SD Card Screw Up: A Nice Little Clarification

[DiamondbodySharpshooter]

This is for all the times I've seen people make this mistake.

So, anyone who uses the File Patch Code to replace BRSTMs has experienced this: So they're playing on their favorite stage, and all of a sudden, that awesome OCRemix song that they downloaded from the BRSTM factory, and then....STATIC! It may even cause further problems, like freezes, or even the game flat out ignoring the gct! Textures don't appear, and stages disappear...how do we fix something that appeared out of nowhere?

Well, the important thing to remember is that it didn't happen out of nowhere; this is usually due to adding and deleting files to the SD card. But the point is, to truly fix this problem, you must back up your SD card and FORMAT IT. Do not defragment your SD card, FORMAT it. Defragmenting your SD card is useless, because of the way files are stored on it; in fact, the most it can do is wear the SD card as much as normally using it does. Formatting, however, wipes the card clean and restores bad sectors. Quick formatting does not do that, so don't ever quick format; the extra few minutes ensure your easy and BEEEEEEEEEEEP-free Brawl modding!

tldr; It's Formatting, not Defragging.

 

[Kaye Cruiser]

"This is pointless. Defrag fixes the problem perfectly for everyone else. You're spouting nonsense"

Now that that's out of the way before someone else can say it, continue with your explanation Watson-kun. :3

 

[DiamondbodySharpshooter]

Uh, am I Watson-kun? Ah, never mind. But yes, for the inevitable person who believes that pure luck equates to a fix, to further elaborate on what Defragmenting does, it moves clusters of data to different part of the storage device, usually a Hard Drive. Thing is, it moves things together on different MOVING parts. If parts of the same file are on different moving parts, the seek time increases. SD cards and USB Flash Drives have no moving parts, so defragmenting does the equivalent of moving a box from the living room to MORE in the living room.

I'm not infallible, so someone correct me if I'm wrong about the process. However, the truth still stands; defragmentation does not do anything.

 

[Matteron]

Defraging searches for clusters of unused data an removes it -_-
meaning it fixes it...

 

[Kaye Cruiser]

defragmentation does not do anything.

WROOONG!! XD

And that's ALL I'm going to say. :3 *leaves*

 

[DiamondbodySharpshooter]

Whoa, double post, whoops.

 

[DiamondbodySharpshooter]

Unused clusters...so you're removing things that aren't there? Defragmenting moves things that should be together...well, together, making sure that empty space is filled. When you delete things, it causes gaps, and new information gets placed in said gaps. But if they can't fill it completely, they go to other places as well as said gap. Or, if the filesize changes, that causes the same gap-fill issue. Either way, it's rearranging things. But it also wears the SD card, and know what does that less? Plain ol' reformatting. Reformatting is more efficient and will always work.

WROOONG!! XD

And that's ALL I'm going to say. :3 *leaves*

To an SD card. Or rather, it does little to nothing, whereas reformatting actually fixes things. With less writing to the card.

 

[Kaye Cruiser]

Let's ask a more practical question...

WHY are you bothering to explain all of this stuff that no one cares about in the first place? XD

Defragging fixes everyone's SD cards with no problem. New song is added, static occurs. Card is defragged, static is gone.

Problem solved, case closed. What you're doing is pointless. :3

Besides, constant reformats are a pain in the *** and take too much time. Defrags are quick. XD

 

[DiamondbodySharpshooter]

Let's ask a more practical question...

WHY are you bothering to explain all of this stuff that no one cares about in the first place? XD

Defragging fixes everyone's SD cards with no problem. New song is added, static occurs. Card is defragged, static is gone.

Problem solved, case closed. What you're doing is pointless. :3

Besides, constant reformats are a pain in the *** and take too much time. Defrags are quick. XD

Well I guess if a fluke works for you XD

 

[pokelover980]

Let's ask a more practical question...

WHY are you bothering to explain all of this stuff that no one cares about in the first place? XD

Defragging fixes everyone's SD cards with no problem. New song is added, static occurs. Card is defragged, static is gone.

Problem solved, case closed. What you're doing is pointless. :3

Besides, constant reformats are a pain in the *** and take too much time. Defrags are quick. XD

Defragmenting has never helped me when my music was having problems. Defragmenting basically takes files that are broken in chunks throughout the memory and puts them back together as one continuous piece of data without gaps. There is a chance it could work, but it never has for me or my friends. Reformatting, on the other hand, has solved the problem every time.

 

[Kaye Cruiser]

Did you actually make sure to make some room before defragging? You know, like you're supposed to? ¦D

 

[pokelover980]

Did you actually make sure to make some room before defragging? You know, like you're supposed to? ¦D

Of course, my SD card has never been over 300 MB, and it's a 1 GB SD card.

 

[Kaye Cruiser]

...Yeouch. How do you survive with that thing? o_o Mine is 2GB and is either almost completely full if I use all of my textures, or has about half space left if I use only the "fixed color" texture for certain characters.

 

[pokelover980]

I survive by taking off textures I no longer use every once and a while. Just last week I got rid of two Mario textures, one Lucario texture and a Link texture because I didn't use any of them.

I also no longer use custom music, so that may also be a contributing factor :U

 

[Kaye Cruiser]

I see...

Well you know what? I'll return to my open-minded self here. "Don't knock it til ya try it" after all. Whenever I get another SD reader, I'll try reformatting my card and see how that works. Who knows, maybe it'll fix the problem with the game randomly freezing when a lot of FSes are used. :3

Which reminds me, I just have to format it to FAT32 right? o.o

 

[Epsilon52]

ive had a defrag help as well as formatting....id say..that both ways are helpful depending on circumstance...