trying to format a 64GB MicroSDXC card with 4096 bytes per sector

I'm trying to flash Rockbox onto an xDuoo digital music player, and the micro SD card has to be formatted FAT32 with 4096 bytes per sector. I've come across conflicting reports for mkdosfs parameters, can someone help me (stabs in the dark have not worked yet)?

1

2 Answers

The manual man mkfs.fat suggests the option -S

-S LOGICAL-SECTOR-SIZE

Specify the number of bytes per logical sector. Must be a power of 2 and greater than or equal to 512, i.e. 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, or 32768.

Before running the command, please double-check, that you will format the correct partition, and not a partition with valuable data.

I hope this will work for you,

• if connected via USB

  sudo mkfs.fat -S 4096 /dev/sdxn

  where x is the drive letter and n is the partition number, or

• if connected via PCI

  sudo mkfs.fat -S 4096 /dev/mmcblkmpn

  where m is the device number (probably 0) and n is the partition number.

You will find how the card is connected via the following commands

sudo lsblk -f
sudo lsblk -m
sudo parted -ls

---

Check the sector size with for example

sudo fsck.fat -v /dev/sdxn

Some other tools may not show the sector size of the FAT file system. The important thing is that it will work for your application.

Example: I had the following result

$ sudo mkfs.fat -S 4096 /dev/sdd1
mkfs.fat 3.0.28 (2015-05-16)
$ sudo fsck.fat -v /dev/sdd1
fsck.fat 3.0.28 (2015-05-16)
Checking we can access the last sector of the filesystem
Boot sector contents:
System ID "mkfs.fat"
Media byte 0xf8 (hard disk) 4096 bytes per logical sector 65536 bytes per cluster 32 reserved sectors
First FAT starts at byte 131072 (sector 32) 2 FATs, 32 bit entries 978944 bytes per FAT (= 239 sectors)
Root directory start at cluster 2 (arbitrary size)
Data area starts at byte 2088960 (sector 510) 244304 data clusters (16010706944 bytes)
32 sectors/track, 64 heads 2048 hidden sectors 3909376 sectors total
Checking for unused clusters.
Checking free cluster summary.
/dev/sdd1: 0 files, 1/244304 clusters

There seems to be something else involved with the Xduoo X3 player recognizing the card. I tried a dozen times using the card formatted under Linux without success (using the excellent and detailed solution described by sudodos) -- finally, I used the method recommended by Windows users, a formatting utility called "guiformat.exe," under my old VirtualBox XP installation, and it worked.

1

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Sign up using Google Sign up using Facebook Sign up using Email and Password Submit

Post as a guest

Post Your Answer Discard

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy