Hacking Format Sd card on Mac

[Stonertitan2008]

I can't get my 128gb sd card to read in the exfat format on my switch. I have a Mac computer and have tried everything I can think of. Help would be appreciated.

 

[pLaYeR^^]

Have you already installed the exFAT update on your console?

 

[Stonertitan2008]

yes I have

 

[Zumoly]

I can't get my 128gb sd card to read in the exfat format on my switch. I have a Mac computer and have tried everything I can think of. Help would be appreciated.

If your Switch is on the latest firmware 5.1.0 or one of the firmware with exFAT update 3.x up to 4.x (I think) why not format it from there?
AFAIK folders created by the Mac are often not recognized. So see if the formatting can be done from your Switch itself.

 

[Stonertitan2008]

If your Switch is on the latest firmware 5.1.0 or one of the firmware with exFAT update 3.x up to 4.x (I think) why not format it from there?
AFAIK folders created by the Mac are often not recognized. So see if the formatting can be done from your Switch itself.

Have done that to no avail

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I have parallels with windows eight to format it in windows too. Don't know which way to format so that I can access my homebrew and backups.

 

[Zumoly]

Have done that to no avail

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I have parallels with windows eight to format it in windows too. Don't know which way to format so that I can access my homebrew and backups.

Just to be sure: Are you able to copy files/folders onto your SD card? Does it read them?

 

[pLaYeR^^]

Have done that to no avail

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I have parallels with windows eight to format it in windows too. Don't know which way to format so that I can access my homebrew and backups.

Have you already tried to format the micro sd card to exFAT in windows? If not, try it.

 

[Stonertitan2008]

Just to be sure: Are you able to copy files/folders onto your SD card? Does it read them?

Able to copy them to the sd in exfat get an error opening with the switch

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Have you already tried to format the micro sd card to exFAT in windows? If not, try it.

Will try this when I get off work. Booting into windows can be a pain with parallels on my 2009 macbook

 

[Zumoly]

in exfat get an error opening with the switch

What's the error message?

 

[pLaYeR^^]

Will try this when I get off work. Booting into windows can be a pain with parallels on my 2009 macbook

Many people have issues with Mac OS, try it on Windows.

 

[Stonertitan2008]

What's the error message?

The one about sd card not being able to be read

 

[Stonertitan2008]

What's the error message?

The one about sd card not being able to be read

 

[Zumoly]

The one about sd card not being able to be read

Sorry to hear that. Maybe that's not it but:
- Maybe your SD card is corrupt/broken
- Maybe it's in locked mode (some claim you can get it back with proper tools/command lines, might give this a try)

This happened to my 64 GB card once when I popped it out of the Switch and it accidentally fell on the floor. It became stuck in locked status and wouldn't even format in windows. Sadly I had to throw it away out of frustration (had tried too many tools to no avail!)

 

[spotanjo3]

Many people have issues with Mac OS, try it on Windows.

Perhaps but I am a MacOS user and I am able to format exfat for an external hard drive 4tb. It is for PS4 5.05 jailbreak and I am able to playing the backup games without a problem.

I am sure that he has a corrupted SD or something like that. I have heard some people cannot format it on Windows as well. The SD card issues might be bad, perhaps.

 

[Stonertitan2008]

Perhaps but I am a MacOS user and I am able to format exfat for an external hard drive 4tb. It is for PS4 5.05 jailbreak and I am able to playing the backup games without a problem.

It's for the switch. The sd card to run homebrew

 

[spotanjo3]

It's for the switch. The sd card to run homebrew

I know. MacOS can format exfat without a problem. Maybe your sd card is bad or corrupt. Try Windows if you have a PC and see if it is the same issues.

 

[Stonertitan2008]

I know. MacOS can format exfat without a problem. Maybe your sd card is bad or corrupt. Try Windows if you have a PC and see if it is the same issues.

Card works just fine in fat32. It's when I try to format into exfat. I have the sd update from Nintendo

 

[mav2010]

I had the very same problem. For me it was because of the ARCH flag being set as a standard.

Whenever you are done with filling your SD card, execute the following command in the terminal:

sudo chflags -R arch /Volumes/<name of SD card>

This should do the trick!

 

[Stonertitan2008]

I had the very same problem. For me it was because of the ARCH flag being set as a standard.

Whenever you are done with filling your SD card, execute the following command in the terminal:

sudo chflags -R arch /Volumes/<name of SD card>

This should do the trick!

Hopefully I can get this to work. Do you remove the carrots surrounding name of your sd card?

 

[mav2010]

Hopefully I can get this to work. Do you remove the carrots surrounding name of your sd card?

Sure. Name your SD Card simply SD. Then the command is

sudo chflags -R arch /Volumes/SD

 

[dataslanger]

I had the very same problem. For me it was because of the ARCH flag being set as a standard.

Whenever you are done with filling your SD card, execute the following command in the terminal:

sudo chflags -R arch /Volumes/<name of SD card>

This is definitely the solution! But if the problem is the archived(arch) flag is set, then why are we passing the chflags command 'arch' instead of 'noarch'? According to the man page, you prefix the flag(s) desired with 'no' in order to disable them. Also I noticed that -R is setting the flags on the 'file hierarchies' rather than the files themselves which I assume mean the root directories on the card.

Either way, this did the trick- I had the same problem as the OP with my Macbook Pro OS X laptop formatting micro SD card to exFAT and the Switch rejecting it, even after the exFAT upgrade was performed on the Switch. I did not try formatting it on Windows - which I assume would do the trick as well, since whatever this flag is seems to be on OS X and not in the same capacity on OS X - as this saved me from having to grab a Windows laptop or wrestle with VMware Fusion/Parallels with USB (I use a micro-SD USB adapter, not the internal SD card reader) and try it.

As a side note, I find it amusing that the Switch's OS 'Horizon' wouldn't have exFAT enabled by default, as I confirmed my Windows XP SP3 laptop has exFAT support AND large files, such as games like Skyrim, FIFA 18, Doom, etc. that one might download from the eShop, each are around 16GB which is a size much too large for a single file on FAT32. With FAT32 being the default formatting scheme under the System options on the Switch, I would have to assume that the large game XCI / NSP files that come from the eShop would have to be split into multiple pieces in order to store them on the FAT32 micro-SD.

Regardless, works like a charm. I'll investigate this as to being a potential source of woes in other formatting situations as well!

Thanks so much!