ExFat Finally Corrupted - Some Questions

[mranonymous]

Hello:

Long time modded Switch owner here. I have been using mine since the SXOS days with exFAT.

Well, as everyone advised, it has finally corrupted. 400GB card filled with games.

Anyway, I just had a few questions:

1. My corrupted 400GB card is a SanDisk and it is legit (tested), so I want to keep it. Am I safe to format it and continue to use it (this time with a clean install with FAT32)? Or should I buy a new one?

2. Could someone point me to a good guide for using FAT32? I am very green to it and understand it cannot accept files over 4GB. Any workarounds etc?

That's about it, thank you

 

[thesjaakspoiler]

1. My corrupted 400GB card is a SanDisk and it is legit (tested), so I want to keep it. Am I safe to format it and continue to use it (this time with a clean install with FAT32)? Or should I buy a new one?

With the Switch, exFAT corruption is usually a software issue.
There are plenty of PC utilities to check an SD card for bad sectors.
Since all is lost already, you might want to run such a program.
With 400GB there might be some bad sectors but if you get hundreds of bad sectors, then it might be better to replace the card.
If you get no bad sectors or just a few, then it should be no problem to keep on using the SD card.

2. Could someone point me to a good guide for using FAT32? I am very green to it and understand it cannot accept files over 4GB. Any workarounds etc?

After formatting the card to FAT32, it's not possible to copy files to it that are larger than 4GB.
The Switch itself does take this into account with the official system and game installs/updates.
Only if you copy files to it yourself, you might run into that 4GB restriction.
So you can't copy over a 16GB copy of Super Smash Homebrew and install it locally or try to watch a 7 hour movie in 8K.
So install homebrew remotely with a PC with something like ns-usbloader or use an homebrew app that handles all this stuff for you.

 

[miniminx]

Only if you copy files to it yourself, you might run into that 4GB restriction.
So you can't copy over a 16GB copy of Super Smash Homebrew and install it locally or try to watch a 7 hour movie in 8K.
So install homebrew remotely with a PC with something like ns-usbloader or use an homebrew app that handles all this stuff for you.

Actually you can use spilt xci and spit nsp games if you need to copy the game to your sdcard that are larger than 4gig before installing, but you are better just doing an USB/HD install or network install for large files as it saves quite a bit of time.

 

[HawaiianInTown]

Doesn't Tinfoil/DBI disregard the 4gb limitation that comes with fat32?

EDIT : My >7gb cart backup of Outer Worlds installed just fine using DBI on my fat32.

 

[Nephiel]

Doesn't Tinfoil/DBI disregard the 4gb limitation that comes with fat32?

EDIT : My >7gb cart backup of Outer Worlds installed just fine using DBI on my fat32.

Because those installers automatically handle splitting of large files when you send them for installing via ns-usbloader/dbibackend, or DBI's built-in FTP or MTP servers. You still can't simply copy/paste to the SD any file larger than 4GB.