=[solved] How to format SDXC card in card reader-not in USB [Solved]

[Seeker]

Hi all. I have been backing up to, among other things, an SDXC card in my Thinkpad X220 card reader slot. This is on the PCI bus, it's not a USB input. BTW I use Lucky Backup.
Have been getting error messages on this medium, while none on one of the external USB drives that I backup to using LB. So I thought maybe I should reformat the SDXC card and do backup and see what happens. But do not know how to reformat this using MX 19. I found the MX Tool for USB formatting. Would that work with the SDXC card?
Or maybe reformatting the SDXC is a waste of time. I do not understand, did not note what the errors were with the SDXC card. Any help on this would be appreciated. thanks in advance

[dolphin_oracle]

if the device shows up in formatusb, you can use it for the format.

you can probably also use gparted, or the commandline mkfs tools. for instance mkfs.vfat or mkfs.ext4.

[Seeker]

tnx dolphin_oracle! so should I format it in exFAT or FAT32? Will I be able to see how it is currently formatted before I have to select the kind of format?

[Seeker]

I erred re the usb formatter for the SDXC: the SDXC does NOT appear in the MX "Format USB" tool, even though it can be unmounted using the Unmount USB tool in my taskbar.
So question remains: how to format an SDXC card under MX Linux? Please note that the card reader is on the PCI bus of my Thinkpad X220.

[Seeker]

to dolphin_oracle: I went into the SDXC with Gparted. Did not see any way of using this app for re-formatting. I looked at the manual in Help, went thru all the drop-down menus. One of the latter had a format option, but it was greyed out.

[dolphin_oracle]

You would need to unmount it before gparted would offer a format option

[dolphin_oracle]

you can always just reformat an existing partition on the card

Code: Select all

sudo mkfs.exfat /dev/sdaXY

replaceing /dev/sdXY with the actual /dev/PATH_TO_DEVICE

[Seeker]

tnx, dolphin_oracle for your input. I mounted the sdxc card, then launched gparted. clicked on the card in gparted and could not get the format menu. After I unmounted the card, I right-clicked on it in gparted and the format menu came up--wow, so many options! I chose FAT32. However, gparted never did the operation. I got message that operation is pending--this remained for a long time. So I left the computer on over night. This morning--format operation was still pending, though, as before gparted showed the card's format as FAT32. I quit gparted mounted the card again. Then launched gparted--card is still exFAT. So I still cannot reformat the card so as to see if can back up to it without any errors. What to do?

[dolphin_oracle]

do it manually

Code: Select all

sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sdaXY

replaceing /dev/sdXY with the actual /dev/PATH_TO_DEVICE

[Seeker]

ok, as before I am looking at your instructions for doing the reformat manually. What does "vfat" mean? I want to change from exFAT to FAT32. The actual path to device is /dev/mmcblk0p1
Next question: does the sdxc card have to be mounted or unmounted when I do the manual command? Also, how to I get to the command line in MX Linux? I recall seeing an item in MX tools or accessories.