Read All About it: WP7 SD-card format working.

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ohgood

Senior Member
Aug 8, 2009
1,611
93
Birmingham
gparted also does not find the disc at all.

you don't want to mount the sdcard, you want to kill the partitions and crap that's on it.

1 boot a linux livecd
2 open a terminal as root
3 type: dd if=/dev/zero bs=1M count=1000 of=/dev/your-device-id

wait for it to write zeros to the entire card, or however much 1Gb of zeros will fill. then format with whatever utility you want.

now, STOP USING THE TERM BRICK incorrectly. a brick is when an electric device is rendered unusable, broken, irrecoverable. sdcards do not brick. well, unless you smash them with a brick.
 

ndtinker

Member
Nov 13, 2010
8
1
Jackson, TN
you don't want to mount the sdcard, you want to kill the partitions and crap that's on it.

1 boot a linux livecd
2 open a terminal as root
3 type: dd if=/dev/zero bs=1M count=1000 of=/dev/your-device-id

wait for it to write zeros to the entire card, or however much 1Gb of zeros will fill. then format with whatever utility you want.

now, STOP USING THE TERM BRICK incorrectly. a brick is when an electric device is rendered unusable, broken, irrecoverable. sdcards do not brick. well, unless you smash them with a brick.

Didn't work. /dev/sdb "No such device or address".
 

ckacey

Senior Member
Mar 20, 2006
181
0
www.grlt.com
has anyone confirmed WM 6.5 6.1 6.x or 5.x? The only WP7 SD device I have is my HD7, I can't do any reformatting or anything to it until 30 days from the 8th, as it's my main zune device and I've already removed a phone LG GW910 from my marketplace and Zune account this month.

Also haven't opened the hardware yet, wating to make sure it isn't a lemon, my HTCs usually fail right away or work like tanks for longer than I'd care to use them.
 

xthing

Member
May 13, 2007
30
3
If WP7 locks the SD card to the hardware according to the SD hardware spec (h**p: w w w sdcard . org/ developers/tech/sdcard/pls/Simplified_Physical_Layer_Spec.pdf ... chapter 4.3.7) i suspect you'd need to issue a Forced Erase command to reset this (see 4.3.7.3 in the spec above).

I _suspect_ that the Windows SD driver does not support that command... so i am not sure that would be possible to do from Windows Vista/7.
But again: I am speculating here :)
 
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ceesheim

Retired Forum Moderator
Jun 11, 2009
3,457
2,288
No Android Fanboys Please !!!
you don't want to mount the sdcard, you want to kill the partitions and crap that's on it.

1 boot a linux livecd
2 open a terminal as root
3 type: dd if=/dev/zero bs=1M count=1000 of=/dev/your-device-id

wait for it to write zeros to the entire card, or however much 1Gb of zeros will fill. then format with whatever utility you want.

this is not working.

now, STOP USING THE TERM BRICK incorrectly. a brick is when an electric device is rendered unusable, broken, irrecoverable. sdcards do not brick. well, unless you smash them with a brick.

sorry for the wrong naming , can you gif me the right name ?
 

elyl

Senior Member
May 12, 2005
480
13
Glasgow
If WP7 locks the SD card to the hardware according to the SD hardware spec (h**p: w w w sdcard . org/ developers/tech/sdcard/pls/Simplified_Physical_Layer_Spec.pdf ... chapter 4.3.7) i suspect you'd need to issue a Forced Erase command to reset this (see 4.3.7.3 in the spec above).

I _suspect_ that the Windows SD driver does not support that command... so i am not sure that would be possible to do from Windows Vista/7.
But again: I am speculating here :)

This man talks sense. We need something to be able to clear the SDHC (secure content) flag, and by default I don't think any Windows driver can do this. I suspect we'll need someone to write a new driver for SD card readers to be able to issue this command. Seems the Nokias can do it.
 

RustyGrom

Senior Member
Apr 18, 2006
1,006
83
Orlando
So basically, Microsoft is using an obscure capability of the SDHC spec that allows for cards to be password protected. Both Linux and Windows don't implement this portion of the spec and cannot read or write (including format/erase) the cards. The only other known devices that use this are certain Nokia phones and are thus the only known way to reformat them. Sounds like the original Xbox all over again.
 

ChrisKringel

Senior Member
Jan 6, 2009
356
70
According to
Code:
support.microsoft.com/kb/2450831/en-us
the card is locked with a automatic generated key. Furthermore is wikipedia saying, that the locking "procedure" is called CPRM. While i did some reasearch on it i came across this tool
Code:
panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/index.html
Maybe someone could give it a try...

Regards
Chris
 

xthing

Member
May 13, 2007
30
3
So basically, Microsoft is using an obscure capability of the SDHC spec that allows for cards to be password protected. Both Linux and Windows don't implement this portion of the spec and cannot read or write (including format/erase) the cards. The only other known devices that use this are certain Nokia phones and are thus the only known way to reformat them. Sounds like the original Xbox all over again.

Let's stay somewhat reasonable here:
This is not an obscure capability, this is spec'ed SD/MMC functionality and implemented accordingly by all SD/MMC OEMs. Nokia uses this functionality since a long time in some of their Symbian based phones. This is not a standard introduced by Microsoft.

Also looking at drivers/mmc/mmc_sysfs.c in the linux kernel it looks like Linux actually supports this functionality:
Code:
+ * implement MMC password reset ("remove password") and forced erase ("forgot
+ * password").
+ */
+static ssize_t
+mmc_lockable_store(struct device *dev, struct device_attribute *att,
+ const char *data, size_t len)
+{
+ struct mmc_card *card = dev_to_mmc_card(dev);
+
+ if (!mmc_card_lockable(card))
+ return -EINVAL;
+
+ if (mmc_card_locked(card) && !strncmp(data, "erase", 5)) {
+ /* forced erase only works while card is locked */
+ mmc_lock_unlock(card, NULL, MMC_LOCK_MODE_ERASE);
+ return len;
+ } else if (!mmc_card_locked(card) && !strncmp(data, "remove", 6)) {
+ /* remove password only works while card is unlocked */
+ struct key *mmc_key = request_key(&mmc_key_type, "mmc:key", NULL);
+
+ if (!IS_ERR(mmc_key)) {
+ int err = mmc_lock_unlock(card, mmc_key, MMC_LOCK_MODE_CLR_PWD);
+ if (!err)
+ return len;
+ } else
+ dev_dbg(&card->dev, "request_key returned error %ld\n", PTR_ERR(mmc_key));
+ }
+
+ return -EINVAL;
+}
+
+static struct device_attribute mmc_dev_attr_lockable =
+ __ATTR(lockable, S_IWUSR | S_IRUGO,
+ mmc_lockable_show, mmc_lockable_store);
+
+#endif
+
So it looks to me like you could write a small tool on linux to do this.
But again, i am speculating a lot and not an expert in this area.

ChrisKringel said:
the card is locked with a automatic generated key. Furthermore is wikipedia saying, that the locking "procedure" is called CPRM. While i did some reasearch on it i came across this tool
The SD Formatter doesn't seem to be able to do this. Look at the following quote from their website:

The SD/SDHC/SDXC Cards have a "Protected Area" on the card for the SD security function. The SD Formatter does not format the "Protected Area". Please use appropriate application software or SD host device which provides SD security function to format the "Protected Area" in the card.
 
Last edited:

RustyGrom

Senior Member
Apr 18, 2006
1,006
83
Orlando
I picked up a 32gb card on the way home from work. Tried everything I can think of to format it, nothing seems to work. Just because it's in the spec doesn't mean it's not obscure. When only two phone OS's and nothing else can work with it, I'd say it's pretty obscure.
 

xthing

Member
May 13, 2007
30
3
As i mentioned before: I think Linux supports this from a OS/driver perspective, i am just not aware of a tool under linux that can send the appropriate commands. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist or isn't possible.

I really don't want to go into the "obscure" discussion... i could point to other things like Apple's use of MicroSIMs for the iPad or Blackberry's use of proprietary protocols and encryption for email synchronization... but just let's not go there :)

I think someone with a little bit of development skill could easily write a small app on linux to send the forced erase command to a SD card, or someone with more serious development skills could implement a SD driver + app on Windows (again: still assuming that my speculation is correct and the standard WIndows SD driver doesn't support that command... no one has actually proven that this assumption is correct).
 

ndtinker

Member
Nov 13, 2010
8
1
Jackson, TN
According to
Code:
support.microsoft.com/kb/2450831/en-us
the card is locked with a automatic generated key. Furthermore is wikipedia saying, that the locking "procedure" is called CPRM. While i did some reasearch on it i came across this tool
Code:
panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/index.html
Maybe someone could give it a try...

Regards
Chris

I tried that one out a couple days ago, no go.
 

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    Pretty sure this is the one I used to recover a "dead" flash drive previously.

    http://hddguru.com/software/2006.04.12-HDD-Low-Level-Format-Tool/

    I don't know if it'll work but I would think that it should.


    this tool does not work to reformat wp7-used cards :(
    2
    Hey guys im new to the site. I just flashed my phone to wm7 and i was getting the same problem. But i think i found a quick and easy solution that will format your sd for people like me who don't know the ins and outs about programming.

    Well lets just say i was starting off with the whole 200 mb problem, so i tried everything to see if the new oson my phone can recognize my memory card. Then all of a sudden it hit me. Of course it won't recognize the card because the hd7 doesn't use one. I then started to think if maybe i format the phone with my micro sd card in it then that would work.

    Well long story short it did. Now im reading over 14 gb with the memory card that came with my hd2. Idk if this helped anyone its just my $0.02
    2
    There appears to be two types of locked SD cards from WP7: one from phones like HD7's internal microSD card which will show two paritions and otherwise normal card; the other is from Samsung Focus's microSD card slot where the special SD security is enabled and the card won't even showup in any PC card reader.

    Low level format and other specialty tools on PC or Mac work for 1st type of cards but won't work for cards locked down by Samsung Focus. That requires a driver level support for SD card security which does not exist in any of the card reader today. The only confirmed solution for 2nd type of cards is to use Nokia/Symbian phones to format it
    1
    So I was in the same boat you are in. Nothing could read the card except for my Nokia n97 mini. It recognized the card as "locked" and prompted for a password. I bypassed the prompt and went to the file manager. From there it let me format the card and it is back to normal. See, Symbian is good for something after all!

    PS: I tried the same process with an E71 and had the same successful results. All recent Symbian phones should work as it appears they can handle the encryption and password. The card is now happily back in my HTC EVO.

    This is the best news of the day .
    1
    If WP7 locks the SD card to the hardware according to the SD hardware spec (h**p: w w w sdcard . org/ developers/tech/sdcard/pls/Simplified_Physical_Layer_Spec.pdf ... chapter 4.3.7) i suspect you'd need to issue a Forced Erase command to reset this (see 4.3.7.3 in the spec above).

    I _suspect_ that the Windows SD driver does not support that command... so i am not sure that would be possible to do from Windows Vista/7.
    But again: I am speculating here :)