WARNING: SteamDeck Destroyed My 1TB SanDisk SD Card

[skunkybomont024]

WARNING TO ALL STEAMDECK OWNERS / FUTURE OWNERS:

Deck fried my $180 micro SD card on a normal bootup of the deck. Valves repose was that I bought an illegitimate card. I told them it was not illegitimate and worked perfect until one bootup it was unrecognizable, and upon restarting the device it could not be repaired or formatted on the deck.

I then formatted it on PC, no luck repairing on steamdeck. I format it on Mac, still gives the same error that it can't be repaired / formatted.

Moral/TL;DR Steamdeck ruined my $180 micro SD card to the point of no return on any device.

Good luck. I hope it doesn't happen to anyone else, because telling the consumer they bought a fake card and doing nothing is highly unethical. I'm not a haply consumer. Be careful all; I did nothing out of the ordinary to have this happen.

[Prezidentas]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από williwilli01:

My brother-in-law steam deck is having similar issue. The deck itself fried 2 512GB Kingston microSD cards and a Samsung T7 external SSD. Before any Steam fanboy starts saying the cards are not authentic, they are all authentic cards and external SSD as the microSD cards are coming from Kingston directly (I have direct contact with Kingston). And for the Samsung T7 SSD, it gets fried after 2 days of use with the deck, and Samsung external drives rarely fails. Also as a senior tech in a computer retail corporate in Canada, this is clearly the steam deck issue and we are hoping Steam Deck will provide a proper explanation to this poor quality of the device.

there have been many reports about SD cards, but you are the first to report that the deck somehow damaged an external drive.

[DooMsDaYRangeR]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από skunkybomont024:

UPDATE: Steam Deck FRIED ANOTHER Amazon purchased Sandisk 1TB Micro SD of mine (sold & shipped by Amazon). Doing nothing abnormal, the SD icon on the deck just disappeared, and it is rendered completely unrecognizable on PC, MAC and Deck, even after multiple formats & using a repair tool. What repair tool should I use that might have a better result?

This happened like 2-3 weeks ago. Valve acknowledged that it DOES happen in my long exchange with customer support, albeit rare.

I treat the deck like gold too - 'soft closing' games/ shutdowns/ restarts, always kept in case, I even turn it off when it gets too hot because that crap makes me nervous

Does the heat make anyone else nervous? Anyone had Deck over-heating issues? Maybe I'm worried for nothing. Thx Fam!

I don’t know if this question has been asked, but when your SD card went bad did you remove it while the Steam Deck was on. Doing so can fry an SD card. Same thing will happen on a PC. If you want to safely remove an SD card or usb device while the Steam Deck is on, you have to go into desktop mode and at the bottom right of the screen there will be a usb icon. You click on it and you can safely remove the device from there.

[Mahjik]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από DooMsDaYRangeR:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από skunkybomont024:

UPDATE: Steam Deck FRIED ANOTHER Amazon purchased Sandisk 1TB Micro SD of mine (sold & shipped by Amazon). Doing nothing abnormal, the SD icon on the deck just disappeared, and it is rendered completely unrecognizable on PC, MAC and Deck, even after multiple formats & using a repair tool. What repair tool should I use that might have a better result?

This happened like 2-3 weeks ago. Valve acknowledged that it DOES happen in my long exchange with customer support, albeit rare.

I treat the deck like gold too - 'soft closing' games/ shutdowns/ restarts, always kept in case, I even turn it off when it gets too hot because that crap makes me nervous

Does the heat make anyone else nervous? Anyone had Deck over-heating issues? Maybe I'm worried for nothing. Thx Fam!

I don’t know if this question has been asked, but when your SD card went bad did you remove it while the Steam Deck was on. Doing so can fry an SD card. Same thing will happen on a PC. If you want to safely remove an SD card or usb device while the Steam Deck is on, you have to go into desktop mode and at the bottom right of the screen there will be a usb icon. You click on it and you can safely remove the device from there.

That was the original guidance but Valve confirmed you can hotswap in Game Mode as long as nothing is writing to it:

https://steamdecklife.com/2022/07/18/valve-confirms-hot-swapping-sd-cards-in-game-mode-is-ok/

[Mahjik]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από element109:

Hotswapping in gamemode erased/corrupted two of my cards, I had to re-download 200 GB of games. I do not do that anymore. This was just a couple of weeks ago.

Many people, including myself do it. It doesn't corrupt cards.

[Mahjik]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από element109:

Well it did, cause I witnessed it. I just re-formatted them, they were not permanently destroyed. Assuming Valve keeps server logs, they can confirm that I re-downloaded 2 games (Grid 2019 and Dirt Rally 2) that were ~100 GB each on my Steam Deck recently. It was two 128 GB cards that got erased/corrupted. Check my somewhat related post here:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1675200/discussions/2/3818543965121041239/

That has nothing to do with corrupting a SD card. It's likely that the directory structures are just different.

You potentially ran into this:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1675200/discussions/0/5057002258672548404/

[Poison Dart Frag]

File corruption can happen if a memory card or USB drive is removed before things finished getting written to it; there are situations where the system will keep writes cached and only write permanently once in a while for performance reasons; forcing that cached data to get written down is what that "click to remove drive safely" thing many OS'es have does.

In principle, removing a drive "unsafely" should not result in actual physical damage, at most you would lose data but the hardware itself would still work and at most need to be reformated. When a device is well designed, the contacts in the card/plug are supposed shaped such as to leave ground as the last thing to be disconnected and no way for anything to get shorted and stuff. But I m not sure how well that s working practice, dunno how often manufacturers deviate from safe standards, how often the standards themselves are flawed etc.

[DooMsDaYRangeR]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Mahjik:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από DooMsDaYRangeR:

I don’t know if this question has been asked, but when your SD card went bad did you remove it while the Steam Deck was on. Doing so can fry an SD card. Same thing will happen on a PC. If you want to safely remove an SD card or usb device while the Steam Deck is on, you have to go into desktop mode and at the bottom right of the screen there will be a usb icon. You click on it and you can safely remove the device from there.

That was the original guidance but Valve confirmed you can hotswap in Game Mode as long as nothing is writing to it:

https://steamdecklife.com/2022/07/18/valve-confirms-hot-swapping-sd-cards-in-game-mode-is-ok/

Not while the Steam Deck is on. The Steam Deck is the same as a PC. You either turn off your Steam Deck then remove the card, or in desktop mode safely remove it from there.

[DooMsDaYRangeR]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Mahjik:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από element109:

Hotswapping in gamemode erased/corrupted two of my cards, I had to re-download 200 GB of games. I do not do that anymore. This was just a couple of weeks ago.

Many people, including myself do it. It doesn't corrupt cards.

Back in 2004, I actually fried a USB port on an expensive camera because I unplugged the camera from the PC while the PC was on. I didn’t safety remove the device like your supposed to do in Windows or Linux.

[Prezidentas]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από DooMsDaYRangeR:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Mahjik:

Many people, including myself do it. It doesn't corrupt cards.

Back in 2004, I actually fried a USB port on an expensive camera because I unplugged the camera from the PC while the PC was on. I didn’t safety remove the device like your supposed to do in Windows or Linux.

how is that even possible?

[Mahjik]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από DooMsDaYRangeR:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Mahjik:

That was the original guidance but Valve confirmed you can hotswap in Game Mode as long as nothing is writing to it:

https://steamdecklife.com/2022/07/18/valve-confirms-hot-swapping-sd-cards-in-game-mode-is-ok/

Not while the Steam Deck is on. The Steam Deck is the same as a PC. You either turn off your Steam Deck then remove the card, or in desktop mode safely remove it from there.

The Valve engineer literally said yes you can, as long as the Deck is not writing to it. I've done it multiple times. I don't typically do it it as I usually put the Deck to sleep, then change the cards, but I've done it multiple times since Valve said "yes" and nothing has ever corrupted.

I never go to the Desktop mode to change it.

[Mahjik]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από DooMsDaYRangeR:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Mahjik:

Many people, including myself do it. It doesn't corrupt cards.

Back in 2004, I actually fried a USB port on an expensive camera because I unplugged the camera from the PC while the PC was on. I didn’t safety remove the device like your supposed to do in Windows or Linux.

This is not 2004. "Many" things have changed since then.

[Mega Ultra Chicken]

You can actually destroy your SD card by taking the back plate off the Steam Deck also. I was upgrading the storage on the Deck but forgot I had an SD card inserted, so my micro SD just snapped in half.

[Prezidentas]

hasn't there been an unmount option in the settings for quite a while?

[DooMsDaYRangeR]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Mahjik:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από DooMsDaYRangeR:

Not while the Steam Deck is on. The Steam Deck is the same as a PC. You either turn off your Steam Deck then remove the card, or in desktop mode safely remove it from there.

The Valve engineer literally said yes you can, as long as the Deck is not writing to it. I've done it multiple times. I don't typically do it it as I usually put the Deck to sleep, then change the cards, but I've done it multiple times since Valve said "yes" and nothing has ever corrupted.

I never go to the Desktop mode to change it.

You are lucky. It’s nice to know that Valve said that, but everyone has different experience’s with hardware. It’s just safer to turn the Steam Deck off, especially if you’re on a PC. I fried a USB port on an expensive camera a long time ago because I unplugged it from the computer without safely removing it within windows. I just unplugged it without thinking. I have watched some streamers on twitch who complained about their usb device they had plugged in then removed it and it no longer worked. They didn’t know you have to safely remove it from windows before you unplug a device.

[DooMsDaYRangeR]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Mahjik:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από DooMsDaYRangeR:

Back in 2004, I actually fried a USB port on an expensive camera because I unplugged the camera from the PC while the PC was on. I didn’t safety remove the device like your supposed to do in Windows or Linux.

This is not 2004. "Many" things have changed since then.

That is not entirely true. Read my post before this one.