Can you not use an SD card between an galaxyTabA and a windows devices?

[Beamin]

Staples the office store was going out of business and I got this really cool SD card for 2 bucks. It has a full size USB on one side and a mini usb that fits the charging port on the other side. So I thought it would be an easy way to transfer files from my tabA to my MS surface. I first plugged it into the tabA and found these files on it: Did the TabA automatically format it? When I plugged it into my surface windows said the drive was damaged and had to be repaired, but I clicked cancel and saw all the files intact.

If I click "fix the drive" on windows will it wipe it and make it not work in the android machine? Are drives not compatible? Seems like you could swap media like photos or audio files.

[Halcyon]

Yes you can, provided you didn't encrypt the SD card in your tablet (Windows won't be able to read an encrypted SD card). If it says there are errors, that is just asking you to do a CHKDSK, it won't wipe any existing data.

Windows 10 tends to complain about "errors" on removable media if they weren't ejected properly or if they come from other machines (e.g.: Linux). It's mostly just bullshit.

[Monkeh]

Windows 10 tends to complain about "errors" on removable media if they weren't ejected properly or if they come from other machines (e.g.: Linux). It's mostly just bullshit.

You can freshly format, safely eject, and reinsert a drive on Windows and have it complain. Assuming it allows you to format as FAT32, seeing as they've imposed a limitation of 1/64 the maximum filesystem size.

[SilverSolder]

In fairness, it is very easy to overcome the FAT32 size limit in Windows...

[Monkeh]

In fairness, it is very easy to overcome the FAT32 size limit in Windows...

But it's infinitely faster to use a non-broken OS to deal with the problem.

[Twoflower]

You should use exFAT not FAT32.

[Monkeh]

You should use exFAT not FAT32.

You can't always use exFAT.

[Twoflower]

The thread talks about the Galaxy Tab A. And the Device supports exFAT.

[Monkeh]

The thread talks about the Galaxy Tab A. And the Device supports exFAT.

There are a lot of devices called 'Galaxy Tab A', and I can't vouch that all of them support exFAT. I also can't vouch for the topic we were discussing affecting exFAT as I don't use exFAT, hence why I mentioned FAT32.

[DrG]

Why not copy the files to Win (assuming that they are intact as you say), and then let the Android machine format the SD.

[Monkeh]

Why not copy the files to Win (assuming that they are intact as you say), and then let the Android machine format the SD.

There's nothing damaged and no need to format anything. Windows is being overly sensitive about nothing and will do no damage to the files.

[Twoflower]

There are a lot of devices called 'Galaxy Tab A', and I can't vouch that all of them support exFAT. I also can't vouch for the topic we were discussing affecting exFAT as I don't use exFAT, hence why I mentioned FAT32.

To my knowledge even the first incarnation (Galaxy Alpha from 2014) supports exFAT. I would wonder if later versions drop the support. Samsung seems to has a strong standing in the exFAT support (even the Linux exFAT code is developed by Samsung: https://fossbytes.com/linux-kernel-5-7-new-exfat-file-system-driver-samsung/).

[DrG]

Why not copy the files to Win (assuming that they are intact as you say), and then let the Android machine format the SD.

There's nothing damaged and no need to format anything. Windows is being overly sensitive about nothing and will do no damage to the files.

Note that I did not say that anything was damaged. You could not possibly know whether the SD has any damage on it, or for that matter know that it does not have any damage on it. But, let's argue about for 50-60 posts before hearing anything back from the OP. 

The chkdsk process that has already been mentioned is probably a good way to deal with it it. My suggestion is another and one that I have used more than a few times as well as using a formatting programming on windows like this one https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/ I go back and forth from win to galaxy tablet all the time. That being said, SD cards can be[come] flakey and, additionally, one way of not having to deal with any problems, falsely reported or genuine, upon arrival, may be to format it yourself. That is my thinking behind what I suggested.

[Ian.M]

The problem is: Windows maintains a 'dirty' bit for each simple volume that determines whether CHKDSK will be run on next boot for fixed media, or if the 'Do you want to scan and fix Removable Disk ...' dialog will pop up when removable media is mounted.   Unfortunately the 'dirty' bit is MS-centric and poorly documented so Linux tends to ignore it on FAT16/FAT32 filesystems, and some operations can 'smash' it leaving the filesystem marked as 'dirty'.  The situation with NTFS volumes is a bit different as if a 'dirty' volume is detected, Linux will mount the volume read-only.

Therefore on FAT16/FAT32 volumes on removable media that have been written to on a Linux device there is a high probability of getting a bogus warning that the volume is damaged.  If you want to play safe, reject the warning, back up the data on the volume, then (safely) remove and reinsert and only then allow Windows to scan and fix the volume.  If you are lucky, and careful to always use 'safely remove ...' on the Windows side, the cleaned 'dirty' bit may stick, avoiding future warnings.

[tooki]

The upshot is that Windows complained because the SD card had not been correctly unmounted, which would have set the "clean" bit.

So next time, be sure to unmount it before you remove the card: https://www.samsung.com/ca/support/mobile-devices/how-do-i-unmount-the-microsd-card-inserted-in-my-galaxy-tab-s3/

[Beamin]

So staples was going out of business and I got this cool SD card for less then five bucks. I opened the package and stuck into the android. I didnt do anything to it besides maybe open the file manager to see if it was there and it showed up. So I unplugged it (I dont think you have to do that "Eject drive/hardware" option on android or at least I didnt see an option for it. I then put it into my full size usb port on my MSsurface, windows got error messages but I could still see the files and it had a bunch of android stuff on it.

Did the tabA format the drive automatically when I stuck it into the tablets micro usb port? This was a name brand legit drive from a store and the package didnt mention anything about formatting on it.

[Beamin]

The upshot is that Windows complained because the SD card had not been correctly unmounted, which would have set the "clean" bit.

So next time, be sure to unmount it before you remove the card: https://www.samsung.com/ca/support/mobile-devices/how-do-i-unmount-the-microsd-card-inserted-in-my-galaxy-tab-s3/

I didnt know there were 37 steps just  to take out the micro SD card which I only did once and it seemed fine when I put it back in. This isnt a SDcard though its a USB thumb drive with regular USB on one side and microUSB on the other. I dont think it needs to be un mounted and in that link you gave it only applies to removing the microSD card where its a total PITA to get out.

[SilverSolder]

All removable drives have to be unmounted first -  so you don't interrupt a write operation in the middle, which can leave a mess.

Most of the time you can get away with it, but modern operating systems are always doing stuff on the disks so chances are pretty good that things eventually go wrong. 

Ask me how I know!