Sony A6000 - 128GB micro SDHC fail

Purchased a 128GB micro SDHC for my Sony A6000 from Mediamarkt in Germany last month. 

After 5 days into my holliday and after a considerable ammount of pictures the card failed. 

I used the original SanDisk SD to Micro SD adapter in the Sony A6000. 

I have tested the 128GB micro SDHC at home with stills and video to make certain it was in working order, no issues were encountered.

I play back the pictures and movies every evening to verify quality and compositions etc. 

On day 5, during playback in the Sony the Sony genererated a error message that it was unable to read the card and the card should be re-inserted.

After re-inserting the card the Sony A6000 did not recognise the card.

The 128GB micro SDHC was very hot as I removed it from the Sony A6000 camera.

The card is not recognised by my Apple MBP, Mac Mini or Samsung mobile phone.

The 128GB micro SDHC always becomes very hot (to hot to touch) when inserted in the camera.

I placed great trust in SanDisk and Sony and I tested my setup before leaving for holiday.

5 Days worth of images gone, endangered animals, volcano hike, great sunsets, personal photos all lost…

My conclusion:

Normal SD cards have the chip in the centre and the Sony A6000 has a metal plate on top and below the SD card that could function as a heat sink in case of a temperature increase. The SanDisk adapter places the 128GB micro SDHC at the top of the SD card slot. Sony has no metal parts to take any temperature increase at the edge of the SD adapter where the micro SDHC is located. The 128GB micro SDHC most likely got overheated in-camera during playback untill it self distructed… 

Any suggestions help welcome.

I have opened RMA  151231-001799

I had 64GB Kingston card, brand new mircosd fast u3 card has failed inside my a6000 after 4 days during holidays :frowning: many unique photos lost. All other full size SD cards I use still work without any issues.

I have read on the internet many people complain their micro sd cards fails, inside phones as well, and often they blame phone.

I have opened my 32GB sandisk extreme regular size SD card, and inside there is tiny comparable to microsd card, only slightly bigger because of connector pads take more space, it takes only 1/3 space inside the SD card housing. There is also no visible chips / electronics, but this card serves for me for 3 years or so, and this one has no overheat issue although physical construction is similar to microsd. 

Lesson for me, change cards during the day, and then backup them at the end of the day.

There are also industrial and automotive cards, made by panasonic, atp, swissbit, apacer.

Also sandisk have Industrial XT, or Automotive SD card series. 

I do not why consumer cards can be more fragile than, besides operating temperatues I expect top wear leveling and data loss prevention by user notification, like SSD have SMART .

  • Fix 1 - At times, some of the devices may not read an SD card, therefore, try to connect your SD card to another device.
  • Fix 2 - Insert the affected card into a card reader and connect it to your system. Click on the “Start” option from your Windows taskbar and then select the “Computer” option. Search for your SD card under “Devices with Removable Storage” and note the drive letter assigned.Next, click the “Start” option again and type “cmd” in the “search” box. Right-click “cmd” and then select the “Run as administrator” option. A command window opens, and you can fix your corrupt memory card from here. Next, type “chkdsk” followed by the drive letter corresponding to the SD card, then by a colon and /f. After you press “enter”, the Chkdsk will check for possible errors and try to fix the corrupt SD card. Follow the subsequent message prompts. Lastly, check your assigned drive letter to your SD card to verify if the files are recovered or not.
  • Fix 3 - Connect your SD card to a card reader to the system, if your system doesn’t assign a new drive letter to it, then it isn’t reading it. In some cases, the reader might be assigned a drive letter, but still, you get the message “Please insert the disk into drive E:” indicating that it isn’t reading the card. To resolve this problem assign a new drive letter to this connected Card through your operating system settings.

Visit Sony A6000 Manual for more fixes.