yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Focus General] yobyeknom:
Just an update - I've been using the Samsung 16GB class2 card for about 10 days now and I don't see any issues that I'd associate with the card. I've got total Storage of 21.92 GB and Available Storage of 8.88 GB - so I'm using over 13 GBs.

The only real issue that I'm having is the bluetooth car/headset volume but that is discussed elsewhere.

Still love the phone.
[Focus General] clfosk:
Did you purchase your card from the ebay user that has been previously mentioned in this thread?
[Focus General] martijnloeffen:
I'll just try...lets see what happen! thanks
[Focus General] goldenpipes:
Kingston SDC4/8GB

No Issues whatsoever Total Storage 14.61GB Free Space 1.50GB

So this card is almost completely filled and working great.

I can not wait until my Kingston SDC4/32GB and Sandisk SDC4/32GB arrive. As soon as I fill them up (won't take long) i'll post results.
[Focus General] clfosk:
Hmm I have a Kingston SDC4/8GB-2ADP laying around that I didn't want to risk not being able to reformat. Maybe I will try it now. No noticeable lag in games or apps while using it?

Also, looking forward to hear your experiences with the two 32gbs.
[Focus General] goldenpipes:
I don't notice any lag in games other than the occasional glitch but those aren't SD card related I don't think because when I look up online it says it happens on more than just the focus.
[Focus General] Red Grenadine:
I've had the 16gb Samsung class 2 from eBay seller Nikolai (mentioned earlier in thread) for over 2 weeks. No reset or data loss issues at all. Definitely recommend it as there doesn't seem to be any stable 32gb cards. I can bite the bullet and make do with 24gb until my next phone.

Sent from my Windows Phone using Board Express
[Focus General] sabesh:
Kingston 16GB Class-4 card working good for about 3 days now. Have 15GB loaded.
[Focus General] FishFaceMcGee:
I may have asked you this already, but the sync speed was good? It didn't take excessively long (5-10 minutes for a single song if the usual is 10-30 seconds) to sync?
[Focus General] sabesh:
I loaded about 50 MP3s within 15 minutes, I think.
[Focus General] s2welee:
So I've got an 8 gig class 2 sandisk (says it's suppoted on page 1) but I have a question. If it all goes to hell and I get the 15mb issue, does removing the card and resetting the phone with the 3 buttons restore it to before card added or do you have to take it back to ATT for a exchange?
[Focus General] FishFaceMcGee:
In almost every time you do it (I've only had it not work once), removing the card and doing the format will reset the card to use the 8GB. Keep in mind however, that, unless you have a Nokia or Symbian-OS phone, you will be unable to recover the card once you've put it in your Focus and format it.
[Focus General] s2welee:
Thanks FishFace. Not really worried about loosing the card, just hosing the phone. It is my old card out of my G1 anyway. Not much of a loss.
[Focus General] SuperSport:
You can do it yourself, and it restores it back to factory fresh.
[Focus General] Sebo1985:
Sandisk 32GB Class 4

Day 14 or something.

I'm getting more and more reboots when battery under somewhat 90%. Some of them with data loss.

It's really ridiculous that it works with the device plugged in and not with it unplugged. It's definitely a power issue and has nothing to do with how WP7 handles the storage, at least not with the Sandisk cards.
[Focus General] psills:
Using a 16gb Sandisk Class 4 (the same card that comes in many of the HTC units as the primary memory).

Been several weeks

No Slowdowns, No Reboots, No Problems...
[Focus General] Reflexx1:
What kind of SD cards are in all the HTC Devices?

And are people using WP7 on the HD2 experiencing problems with their SD cards also?
[Focus General] FishFaceMcGee:
How full up are you?
[Focus General] SuperSport:
Not trying to go off topic, but no problems with my HD2, although, it does not format the SD Card the same way, so maybe that's why. It stays Fat32.
[Focus General] Sebo1985:
Sandisk 32GB Class 4

Week 3

After a period of time with quite a lot syncing and app installing and therefore quite a few random resets, now the device is again pretty stable, at least till 50% battery.

But I have to mention: Few app installing, few syncing.

What I already realized is, that the device only reboots when in idle mode, never in use. Does it somehow reorganize the synced or installed data when it is locked and therefore gets too little power cause the device is in power efficiency mode? Who knows.

As it is now I'm ok with it, for a while...
[Focus General] Seed 2.0:
Patriot 16GB Class 4 (PSF16GMCSDHC43P) IS A NO GO! Card merges fine but once stock memory is full it stops adding data. It will say there is 14+ GB free but even a 1Kb file when attempted to add will bring a disk full message.
[Focus General] goldenpipes:
Okay...

32Gb Kingston class 4

I've stuck about 10gb of music and a couple hundred megs in games and apps.

The phone seems rather slow when jumping to and from apps the animations are smooth as always, but it seems like sometimes apps take forever to install or open up.

Sometimes I'll try to open an app and it will just hang and go back to the start screen. Then I go to open the same app again and it pops open like it should.

I feel like this card is probably the issue. I figured since this card is the same brand and class as my 8gb it might be okay.

so far I haven't noticed any random restarts or data loss. Except one time I changed my lockscreen wallpaper. The phone froze whiles installing an app so I had to do a battery pull. When it came back on it had the old wallpaper and also the keypress tone setting was reset I'll keep using it for a few days and see what happens. Maybe m$ will put out some approved cards and I can stick this one in the wifeys BB torch.
[Focus General] psills:
I've had it quite full - only about 4gb left. I've put on and off videos, music, etc. Soft-booted a couple of times. Works just as original. No problems here. Maybe about a month of use - possibly more...
[Focus General] wm.andrew.wilson:
So...messing around in my Focus' registry, I found a key for SD card power management. Toggled it and have been playing with the phone ever since, it seems to be tons more stable but maybe that is just my imagination? Kingston 32 GB class 4, 10.5 GB are used.

Registry Editor for Focus is here (there are 2 but this one is far more extensive, must be sideloaded using Chevron WP7): http://forum.touchxperience.com/download/file.php?id=60&sid=62beb64544292b466dc0a0eae2a827d9

Key is located at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>Drivers>SDCARD>ClientDrivers>Class>SDMemory_Class>DisablePowerManagement (change from 1 to 0)

Let me know how this works out!
[Focus General] farmerfox:
edit: I realize that this issue has been discussed elsewhere in the 75 pages of this thread, but I couldn't recover like others have.

I killed my Focus...

I tried a 32GB Sandisk class 4 card. After installation, the phone booted properly and ran fine for a couple days until right before a business trip when I tried to load a whack of music and a few movies.

Initially, Zune wouldn't copy everything in one go. I selected something like 800 songs, and it would copy 700. It took about 5 tries before it got all the music copied. Then I went for the movies and a few tv shows. Just about exactly when it would've reached 8gb on the device, the phone did a hard reset right in the middle of syncing, erasing everything on the phone, accounts and all.

So, I removed the card and started over. I set up my 3 email accounts and before it was done downloading my email, it gave me a very friendly error message that said my phone was full and I would have to delete stuff. I checked the capacity through the settings menu and it reported 15.73mb as the storage capacity of the phone.

Took the phone back to the store (didn't tell them about trying a memory card) and the tech support person tried reformatting the storage (which was a little like watching a 3 year old try to play the bag pipes), which didn't work, so they wrote the phone off as defective and gave me a new one.

I suspect that my phone was faulty to begin with. I have a hard time understanding how this card (which was used just fine in a Galaxy S) could cause the original 8gb to die, but now I am a little scared, certified card or not, to try again.

I guess I have 8gb to work with instead of the 40 I was expecting with this phone...
[Focus General] goldenpipes:
When u hard reset the phone did u try the 3 key hold down method?
[Focus General] goldenpipes:
So from the way this sounds we enable power management?

Gonna try this when I get home. My device is stable when I'm in an app. But its getting into the Apps sometimes that is sluggish. Even opening the calculator sometimes takes forever.
[Focus General] Sebo1985:
I would suppose you have to DISable the power management, sounds logical to me and my observations that it could me more stable after that.

Though, right now I don't have the guts to play with that registry key...

Last Days my Class 4 Sandisk 32GB acted rock solid again, but I installed quite a few programs yesterday evening and synced a little bit of music, perhaps that will change the solidity today.
[Focus General] goldenpipes:
IT WORKS!

So i changed it to 0 and this phone is working like it did before i put the SD cards in. everything is smooth as silk!!!
[Focus General] FishFaceMcGee:
Really? Interesting. So it turns out this may be fixable with a patch for those who don't want to side-load, then.
[Focus General] goldenpipes:
Yep its definitely worth some heavy testing. The only thing I've noticed is that dome larger apps, like games, take a while to install. But I've had it installing in the background while doing other things so I don't know if that's why it took so long. About 10 mins from the start of the DL to being able to play it.

I should mention that I did a soft reset after changing the reg key. And I popped the reg editor back open and it stayed set to 0.
[Focus General] FishFaceMcGee:
To be quite honest, if the only downside to flipping that switch is that apps take longer to install than usual, that's a fair trade-off, as far as I'm concerned, for a stable device with more than 8GB.
[Focus General] Sebo1985:
As I suggested, after loading lots of apps yesterday today I got a reboot with data loss in the morning, nothing thereafter, but I think I will also switch the powermanagement registry entry to 0 and see what happens.
[Focus General] goldenpipes:
So ive been trolling around google and Amazon and

sdsdq-032g-a11m

seems to be the card to get.

32GB Class 2 Sandisk...

anyone confirm they have this card and its working like a champ before i buy one?

i'll tolerate this kingston no longer. i was listening to music and a phone call came through the phone froze restarted and i had 15mb of free space. hard reset and back to the 35.XX free but what a pain in the ass....

who knows maybe the certified ones will come out soon, or the update will fix something.
[Focus General] FishFaceMcGee:
Is that after the registry-switch? In regards to the 32GB card, that was (according to the order page as I've since returned the card) the card I tried and it failed almost immediately.
[Focus General] jaraya13:
Hi. Just a follow up for my Samsung Class 2 16GB card, it is working great after 1 month of using it.

Is it possible that my other fellows with this card confirm or not that theirs is working as good as mine.

From the 24GB total I only have 6 GB free.
[Focus General] goldenpipes:
yep did the registry switch. i think it may have had something to do with the battery being almost completely dead. in fact the battery was so dead that after i turn the phone back on to see that everything was reset it shut off again and wouldnt turn back on until i plugged it in. so idk.
[Focus General] smuook:
Ditto. Mine still working great after a month without a single problem. I have about 9GB left.
[Focus General] yobyeknom:
I'm at about 2 1/2 weeks and going strong with my Samsung Class 2 16GB. No issues and I've got just over 5 GB free.
[Focus General] wm.andrew.wilson:
The complete fix to SD problems? Or just my imagination...

So...strange thing I found out today. I toggled a couple of other keys because I was getting the occasional freeze going in/out of apps and wanted to see what they did before deciding whether to go back to no card or not.

I ran the phone for 2 months without a card, and with these keys toggled, it is actually FASTER than it was. I don't fully believe it so I am posting here to get someone to back it up for me!

The keys have to do with MMC (internal memory) power management.The big speed improvements is in games/apps (Fruit Ninja opens and operates leaps and bounds faster than it did when the phone did stock!)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>Drivers>SDCARD>ClientDrivers>Class>MMC_Class>DisablePowerManagement (Change to 0)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>Drivers>SDCARD>ClientDrivers>Class>MMC_Class>High_Capacity>DisablePowerManagement (Change to 0)

And the one from my last post repeated for the people trying this for the first time:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>Drivers>SDCARD>ClientDrivers>Class>SDMemory_Class>DisablePowerManagement (Change to 0)

One point of note here, do not be afraid if the phone locks up the first time soft resetting after these changes, mine did and it was fine after a battery pull.

Also, I would be interested to hear any theories about why this one made such a big difference when it seemingly affects only the internal storage. Maybe because the two storage devices are "bridged" by WP7?
[Focus General] Sebo1985:
I look into that also, but first I watch the behaviour after changing sd value to 0.

Up to now: no reboots, despite heavy syncing.
[Focus General] FishFaceMcGee:
Something you guys should keep an eye on (especially after changing the power settings for the NAND as well as SD card) is how much (if at all) this affects battery life. You would assume that turning off power management would hurt it, but if you're not noticing anything drastic, than this may be something to tell Microsoft about.
[Focus General] Sebo1985:
After one day I would say: No effect.

The device was mainly idle for 14h and now has at least 75% left. You would expect idle mode would profit the most, but up to now I cannot see a change.

Let's see what the battery tells me tomorrow morning.
[Focus General] goldenpipes:
I've changed all the keys. And I've noticed the phone seems to get warmer than usual. Anyone else notice this?
[Focus General] wm.andrew.wilson:
Haven't noticed the warmness more than usual golden...Battery life is exactly the same as it would be on a day like today before the key change, I can't notice any difference besides the fact that the phone is quite stable/non-lagging now.
[Focus General] vedichymn:
Yeah, my samsung 16GB card is working great too, no reset or issues.
[Focus General] mfaist:
Confirmed, my Samsung card is working perfectly also.
[Focus General] mcorrie1121:
Sandisk 16GB Class 4 working great so far after 4 days, 18 of 22 gigs full.
[Focus General] Jnalupta:
Apologies if this is off-topic or has already been covered, but what is the most problem-free way of formatting and installing a new microsd card? I've read about formatting it on the PC, or double-formatting it on the phone. What has generally worked for everyone? Thanks, great thread, btw. Very helpful.
[Focus General] mcorrie1121:
The 3-button method stalled for me. I used Settings -> About -> Reset and it worked much better.
[Focus General] Reflexx1:
Manufacturers have working cards

I was wondering why no certified cards are available yet. Maybe MS doesn't want there to be any?

I figure, there have to already be known certified cards, or else phone manufacturers wouldn't know what do use for their phones. After all, HTC phones use SD cards for their storage. And I doubt that MS told them to just try out a bunch of cards and see which ones work and which ones don't.

So there must be an already existing spec. And there must also be an already existing production process for creating and buying cards that adhere to that spec.

Or am I missing something?
[Focus General] FishFaceMcGee:
The most reasonable explanation is that the cards HTC, Dell, and I think LG use are higher quality and sold only to OEMs by SD card manufacturers. The reason why consumers don't get the better SD cards is twofold:

1) We don't pay SanDisk as much as the phone OEMS do.

2) We can't really sue SanDisk if the card we buy to put in our camera craps out because it's simple to go and buy another. If the only storage on a phone craps out, that's class-action lawsuit time. Therefore, OEMs pay SD manufacturers big money to make sure that the cards they get are as awesome as possible.
[Focus General] Reflexx1:
I've heard a lot if hit and miss in regards to different sd cards. The same kinds of cards can vary widely in success.

But so far, I haven't heard anyone say they bought a Samsung card that doesn't work. Though, I don't know how many people have actually tried Samsung cards.

Samsung does have its own semiconductor division, so maybe that helps.
[Focus General] FishFaceMcGee:
Also, an important thing to keep in mind is that everyone who has a Samsung card either got it from Samsung directly, or bought it from a single person on eBay. It's not like you could walk into Best Buy or whatever and buy it off the shelf.

You're right, though. The 16 GB Samsung has been the single most consistent card so far.
[Focus General] psills:
So far, the only cards which have proven 100% (at least for 16gb) are:

Sandisk 16gb Class 4

Samsung 16gb Class 2

No 32gb cards have worked 100%

And who would only put in an 8gb card?
[Focus General] halfchkn:
My Experience - 16GB SD Card

So far I've had not problems with the following:

Patriot Signature Flash, 16GB microSDHC4 Class 4 (PSF16GMCSDHC43P)

I haven't stored alot of data yet, but plan on doing so shortly. I'll post up my results once I do so. Otherwise, the phone is working great @ 24GB.
[Focus General] wm.andrew.wilson:
Has anyone else attempted the registry hack? I am curious because I am becoming more and more convinced that this is a power control issue, and has very little to do with the cards themselves (outside of the fact that different cards consume power differently)
[Focus General] FishFaceMcGee:
I would, but I have no working cards anymore (every card I have was locked by a Focus that eventually got bricked itself) and have not seen a simple, foolproof explanation of how to unlock the phone with Chevron. Also, I'm kinda hesitant to unlock the phone with the rumor being that first update (which will also close the Chevron hole) is going to be out on the 7th.

Edit: I'm ordering one of the Samsung cards from everyone's favorite, Nikolai. If someone could provide a simple, well-written instruction list for Chevron, I would give it a shot.
[Focus General] Sebo1985:
The registry hack concerning sd card works great so far. No reboots anymore. Absoluteley stable with Sandisk 32GB Class 4, for 3 days.

But lately not that much syncing, I have to wait till I have some more time to test it.
[Focus General] wm.andrew.wilson:
As someone who spent many hours messing with Chevron (it is incredibly picky), I am going to write a quick tutorial when I get home how to do some common hacks on WP7 for you guys. Hope it helps!
[Focus General] CronoMagus:
KINGSTON 16GB Class 4

I got my SAMSUNG FOCUS on Monday Nov 8th, and have been using the "Kingston 16GB class 4 MicroSD" with no issues since launch day. Will report back if issues arise.
[Focus General] CronoMagus:
oh, I have also synced with Zune, added music, and my digital copy of Scott Pilgrim Vs The world, and installed apps and games as well.
[Focus General] emjee87:
Thanks for the input. It looks like the 32GB SanDisk issue isn't an isolated incident and we can pretty much rule that card out as an option for now. I'll leave it under the current heading in case someone wanders in to this thread and just looks at the first post, and not the results that people using the 32GB SanDisk have posted.
[Focus General] burnblue:
Make sure the phone is off before you try the 3-button reset, fellas...
[Focus General] paschott:
Running a Kingston 16GB Class 4 MicroSD in my Focus. I was able to power down and power back up without any data loss. (For which I'm glad - I wasn't expecting some cards to have issues and some to work fine.)
[Focus General] mbamenra:
I have a Transcend 8GB Class 6 laying around that I wanted to use in my Focus (haven't gotten it yet). If I were to follow the proper instructions of inserting it in the phone and immediately doing a hard reset, would I encounter the same problem, or might the issue stem from folks not following instructions and instead inserting a card then powering up and only subsequently resetting the phone?
[Focus General] foxbat121:
The issue is with particular card, not instrucitons. You don't have to follow the exact instructions. I simply use Settings->About->Reset phone to format w/o any problem.
[Focus General] mbamenra:
Right, which means you have to turn it on first before hard resetting. Was just wondering if that could somehow create an issue with some cards that they weren't hardbaked into the system before the device was powered up.
[Focus General] naplesbill:
I have a Centon 8GB Class 6 card and it works perfectly. I installed it at the AT&T Store on Monday, did a reset, and it recognized/formatted it. I have loader over 8gb of Music and many apps. I have reset a couple of times and it is still recognized and working.
[Focus General] mind4sale:
Patriot Memory is working

I purchased a 16GB class 4 card of Patriot memory from Newegg. I'm new so I can post a link, but if you search on Patriot microsd, you'll find it.

I believe this is essentially the same card that Paul Thurrott installed and reported on in his article at windowsphonesecrets.com. He doesn't seem to be having issues either.

I performed the hard reset and formatted the card (camera, -volume, power), ran through setup and synched a bunch (>8GB) of music and photos. I've shut the phone down (soft reset) multiple times and have not experienced any problems.
[Focus General] alvinswim:
Well I never tried my 16GB Class 2 SanDisk again, after it puked on me. I'll keep that in my Nexus One for now..

I did however put a 4GB Class 2 SanDisk in my phone.. and its been working for the last 2 days.

I suspect as the MicroSD's get bigger the faster it needs to be to work well? or is that an invalid hypothesis?

Anyhow, I do have a mini-gripe.. whats with all the space lost after formatting? I agree there should be some space lost but currently with a 4GB MicroSD I'm only getting 10.98GB space.. Whats the Deal? are they formatting it in FAT16 or something?
[Focus General] foxbat121:
Notice most of the non-working cards are faster class 6 cards.
[Focus General] emjee87:
I believe that space might be used for system/OS files.
[Focus General] eknutson:
And the cards are never quite as big as advertised, either - there's some loss. I think my "16 GB" card is actually 14.7 or something like that.
[Focus General] XeNoMoRpH1030:
Just a follow up. I talked to him and he says everything is fine, so I believe that card is safe.