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I have a SanDisk Ultra Plus 64gb MicroSd XC Card that I used to run ubuntu server on a raspbery PI.

Now I have to format this card but I can not succes. I've tried many things including:

  • Formating via the explorer on window: Unexpected error.
  • Deleting patitions with window partition manager : Unexpected error.
  • Diskpart cmd: Unexpected error
  • Trying to flash another ubuntu image via Raspbery Imager: Unexpected error.
  • Formating via Rufus: Unexpected error.
  • Deleting partitions and making a new one via gparted: Tell me about overlapping volumes and return to initial state.
  • Listing via fdisk: Show me that there is no overlaping. sdb1 end at 526335 and sdb2 start at 526336. enter image description here
  • Deleting partitions via gparted without creating a new one: After saving it show succes but the disk reload, and the partitions are comming back.

So far I can tell, the card is not in readonly mode + I do not use an adaptater that have a switch.

dr_
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Sera
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    Under linux, run `dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdcX bs=4M iflag=fullblock oflag=direct status=progress`, where `X` is the device letter, which should completely wipe it. I assume though it will start then eventually fail pointing to a broken card. – Bib Jun 16 '22 at 09:41
  • This cmd fail with the following message : Writing error in /dev/sdb1, no space available 65+0 records write, 65+0 records read. Does it say that my card is dead ? – Sera Jun 16 '22 at 09:56
  • Its `sdb` NOT `sdb1`. You want to fully wipe the card, not a partition. It will eventually fail, and if it after having full wiped then there is not problem. – Bib Jun 16 '22 at 10:06
  • Oh, I understand now, thanks :) I'll come back when it's over. – Sera Jun 16 '22 at 10:10
  • After a while: it failed : Writing error in /dev/sdb, no space available. And partitions are not empty :/ – Sera Jun 16 '22 at 11:15
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    That's how it should have failed, but you need to check how far and if that tallies with the ~64GB size. By the looks though, it is broken as it cannot be written to. – Bib Jun 16 '22 at 11:26
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    You can analyze the problem according to [this link](https://askubuntu.com/questions/144852/cant-format-my-usb-drive-i-have-already-tried-with-mkdosfs-and-gparted/933035#933035), and if you are lucky, find a solution. (But it is also possible that the card is dead.) – sudodus Jun 17 '22 at 12:45
  • I'm curious what you decided, or if you followed steps to an answer or solution! – Old Uncle Ho Jun 18 '22 at 18:34
  • @Sera Please remember to upvote and mark as accepted the answer that helped you the most. – penguin359 Jun 18 '22 at 18:40

3 Answers3

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Very likely your SD card has failed.

SD cards have a limited number of write cycles per block. Most of them use wear leveling which tries to rearrange blocks to spread writes out evenly across all blocks to extend the SD card life. But once the number of write cycles has been used up, blocks are no longer writable.

A typical failure mode for an SD card is for it to silently stop accepting new writes. It sounds like this is what has happened to your card.

The only solution is to replace the SD card.

user10489
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10

It looks like your SD card is corrupted, or is a smaller SD sold as a 64 Gb.

You can test it with the f3 tools:

f3write /yourmountpoint

Wait until it's finished, unmount the SD card, then remount it and run

f3read /yourmountpoint

If f3read reports corrupted files, the SD card is bad. If the corrupted files all occur after a certain point, it's likely the card is smaller than its advertised size.

Similar question: How can I check the condition of an SD card?

dr_
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2

Check in another SD-Card reader.
Many cheap Usb card readers fail to delete data or format SD cards.
Built-in readers from laptops/digital cameras/phones usually work.
If you cannot format it in known good reader, its probably dead.

Thomas
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