For a new phone, I wanted a top quality, fast card, so, as usual, I went for Sandisk - and this time I decided for a 64 GB micro SD Extreme.
To avoid any fakes, I’ve been buying cards for quite some time only from Amazon UK. *Not* from Marketplace, but from Amazon (I believe there’s a partnership between Amazon and Sandisk, as the cards always come packaged in white cardboard envelopes with Amazon and Sandisk logos). The new one came from Amazon UK as well. Anyway, I got it, formatted it with SDFormatter, then the phone… the usual jazz.
And, after about a week, I started copying several GB of online maps to the card… and suddenly it “disappeared” during the copying. Now it’s no longer seen by the PC, using any card reader, with or without SD adapter. “Needs to be formatted”, etc. - the usual when (as it seems) the controller is broken. Photorec and Testdisk can recover some of the files (as can Sandisk’s Rescue Pro Deluxe; I got a key for it with the card), but without being able to recover proper file names and directory structure, it’s not really useful at all as far as restoring it to a new card is concerned.
I expect it’s time to do something with the card - return it to Amazon (or Sandisk?), probably, though I’m quite hesitant to send it out when it still contains recoverable private data - but then…?
I’ll need a new card, obviously, but I have to say that this is making me wary of a new Sandisk. A (presumable) controller failure after a week of use is a sign of bad manufacturing, and I’d rather not have this repeat if I, say, go for another 64 GB Extreme. My previous, smaller-sized Sandisk cards have not done so. Is this particular line e.g. prone to failure? Or maybe there, for instance, known bad batches of them?
