Consider yourself fortunate if your phone or tablet has the ability to accept removable storage, usually in the form of a MicroSD card. Consider yourself even more fortunate if the manufacturer sought to include a MicroSD card with the device. Otherwise, you face the ordeal of having to find one yourself and install it.
Actually, it’s not much of an ordeal, although I love that term. It’s more of a scary process, especially if you haven’t done it before.
In a way, buying an installing a MicroSD card for a mobile device is similar to using floppy diskettes back in the early computer days. One of the issues that arises is how to format the thing. Often times isn’t not an issue, but that doesn’t make the process any less frightening.
Buying the Card
Many phones and tablets have limits on the MicroSD card’s maximum capacity. While the cards are available in sizes of 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and even 64GB, some devices don’t recognize the higher capacity cards.
The best way to discover the maximum capacity for your device is to ask the people who sold it to you. The information might also be available in the scant documentation that came with the gizmo. When you’re in doubt, get a 16GB card.
Don’t Worry About the Format
MicroSD cards come pre-formatted, which is a legacy from the old floppy diskette days. Those disks weren’t formatted which meant extra steps were required before they could be used. That process isn’t necessary today — for the most part.
If your device requires the MicroSD card to be in a specific format, then it formats the card after the card is recognized. The process is automatic, although I do review the specific steps later in this post.
Bottom line, whether it says the card comes pre-formatted with FAT or FAT32, it’s not an issue. Don’t worry about it.
Insert the MicroSD Card
You can insert a MicroSD card into a tablet whether the tablet is on or off. For phones, the card is usually inserted by removing the cover and often the battery. Therefore it’s more difficult to insert the card while the phone is on.
If the card needs to be formatted after it’s inserted, you’ll see a prompt appear on the touchscreen. Go ahead and format the card. That’s pretty much it; you’re done.
If the card won’t format at this point, then it’s probably damaged. You can try using it in another device to see whether it’s the card or your Android gizmo, but it’s probably the card. Return it to the store and get another.
Manually Formatting the Card
The command to format the card is found in the Settings app: Choose the Storage category, then select the command Format SD Card. Follow the directions on the screen.
Remember that formatting erases the card’s content! For a new card, that’s perfectly fine; the warning is for an existing card.
