.

For anyone interested, this right here is the link to the card I bought:
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B07P7M6K35/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

(I hope linking this is fine, I'm not trying to sell this or anything)

I personally would never use that one for SteamDeck or Switch.
Marlock 2022 年 5 月 8 日 上午 10:58 
引用自 MJ711
I personally would never use that one for SteamDeck or Switch.
why not? is it bad in some way, despite being an A2?
my new friend 2022 年 5 月 8 日 上午 10:59 
引用自 MJ711
I personally would never use that one for SteamDeck or Switch.
Works fine on my Deck. No issues what so ever.
Marlock 2022 年 5 月 8 日 下午 3:23 
引用自 SHADOW-XIII
Please note Amazon store might be full of fakes, even buying from Sandisk store does not guarantee you get genuine one, order could be fulfilled by Amazon from their warehouses etc
If the card fails tests, ie. with h2testw (Windows) then you should return it to the seller if it's still possible
while the above is a worthy observation for other people having similar issues (or ideally, for people receiving cards, before using on the Deck), let's keep in mind this isn't OP's case:
I used h2testw to verify the card is fine (which took 12 hours)

OP pretty much did everything right, and ensured his SD card was the real deal, and still the Deck damaged it... as common as fake cards are, the amount of such reports in the Deck's forum (including cards that had already been extensively used in other devices) was a pretty solid clue... and this threads sets in stone with his thorough prior testing the fact that the Deck itself is doing something wrong to some cards

IMHO this should not be totally dismissed by Valve a minute longer, and they should arrange further testing in colaboration with a few users with damaged cards, or ask them to ship those to Valve for further investigation
最后由 Marlock 编辑于; 2022 年 5 月 8 日 下午 3:24
Bigtymer110 2022 年 5 月 8 日 下午 8:09 
I had the same thing happened to me with my 1tb card bought from New egg. This is what I did that may have cause it to be unusable on my Steam Deck. I had it Format the First time, timer and everything went well. I loaded it up with a bunch of games that I tested no problem but then I got the idea to try windows ? instead of formatting the card then and there before erasing the OS…? I simply forgot out of excitement and loaded windows 11 Pro and install it. Had a worse experience in Windows 11 that I went back to Steam OS 3.2 at this point I wasn’t worried because I thought the card should be fine since it was in my SD with Steam OS (Linux) before no need to format it yet. So once it boot it back, I go to format and I kept getting an error? Just like OP. So no problem I go to my PC format ext4 but I noticed I’m missing like 35gb of space? So I have 935gb on it? On windows it read it fine but I kept having the same issue on my Steam deck? When I went to my Desktop a pop up would show that my storage needed a password to mount block mcblk01 something like that? I tried entering password nothing. It said wrong password. So I think when I updated my SD that day we got the Screen Lock and bios update and maybe it encrypted part of the storage? Thus not making the whole card useable ? It’s just my theory..I could be Wrong. 😂
最后由 Bigtymer110 编辑于; 2022 年 5 月 8 日 下午 8:12
SoldierOfChr1st 2022 年 7 月 15 日 上午 6:19 
@lostgoat
too many people having problems with the Micro SD card side for this to just be the card. Have 3 cards sitting on my desk that are known to be good, work on many different devices, test good, and still get this error when trying to format through the deck.

on another note, similar but different issue, this is the only linux distro I have ever had issues getting an external drive of any sort(micro sd, external SSD, docked SSD) that won't allow me to add a steam library to that drive. yes I am in desktop mode for this part. (anyone looking for a fix to external drive problems checkout this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAgWug72-mQ )

Valve's Steam deck team needs to make this a priority not just keep putting it back on the consumers. Yes Steam OS is still a work in progress, I get that, but we should not get crickets when we have a major concern or issue on this matter.
最后由 SoldierOfChr1st 编辑于; 2022 年 7 月 15 日 上午 6:53
master.z 2022 年 7 月 15 日 下午 1:13 
I found the same problem with two microsd card Samsung Evo Plus 512gb and then I discovered were fakes...
RoyalMetalKnights 2022 年 7 月 15 日 下午 2:03 
SteamOS Game Mode's Format Tool causes errors and damages SD cards. I don't recommend using it. Use KDE Partition Manager from Desktop Mode. Delete the partition, then setup a new partition with the ext4 format. After finishing, go back to Game Mode, pop your card out and reinsert it and play.

All over Steam forums and Reddit you'll read about people having problems with it. The common response is "you have a fake card", but it's really the built-in format tool.
SKay 2022 年 7 月 29 日 上午 9:07 
This is a really frustrating problem which valve should have been more transparent about. I'm using a brand new one of the recommended 1tb cards (sandisk ultra A2) and it's like I'm stuck in a infinite loop.

It can detect the card on desktop mode, but it was never able to format it correct except one time after a few attempts in steamdeck mode (not even KDE Partition Manager can do it without errors). As soon as I tried to move portal to the external sd however everything went to ♥♥♥♥.

I've tried to clean the drive but it's like sectors are write protected so I can never truly clean it fully to use as more steam deck storage.

It's ridiculous if I need to get the card replaced and makes it seem like the internet is spreading misinformation. Surely I just need a linux experts help who knows how to format this correctly?
JimmyJames26 2022 年 7 月 29 日 下午 7:56 
@Skay
I’m a Linux novice and I can tell you I formatted my A2 Sd Card to Exfat… plopped some games on it and had no issues. I didn’t use the Steam Decks formatting system. I did the formatting on Pop-OS (Ubuntu) via gparted or whatever the system disk manager is. It sounds like formatting should be done on windows or a GNU Linux Distro to Exfat. I didn’t need to provide any further special instructions during the format.
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发帖日期: 2022 年 5 月 1 日 上午 1:57
回复数: 26