GPS, Freezing, Resetting, Locked SD Cards - Help please

[Julian Warr]

Hi All

I hope you can help or advise me accordingly. I am based in UK and after much research I purchased a Mini 0806 from GearBest in March, but have only been using it in the last 12 days (as my car was in the garage until then). I have had some issues within that period of time.

Firstly there was no GPS - This has been rectified after discovering the GPS wire was broken and a longer wire was fitted. All good again.

Now twice in the last week, the camera has completely frozen, with the red power light on continuously, I have managed to get it back by letting the battery run out. Each time, the only setting that has been reset is the time & date, every other setting is ok. But...I think the camera may have done something to the SD cards as I cannot format them (from PC or 0806) or remove files from them etc as it stated the disk is write protected. I can view the recorded files on 0806 but cannot delete them, and they are not protected (no little lock symbol by thumbnails)

I have tried everything from 'diskpart in dos' , Regedit to EaseUS partition master, plus a few others and I cannot get rid of the files, thus I have 2 new SD cards that are useless.

Is this a known issue? should I be looking to return the device (loathed to as it is in China and very inconvenient and expensive to do)? Can it be solved? I am also wondering whether this only happens when the card becomes full and it attempts to loop the recordings, but I have no way to test this, without buying another SD card (and that is not happening)

I really like the camera, but its getting a little tedious waiting for the next thing to go wrong with it.

Any help or advice would be gratefully received

Thanks

J

PS I am using the camera rotated 180 degrees (I know from checking the forums there were other issues with that)

 

[Sunny]

Are the SD cards from good brands?
Test them with h2testw program.

 

[Julian Warr]

Thanks for replying.

I have tried h2testw on both cards (one of which is now being packaged for return) and both error immediately stating no files can be written to it.

Card 1 is a sandisk extreme and card 2 is a transcend premium.

 

[Sunny]

Thanks for replying.

I have tried h2testw on both cards (one of which is now being packaged for return) and both error immediately stating no files can be written to it.

Card 1 is a sandisk extreme and card 2 is a transcend premium.

Looks like you found the problem.
Next time, test the cards first and then put in the dashcam after verified by the h2testw as good.
If it has issues in the dashcam, check the card afterwards again.
That'll tell the dashcam is doing something to the cards.

 

[Julian Warr]

Hi all
Just to update you as of this evening, both my original cards had been tested multiple times using h2testw and both cards had numerous errors. They have now been returned (annoyingly, by post as I purchased them online) and I have got to wait to be refunded.
I purchased another card (a slower sandisk ultra 64gb) and this tested fine, plus was reading and writing 4x faster than the supposed faster cards (makes we wonder if they were fake....although purchased from an online store)
I have now been using the dashcam for 2 days running and connecting it in my home as well just so I can test vigorously and see if the looping causes the issues when the cards are full.
I found that (also with some help from reading another post) that if I have 2 cards in the camera, and have the card selection set to 'auto' the camera freezes when trying to move from 1 to the other when full, and have to wait for all the resetting again.
Therefore....I now have card A selected, a single 64gb in slot A and it has been running and looping with no errors for 48 hrs.
I think my issue has been cracked.
Hopefully this info might help someone else out who is having similar issues.
Thanks
J