f13.net

Google has failed me so I turn to the f13 gestalt.

I recently bought a new 16GB microSD card for my G1 as the old 8GB was getting full. I've had that phone and card combo for over a year with no problems at all. Since replacing it with the 16GB however I've had issues with the new card not being recognised by the phone. A reboot or remount usually solves it and whenever I stick the card into a card reader on my PC it reads no problem. I get regular messages that my SD card is not ready, doesn't have a readable format or is being prepared. The card is a Sandisk and I've not found anything that suggests the G1 doesn't like cards of that size.

I'm reluctant to blame the card because it seems to work fine in other devices, however I've never had a problem with my phone before this.

edit: ah nevermind you already looked for a size restriction - but I would bet that's it if it reads fine on your PC.

Instinct tells me it is a loose connection.

Huh. Been having a similar problem with a transcend 8gb card in my Incredible. Sometimes on boot, it doesn't recognise the card, until I repeatedly try and access it using astro file manager (usually on the third or fourth attempt, it'll appear - If I just leave it, it never gets recognised until I reboot).

I haven't really tried to diagnose the problem as I rarely reboot, and the workaround isn't hard - I might try reformatting some time.

What controls the circuitry for sim card access?  Is it by device or internal to the card?

If it's the latter then size should never matter.  I can't imagine they're that complicated though, so I'd think it'd be device dependent.

Many devices do have a maximum card size they support, although generally if you format the card on that device they then recognize it as the smaller capacity card they've formatted it as.  I'm not up on the details of SD Card tech and formats, although a quick Wikipedia glance tells me that there shouldn't be any technological/protocol differences between 8 and 16 (the transitions are at 4gb and 32gb).  My best guess is a loose/dirty contact somewhere, probably inside the phone.

--Dave

Which version of Droid are you running on it?

I'm running 1.6 which AFAIK is the last release for the G1.

It's quite possible the new card is a little pickier about timing, power, or cleanliness of signals.  This can vary quite a bit from manufacturer to manufacturer or lot to lot.  I've generally had good experiences with Sandisk, but all of the major (and minor) brands have caused us headaches from time to time.  The kernel log (adb shell dmesg > kernel.log)  will typically have some low level information about how the sdcc driver is failing if things are going south, but that's usually not actionable by an end-user.

Ok, 1.6 is the latest stable support release for the G1, it will support 2.2 through voodoo magic, but yeah, whatever.

Alot of G1's were shipped with 1.5 and prior, and apparently there were some issues surrounding larger storage then, but I couldn't find much detail on that.
Found a snippit of information about certain classes of SD card not working as expected with the G1/HTC Dream.

If you are looking to purchase an SD card that the device will read at its full native speed you will need to purchase a class 2. The device will read a class 4 but not at its native speeds.

I was thinking maybe that was relevant somehow. With that Quinton is saying, perhaps something like the SD card you are using being newer plus having a higher class rating than the device can use correctly is resulting in issues like you are experiencing.