Any modern drive needs maintenance, including an SD card for a mobile gadget. One of the most common procedures, besides deleting and recording information, is formatting. As a rule, drives come off the assembly line ready to go, and there is no need to do any unnecessary manipulations before use.
The need to format the SD card on Android may arise in a number of other cases, which we will discuss below. There can be many scenarios, and some experience serious problems with this seemingly simple procedure. Therefore, we will provide detailed instructions on how to properly format the SD card on Android and make it as painless as possible.
The need for a procedure
Almost all external SD drives with a capacity of less than 64 GB come with the FAT32 file system. The vast majority of other devices “understands” the latter: video players, consoles, players, etc. But there are also other formats - NTFS, exFAT, etc.
Therefore, if a third-party device does not see the drive, you will have to format the SD card on Android for this file system. It also happens that a flash drive refuses to work: it does not open files, does not delete them or copy. If you format the SD card on Android, it will help.
Memory Issues
Another specific problem that is characteristic of older smartphones and tablets is the large amount of storage. Some gadgets refuse to work with 64 GB of memory, but perceive, for example, only 32, or even 16. In this case, you can format the SD card for an Android tablet or smartphone for a smaller amount.
Formatting
The simplest and most reliable option for organizing this procedure is the standard platform tools. There will definitely not be any problems or conflicts of the drive with the internal memory of the device. Let’s figure out how to format an SD card on Android 7.0.
Formatting Procedure:
- We go to "Settings" through the menu or the curtain.
- We click on the section “Storage and USB-drives”.
- We find the item “Format” (sometimes “Clear”).
- In the pop-up window, click on "OK", thereby agreeing with the warning about the complete cleaning of the drive.
- We are waiting for the end of the process.
Before formatting, be sure to backup the data if possible, because recovering lost information after this procedure is very difficult, and sometimes even impossible.
Third Party Funds
Regular tools, although good in that there are never any problems with them, but they are very limited in functionality. Here you cannot select the type of file system or designate the required total volume of the drive.
Another proven and most secure option is formatting the card using the Windows OS with its regular tools. To do this, you need to connect your mobile gadget to the computer via a USB cable. In some cases, you will need to enable debugging via USB in the settings.
Formatting a memory card in Windows:
- Open My Computer.
- Select your drive from the presented list and click on the right mouse button.
- In the context menu, click on “Format”.
- In the window that appears, select the necessary parameters and click "Start".
- At the end of the process, the system will notify you of a successful procedure.
There are already much more settings for flexible formatting of the memory card. In the preparation window, you can select the desired drive size, file system, cluster size, cleaning method and indicate the name of the flash drive. It is also worth noting that the standard Windows tools perform deep formatting, if fast has not been specified previously. This allows you to get rid of many serious problems that are inherent in drives of such a plan.