- Jun 6, 2014
- 4
- 0
- 4,510
TL;DR at the bottom, but I've tried to include a lot of detail in the body so you know what I've tried already.
I recently got a Dell Venue 8 Pro 32gb, and was looking to get some extra storage space. So, I went to ebay and picked up a very cheap ($11), brandless 64gb micro SD card. Fast forward a couple of days, and the card arrives in the mail.
I plug it into my tablet, and it seems to work fine. The tablet recognizes it, it's already formatted, and it looks to be ready to go. I can move files to and from it without problems, and even run them. The read/write speeds are slow, but that is expected from a card this cheap.
Now that I have all this extra space - or so I think - I try to download a game onto it: Devil May Cry 4 on Steam. I use Steam to set up a new game directory on the SD card for the game to download directly into. It takes a long time for Steam to allocate the required space for the download (something like an hour), but eventually the download begins. Unfortunately, the download takes far too long and I have to shut down my computer. Now, as far as I know, Steam is pretty good about this stuff, and the download should just resume next time I start Steam, right? Wrong. Next time I start Steam, it doesn't recognize the previous download and attempts to redownload the game to the SD card. It also reallocates the space, leaving the previously allocated space still reserved. It looks like there's no way to get that space back, so I reformat the card and give up on this course of action. Playing games on this tablet would've been nice, but isn't a deal breaker.
Next, I try to torrent some videos to the card. I create a directory in the root of the card titled "Video" and direct the video downloads there. I'm hopeful that this will work, as I have misattributed the errors in downloading the game to some problem with Steam. Well, sure enough, problems arise once more. Halfway through the download - a 10gb one, admittedly - I get an I/O error that I can't entirely read (didn't fit into the bubble and nothing came up when I clicked it) and the download cancels itself. From then on, the download doesn't recognize the previously downloaded files and tries to make me start the download from scratch. I try a different file, a smaller one, and it completes. However, despite the fact that it allegedly completes without a hitch, this video files is without any actual video (or audio for the matter). I repeat the download, this time to the internal storage, and the file does download flawlessly - video feed and all.
The next couple of days sees me emigrate back to using my main computer while trying to figure what was wrong with the SD card or tablet. I try reformatting the SD card several times, from exFat (a format I believe, possibly wrongly, to be the source of my problems) to NTFS. However, fate would not let it be so easy. For some reason, none of my computers allow me to reformat this SD card to NTFS. I try the default format tool (right click > format), no dice. I try SDFormatter 4.0, no cigar. I try Disk Management, nothing. I even try diskpart, and still, nothing but failure. I reconsider this course of action, format the card to exFat once more (with only a little bit of trouble), and try to pretend nothing ever went wrong. I try torrenting the same files as before, and they work this time. Upon closer inspection, however, they fail to start, same as before.
TL;DR That brings me to where I am now. I've exhausted every solution I can find in solving these problems. For those who'd prefer not to read the description above, he's a list of the problems:
-files torrented directly to the card have a high probability of corruption
-card can only be formatted to exFat - NTFS won't work
-pre-allocated space can potentially be permanently stuck on the card
-only happened once, but some folders became undeletable (had to reformat)
-once when fiddling with the card's files (and while the tablet was running fairly hot, I should add), the card's files became unresponsive and explorer.exe crashed (dunno if this matters, it only happened once but I felt it was worth noting)
I realize the problem could potentially be with any number of things - my new tablet, my cheap SD card, or maybe something I've simply done wrong. I'll provide more detail if requested. Thanks for reading.
I recently got a Dell Venue 8 Pro 32gb, and was looking to get some extra storage space. So, I went to ebay and picked up a very cheap ($11), brandless 64gb micro SD card. Fast forward a couple of days, and the card arrives in the mail.
I plug it into my tablet, and it seems to work fine. The tablet recognizes it, it's already formatted, and it looks to be ready to go. I can move files to and from it without problems, and even run them. The read/write speeds are slow, but that is expected from a card this cheap.
Now that I have all this extra space - or so I think - I try to download a game onto it: Devil May Cry 4 on Steam. I use Steam to set up a new game directory on the SD card for the game to download directly into. It takes a long time for Steam to allocate the required space for the download (something like an hour), but eventually the download begins. Unfortunately, the download takes far too long and I have to shut down my computer. Now, as far as I know, Steam is pretty good about this stuff, and the download should just resume next time I start Steam, right? Wrong. Next time I start Steam, it doesn't recognize the previous download and attempts to redownload the game to the SD card. It also reallocates the space, leaving the previously allocated space still reserved. It looks like there's no way to get that space back, so I reformat the card and give up on this course of action. Playing games on this tablet would've been nice, but isn't a deal breaker.
Next, I try to torrent some videos to the card. I create a directory in the root of the card titled "Video" and direct the video downloads there. I'm hopeful that this will work, as I have misattributed the errors in downloading the game to some problem with Steam. Well, sure enough, problems arise once more. Halfway through the download - a 10gb one, admittedly - I get an I/O error that I can't entirely read (didn't fit into the bubble and nothing came up when I clicked it) and the download cancels itself. From then on, the download doesn't recognize the previously downloaded files and tries to make me start the download from scratch. I try a different file, a smaller one, and it completes. However, despite the fact that it allegedly completes without a hitch, this video files is without any actual video (or audio for the matter). I repeat the download, this time to the internal storage, and the file does download flawlessly - video feed and all.
The next couple of days sees me emigrate back to using my main computer while trying to figure what was wrong with the SD card or tablet. I try reformatting the SD card several times, from exFat (a format I believe, possibly wrongly, to be the source of my problems) to NTFS. However, fate would not let it be so easy. For some reason, none of my computers allow me to reformat this SD card to NTFS. I try the default format tool (right click > format), no dice. I try SDFormatter 4.0, no cigar. I try Disk Management, nothing. I even try diskpart, and still, nothing but failure. I reconsider this course of action, format the card to exFat once more (with only a little bit of trouble), and try to pretend nothing ever went wrong. I try torrenting the same files as before, and they work this time. Upon closer inspection, however, they fail to start, same as before.
TL;DR That brings me to where I am now. I've exhausted every solution I can find in solving these problems. For those who'd prefer not to read the description above, he's a list of the problems:
-files torrented directly to the card have a high probability of corruption
-card can only be formatted to exFat - NTFS won't work
-pre-allocated space can potentially be permanently stuck on the card
-only happened once, but some folders became undeletable (had to reformat)
-once when fiddling with the card's files (and while the tablet was running fairly hot, I should add), the card's files became unresponsive and explorer.exe crashed (dunno if this matters, it only happened once but I felt it was worth noting)
I realize the problem could potentially be with any number of things - my new tablet, my cheap SD card, or maybe something I've simply done wrong. I'll provide more detail if requested. Thanks for reading.
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