Hi,

I bought a SanDisk 4GB SDHC card (the micro-SD + adapter variant), and for a short while it worked fine in the internal slot of my 800. I flashed the 800 to the most recent OS2008 about three weeks ago.

Then I decided to put an ext2 filesystem on it - because it's closer to what I'm used to (I'm a Linux systems admin). Unfortunately since doing so, I'm getting the dreaded "Memory card is incorrectly formatted or corrupted" message from the file manager - even after reformatting it to FAT32, either in the N800 or a PC.

At least once, I've reformatted it in the N800 (from the File Manager) and it's worked, but only until the next power off / on.

Just reformatted it from the File Manager and wrote a bunch of files to it. I can read and write to it without error. Hang on a tick while I switch the tablet off .. yep, "incorrectly formatted or corrupted" when I switch it back on. This happens in either slot. But I can take the card out of the N800, put it in a PC - Windows or Linux - with a card reader, and all the files I've just written to it from the 800 are visible. Just tried it.

Anyone had a similar problem? Any ideas?

Slim

When you put a ext2 file system, you have to insmod the ext2 modules so the N800 displays the memory card.

Check one of the many cloning os threads.

Don't think that needs to be done manually, since the N800 has mounted a 1G (non-SDHC) card with an ext2 filesystem without any issues.

But since the problematic card doesn't currently have an ext2 filesystem on it, after reformatting it from the N800 - sorry if that wasn't clear - it's a different problem anyway.

Currently the card has a Windows filesystem on it - whatever the File Manager serves up by default. It works fine in that mode in a PC, and even in the N800 until first power-off following the format.

More on this: the 4G SDHC card is reported as "incorrectly formatted or corrupted" when the N800 is powered up with it present. But if it's inserted while the N800 is running, it makes it available without an issue!

it does sounds as if there's something funny about it
try unmounting it, then using fdisk to delete and recreate the partition table, and then reformatting it. can't hurt, might help!

Have you tried sfdisk on the device itself?

I tried fdisk earlier, yes. Split the card into 3 partitions. Didn't help, I'm afraid.

Have you tried the Panasonic formatting utility for SD/SDHC cards to do a low-level format?

I haven't tried that. It's worth a try I think, but unfortunately I don't have access to a Windows PC here at home. Will give it a shot when I can get my hands on the other half's laptop!

Well, two new 4G SDHC cards plopped through the door this morning, thanks to play.com



.. put an ext2 filesystem on one of them, put it in the tablet and it powered up & mounted it, no problem.

So I never got to the bottom of the problem - perhaps something to do with the Micro-SD format - but the replacement card was only £8.99, and I can still use the old one in the PC, and even in the tablet if I hotplug it, so I've stopped caring.

Still can't quite believe you can get a 4GB drive this size for less than a tenner. There was a time when I used to buy 1.2G external SCSI drives for £1200, for the company I worked for! About 15 years ago.