Can't format micro SD

[Herasteane]

Hello folks.

I'm having troubles with a micro SD.

I just bought it, tested it on PC, works perfect.
When I insert it, it's recoginzed, but the deck fails to run some tests and refuses to format it.
Telling it not to run the test fails to format anyway.

Been looking at about 3 different solutions on different website, like reformating on the PC first, or going to the partition manager, but nothing works.

Anyone's got a fail-proof solution for me please?

[Haruspex]

What brand, where did you get it, and what did you pay for it?

Fakes are practically more common these days than genuine cards. The Steam Deck checks and tests your card during formatting, revealing fake cards where Windows fails to do so.

If you stick to major brands and buy directly, you'll usually be safe. This approach hasn't failed me yet anyway.

[Herasteane]

TysnlaimHD from Amazon, About 40 bucks or a bit more? Can't recall precisely.

The fact it blocks us from using "fakes" is one hell of an idea... A card's a card, smh...

Edit : Obviously I'd be looking for any workaround... I'd rather not pay for another SD card just because the deck is picky with what it eats.

[Punkovich]

"works perfect" on PC, eh?
Try to fill it to it's claimed capacity and see what happens.

As for the deck being "picky". I agree, ideally it would tell you what the real capacity is and let you use the 8gb or so of storage you actually bought... But there is zero chance of them doing that, people would blame Valve for stealing thier jigabits.

[TheKrapfcat]

that card is probably fake, tried to search that brand on Amazon there is one with "1TB" for 20 euros but all the reviews even though positive they are clearly describing another item, try your luck with Amazon customer support cause I doubt it is what it's claiming to be

[Haruspex]

Originally posted by Herasteane:

TysnlaimHD from Amazon.

Hmm. I can only find that on Amazon France. It's got that fake Sandisk looking branding too, and doesn't appear to be available anymore. Was it 1 TB? For $40? A real one would would be about twice that amount, and a quality one would be more.

Windows will read it and won't question the capacity it's reporting, but once you fill it beyond about 8 GB or so (Maybe more, maybe less), it will actually start overwriting data. This is because it's actually an 8 GB card set up to report the incorrect capacity. When the Steam Deck formats a card, it sees this discrepancy between reported capacity and real capacity and will refuse to continue.

I would contact Amazon about that card so you can get it returned, then put that $40 towards a real card. You can get a genuine Sandisk Extreme at 512 GB for about that much.