Current Events > Ugh, pretty sure my 3DS micro sd card is dead

(+) Yeah! (+)

Was in the middle of playing Fantasy Life, tried to save the game... and it just hung for a while, way longer than it normally takes to save, and then the whole system just crashed... and after rebooting I got an error saying it wasn't detecting a sd card and all the software that was on it was gone from the home screen.

Tried putting my sd card into the spouse's 3DS... also didn't work, same error message.
Tried putting their sd card into my 3DS... no error message.

Tried putting my sd card into the computer... while it seemed to recognize that *something* was there, none of File Explorer, Disk Management, nor h2testw were seemingly able to read anything on the card. Additionally, Disk Management tagged it as being "read only" (despite the computer apparently not being able to actually read anything) which from what I understand is usually a sign the card is toast.

I'm a bit miffed because this card (Sandisk) wasn't even THAT old. I got our cards around the time of the eshop shutdown (you can probably guess why, wink wink). Concerned that my spouse's card could also not be long for this world, but there seems to be no real way to gauge the remaining life of a card until it just someday mysteriously stops working like mine just did.

Im convinced that SD cards as a whole are just cursed. Ive had so many over the years just die. While some could be explained by shoddy devices (I.e. OG ROG ally with its exhaust pumping into the SD card slot) they shouldnt be dying in other devices as frequently as they have been in my experience its gotten to a point Id rather spend like triple the amount I would on an SD card to instead get a bit extra capacity built into the device

I haven't usually had bad luck with micro sd cards, unless you count all the cards I'd gotten for the Switch over the years to just not be usable with the Switch 2 (with the necessary replacement being nowhere near as widely available with as much capacity as they need to be) as bad luck.

micro usb cables on the other hand... absolutely terrible, gone through dozens of those over the years, glad to see that they've mostly been eclipsed by usb-c now.

Yeah, SD Cards(Main/Mini/Micro) aren't known for their longevity. I've largely been lucky thus far over the years.

What size is your SD card? On special 3DS's anything above 64GB is usually slow as hell and only gets worse over time.

Rial_Kai posted...

Yeah, SD Cards(Main/Mini/Micro) aren't known for their longevity. I've largely been lucky thus far over the years.

Never had any issues with the cards that I got for my Switch, many of which I've had for longer and used a lot more than the 3DS. Guess this one was just a bit of a dud. Just hoping that my spouse's card isn't about to die as well (after looking back to check, both of these cards were purchased together in Jan 2023, just before the eshop shutdown)

CRON posted...

What size is your SD card? On special 3DS's anything above 64GB is usually slow as hell and only gets worse over time.

128, which I read from several sources was the largest size the 3DS is capable of safely supporting without running into issues. I really wouldn't want to go with anything smaller than that anyway; even 128 wasn't quite enough for me to put absolutely everything I would have wanted to put on it, but it was satisfactory enough after making a few sacrifices. Half that size would be a no go.

Didn't have any speed issues or anything of the sort that I encountered, just sudden card death trying to save the game I was already playing (a game which was on that card). No idea if the save data for that game is even kept on the card (in which case I'm probably not getting it back), or if the save is still intact (unsure since it crashed mid-save)

Damn that sucks. *Salutes 3DS for it's service.*

While my 3DS card hasn't died yet, my vita card shit the bed with the exact same type of symptoms. (Installed games disappearing, can barely be read by other devices and wahatnot).