Stay Away From Sandisk if you own T3

D

Dont Treed On Me Hussein

New member
I bought 3 cards: 2- 128mb and 1-256mb & have had trouble with all 3.
I use them to back up my T3 and initially they worked. But after 2 weeks everything went haywire.
One 128mb card can't be read by the T3 at all. Everytime I put it in, I getan error message saying that the Palm can not recognize the card. It won't even let me reformat the card. So that's useless.

With the second 128mb card, every time i put it in my T3 i get a message that i should format the card. After much frustration, i said the heck with the info on the card & did the reformat. Mid-format I get an error message that the card can not be recognized.

Next comes the 256mb card. This one is funny, it will let me save only about 10-20 mb of info on the card. Everytime i try to save more than that I get an error message saying "an error ocurred while saving".

I've downloaded the T3 updates & still the problem persists. Tech support at Palm blamed Sandisk. Tech support at Sandisk blamed Palm. I got a crazy run- around & ended up stuck in the middle with 3 non-working cards.

Finally today tech support at Sandisk said they would replace the cards. I have to return them tomorrow. God only knows if the replacements will work.

I heard that the Panasonic SD cards are good and have never given any problem. Does anyone have any experience with those? Please let me know.
I'm in the field alot and count on my Palm to store info gathered during the day. I can't back up my info just to find out later that I can't access the info. Also, i can't wait to do a Hotsync at the end of the day. So i count on being able to back up my info on a card.
This Sandisk issue has cost me alot of time and money.
If anyone has had similar experiences, please let me know.
 
SAME STORY WITH ME and I'm so glad you had the guts to just post the truth right in the thread name. I've said before I wouldn't use SanDisk to . . . . (complete your own joke), despite others on here who had "no problems."

Acolythe may have gotten lucky, Thank God -- Panasonic and SanDisk manufacture for Lexar. If you get the Panasonic one, you're fine. I had a 64MB SanDisk go bad in EXACTLY the same period as yours (although my old 16MB and 32MB are still fine, and SanDisk made the Palm BackupCard which I used with my old 505).

PANASONIC IS THE WAY TO GO. Tests done using the little "freeware speed tester" put Panasonic WAY IN FRONT for speed, and my 256MB Panasonic is going strong to beat the band despite an awful lot of "in and out of the reader, delete large files, shove on large files, keep 2 backup file sets, etc etc."

I wish you could get your money back instead of a replacement; perhaps you can SELL the unopened ones on EBAY. Panasonic is fantastic and I believe S.O.S., one of the moderators here, uses one too. There was another post here yesterday or day before, where someone bought SanDisk's 1GB, but is only showing 500MB useable. Well, it isn't 1GB, then, is it? Wait til the other 500MB goes South and you'll really be upset. I wouldn't risk that much information on one little card anyway -- but I suppose people need that size for music storage.

I don't care if someone from SanDisk reads this thread - they should know their stuff is awful and complained about all the time; Lexar I thought were the BEST til I found out that you could still get a SanDisk if you buy a Lexar. Stick with Panasonic -- It's my choice from now on. Do a search on here and you'll find the speed readings I posted a couple of weeks ago - 600, 600, 800%, overall rating huge, compared to others.

I'm sorry you had trouble. I had exactly the same thing, except I 1) threw away the receipt, and 2) wasn't going to send it back to them so they could recover the data that was on it!! 3) I used my "Cut Up The DVD/CD" Shears and made mincemeat out of it. $60 well spent - I won't lose all the data on the Panasonic 256, at least.
 
Did you have the sales guy open the card and show you the back?

That's great!! I'm glad you got the right one. I had no idea you could tell from the packaging - I'd be interested in how you found out -- does it say "Panasonic/Japan" somewhere on the card?

THIS WOULD BE A GREAT HELP TO PEOPLE, as Lexar cards are much more plentiful than Panasonic at the retail level. I forgot to mention that I had a 64MB Lexar (to replace the SanDisk!) and had NO PROBLEMS with it at all - figured I WAS JUST LUCKY to have gotten "Panasonic," who I thought made ALL OF THEM at the time!!.

Cool, acolythe -- if there's a way to tell, please advise us here!!!
 
I've had 128Mb and 256Mb Sandisk cards with no problems, in and out of TT, Zaurus and now T3 so I'd have to say my experience has been more positive. The cards have been in and out of devices and card readers regularly so its not even that they've had an easy life... My T3 did come with the updated T3 rom though, so that may have a bearing.

Plus, over here at least, if the card fails within a year your retailer is obliged to replace it or have it repaired (and with a memory card I'd guess the former).
 
Maby this makes a difference. I never formatted my sandisk, and never had problems with them. I had a M130, and now a T2, but after reading the many problems with the cards, the panasonic is now my choice.
 
Paul
I am over 50 so I do not clearly remember and of course now I am doubting myself. But...my undertanding was that if the Lexar card was made in Japan it was panasonic and if China it was Sandisc. Furthermore I beieve that 6 months ago when i bought it the country of amnufacture was written ont he packaging. I just checked and it is not on the card, however.
Hope this helps
Hope I am correct in my failing recollections
Barry
 
I'm using 1x128 and 1x256 MB cards from Toshiba. They work great, so check them out as a viable option to the Lexars / Panasonics.

Btw... does anyone have any ptunes skins to share?
 
Just for the record, I've been using the following cards for over a year with the M515, T|T and now T3 without any problems. I carry video, audio, audio books, photos, and different databases of information on them, and they have worked "flawlessly" since day one.

3 Sandisk 256mb Taiwan
1 Sandisk 128mb Taiwan
3 Lexar 256mb Japan
1 Lexar 64mb Japan
1 Lexar 32mb Japan

Each card that I have has the place of manufacture imprinted on the back. As I've said, most of these cards are more than a year old, so earlier manufacturing may have had better quality control!

fnagle
 
You should take a look into picking up one of those $20 card readers at Best Buy and see if you can view the card from your computer. If so, you might be able to reformat it from there and make it usable once again on your T3. It may seem silly, but if it does work, the readers are also much faster for putting music and other programs on your T3.
 
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