SDHC Card Trouble - Transcend 8GB SDHC
 

I've spent many hours the past few days trying to fix my Transcend 8GB SDHC card. I've followed many of the tips on this forum and the SDFormatter tool was finally able to mount and do a quick format of the card. But then I tried to do a full format using SDFormatter and the program locked up at 95% and I had to quit the program.

The card is beyond messed up and the only OS (Win/Lin/Mac/Maemo) I can get it semi-mounted on is Windows when I run PC Inspector File Recovery using a SDHC reader.

So now that I can get it somewhat mounted I was hoping maybe TestDisk could get things fixed. I can do a bunch of stuff on the card using TestDisk but need some info to proceed...

:confused: Could someone who has the Transcend 8GB SDHC - Class 6, 11MB/Sec please let me know what the cylinders, heads, sectors are for this card has?

(I'm finding different values for this card using Google.)

Re: SDHC Card Trouble - Transcend 8GB SDHC
 

Well, I have the same card, but I don't know how you find out "what the cylinders, heads, sectors are for this card."

Re: SDHC Card Trouble - Transcend 8GB SDHC
 

So that's the start. It will be eventually not recognised by your tablet. I got 1 like that and happened like that.

Re: SDHC Card Trouble - Transcend 8GB SDHC
 

GeraldKo: Thanks. I believe it requires being root (sudo gainroot) and having the e2fsprogs package installed via Red Pill Mode. Then the following is run via a terminal

/sbin/sfdisk --no-reread /dev/mmcblk0
or
/sbin/sfdisk --no-reread /dev/mmcblk1

cyberghost: The card hasn't been readable by my N800 since either Saturday or Sunday. I'm refusing to give up, but have the Transend warranty page bookmarked.

Re: SDHC Card Trouble - Transcend 8GB SDHC
 

Here's what I got (if it seems wrong it cd be that this is for my 2GB card):

~ $ sudo gainroot
Root shell enabled


BusyBox v1.6.1 (2007-09-27 18:08:59 EEST) Built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

/home/user # /sbin/sfdisk --no-reread /dev/mmcblk0

Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 246224 cylinders, 4 heads, 16 sectors/track
Old situation:
Warning: The partition table looks like it was made
for C/H/S=*/233/20 (instead of 246224/4/16).
For this listing I'll assume that geometry.
Units = cylinders of 2385920 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

Device Boot Start End #cyls #blocks Id System
/dev/mmcblk0p1 1+ 3381- 3380- 7875072 b W95 FAT32
start: (c,h,s) expected (1,176,13) found (0,130,3)
end: (c,h,s) expected (1023,232,20) found (980,232,20)
/dev/mmcblk0p2 0 - 0 0 0 Empty
/dev/mmcblk0p3 0 - 0 0 0 Empty
/dev/mmcblk0p4 0 - 0 0 0 Empty
Input in the following format; absent fields get a default value.
<start> <size> <type [E,S,L,X,hex]> <bootable [-,*]> <c,h,s> <c,h,s>
Usually you only need to specify <start> and <size> (and perhaps <type>).

/dev/mmcblk0p1 :

Re: SDHC Card Trouble - Transcend 8GB SDHC
 

I used a 0 (instead of the 1) since my Transcend card is internal.

Re: SDHC Card Trouble - Transcend 8GB SDHC
 

Yhanks you GeraldKo. I'll try that later today.

Re: SDHC Card Trouble - Transcend 8GB SDHC
 

I have transcend 8gb class 6 sdhc card and saved master boot record with partition table before I started to mess with the card. I can attach it when I get back home. Then you can restore it with dd command as root. But panasonic sd formatter should figure it out correctly too. If it freezes then maybe you have bad blocks on your card and just restoring partition table may not help you much.

Re: SDHC Card Trouble - Transcend 8GB SDHC
 

Awesome! Thanks in advance.

Re: SDHC Card Trouble - Transcend 8GB SDHC
 

fanoush, I'm planning to make a bootable SDHC card. I bought a 4GB SanDisk Exteme III card specifically for this use.

I'm happy to do Xterm commands but I'm a Linux ignoramus. What does one do to "save a master boot record with partition table"?

Thanks!

Re: SDHC Card Trouble - Transcend 8GB SDHC
 

When system boots my card is detected as
mmcblk0: mmc0:b368 SDC 7879168KiB
this can be found by typing 'dmesg' in osso-xterm right after boot. If your card is same, here is zipped MBR. unzip it and write it to card as root
partition layout in both sectors and cylinders is here

Re: SDHC Card Trouble - Transcend 8GB SDHC
 

It is the first sector on disk/card. As root copy it to file like:
This makes copy of master boot record of card in internal slot to my4gbsandisk.bin file (1 sector of 512 bytes), store it somewhere safe (not to the card itself :-)

you can later restore it by switching if (input file) and of (output file) arguments in the dd command above