Labeling micro-SD cards ?

Hmm how well does nail varnish work ?

On a sunny day (Mon, 17 Oct 2022 13:44:14 +0200) it happened "R.Wieser" snipped-for-privacy@not.available wrote in <tijf6l$1ncv$ snipped-for-privacy@gioia.aioe.org>:

This also works, pencil writing on the SDcard adaptor

I dunno, dmesg shows /dev/sdc1 and /dev/sdc2 on my laptop mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/sdc1 mount /dev/sdc2 /mnt/sdc2 ls -rtl /mnt/sdc2 total 76 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Sep 27 2020 sys/ drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Sep 27 2020 proc/ etc

ls -rtl /mnt/sdc1 panteltje20: ~ # lb /mnt/sdc1 total 54465

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 166 Dec 31 1979 cmdline.txt*

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 18693 May 27 2020 COPYING.linux*

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1594 Sep 30 2020 LICENCE.broadcom* etc

What more do you want? You can change directory to /mnt/sdc2/root/ or any other directory panteltje20: ~ # cd /mnt/sdc2/root/ panteltje20: /mnt/sdc2/root # ls -rtl total 368 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jan 12 2021 compile/ drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 19 2021 sound/ drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 19 2021 sounds/ etc

More partitiosn? dmesg should show those else panteltje20: ~ # fdisk /dev/sdc

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdc: 32.0 GB, 32010928128 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdc1 8192 532479 262144 c W95 FAT32 (LBA) /dev/sdc2 532480 62521343 30994432 83 Linux

All fails? dd if=/dev/sdc of=whatever bs=512 skip=0 count=1 copy any sector[s]

On a sunny day (Mon, 17 Oct 2022 16:11:12 GMT) it happened Jan Panteltje snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote in <tijus3$3fr8o$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

Sorry, was wrong link, this one:

very well

Same here. I use the kind of scotch tape that can be written on. Put the end of the tape over the back edge of the card and double it over, sticky side in, so it adheres to front and back of the card with an overlap of maybe 2 mm. Then trim the edges so it's no wider than the card. The "tail" can be as long as you like. Usually an inch or two is enough.

Getting the tape to fold flat is probably the hardest part.

The tails don't stay stuck forever, but last long enough to be quite useful. Being transparent one can't write on both sides, but a sufficiently dextrous person might embed a slip of paper for sake of opacity. I'm not that dextrous 8-(

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

Jan,

The "SDcard adapter" is not the problem, I can, and already have stuck descriptive labels to them.

The problem is that I have the need to mark the micro-SD cards themselves. Mine are mostly black on both sides, with white text on the front, and a smooth, shiny backside.

IOW, a backside onto which pens do not even want to write, and a frontside which leaves /very/ little space to write anything. Couple that with having a problem with writing legible, and than /that/ small I have quite a problem ...

:-) My Desktop runs windows. No 'dmesg' on it.

But I've just taken a look at what 'dmesg' shows on my RPi, and am afraid that I do not even understand a quarter of it. Sorry.

Only when I inserted the USB dongle with another micro-SD card I was able to see an "sda", and "fdisk /dev/sda" showed five partitions on it, numbered 1,

I take it that the two Linux partitions where the ones auto-mounted as "boot" and "root"

I've not tried to mount either of the "w95" partitions, as I am not at all sure what would happen.

Botton line : being able to look into the w95 "restore" partition - just to check and/or change a files name - is not something I would (currently) easily be able to do.

Also, although I /think/ I found the booted micro-SD card under "mmc", but when I tried to "sudo fdisk /dev/mmc" all I got was a 'not found' error.

Regards, Rudy Wieser

OK. Try "painting" the micro SD with Tipex then writing on it.

Where there's print on the card, it can usually be overcome by just going back-and-forth a few times while drawing the letters, so that they're bolder and therefore stand out more.

It works well enough for me that I mainly just keep my Micro SD cards in a little tub and fish them out as required. It does help that they're a bunch bought as a bulk lot of used cards on Ebay, and many have different manufacturer's markings.

Alternatively maybe thin vinyl decals would work? Maybe you could custom-cut them with a "Cricut" or similar machine if you have access to one (not tested - I'm still waiting to find myself a cheap second-hand one of these to mess around with one day)?

Kev,

I've done the same, with pencels and "sharpie's". And yes, thats pretty-much the problem I have too : it rubs off/smears out /way/ too easily. :-(

I think I've might have found a solution for a number of problems all at once though : a Dymo LetraTag (a handheld, battery-fed model). I don't have to write anything myself, its black letters on a white background, and its smallest font allows for quite a number of letters in two lines. Although I had my doubts if the plastic labels themselves would be thin enough they do do seem to be.

Funny: I've had the LettraTag for a while now (labeled the SD "sleeves" with it), but always assumed that the labels would be to thick for the micro-SD card to be able to fit in the RPi or its "sleeve". As it turns out my presumption made a fool outof me. :-( :-)

Regards, Rudy Wieser

I've not tried, but given what you've tried that hasn't worked, have you considered a quick blast of spray paint to create a writable surface? If you want something more controllable, perhaps a thin coat of white-out (remember that from typing class?) would work.

On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 08:01:10 +0200, "R.Wieser" snipped-for-privacy@not.available declaimed the following:

Check office supply (or art supply) stores for a silver or gold fine point "paint" marker.

Yes, much easier and less messy than spray paint: correction fluid / tipp-ex / wite-out is the way to go.

Dennis,

Yep, tried those too. :-)

Didn't really want to attach itself to the (smooth, shiny) surface I tried them on, and, after having dried, effectivily crumbled off when touched normally.

Alas ...

Regards, Rudy Wieser

Does roughening the surface with fine sandpsaper (aka flourpaper) help?

Martin,

I've not tried that. But I rather not as I've got little idea in how thick that that plastic layer is and presuming I could easily destroy the chip - or even just the microscopic wires connecting it to the rest.

But I think I found a workable solution in using the (plastic, rather thin) labels produced by a hand-held Dymo LetraTag. And added, rather large, pre (next to being able to easily remove them) : I do not need to try to scribble the text myself. :-)

Regards, Rudy Wieser

I had the same experience when I tried that a couple of years or so back.

David

I use paper sticky labels foldered over on them selves and sticking to a few millimeters of each side of the microSD card. With care they last a while are are easy to replace when they fail. I haven't found the extra thickness interfers with inserting the card.

That is certainly a sensible approach.

I've just taken a close look at both a Sandisk and a Kingston uSD card. Both seem to have the same structure: I think the body of the thing, which has the raised 'handle' and the writing on it, is a single, solid piece of plastic. I think the contacts and connectors to the chip are plated on the other side, and then overlaid with a layer of black plastic: a careful feel with a fingernail shows that the plain black, shiny lower surface overlays the contacts: the contacts are inset slightly relative to the undersurface.

Obviously, doing anything to the undersurface could damage the uSD card, but carefully sanding or painting the top surface shouldn't damage it.

Neat, though it might make the uSD little thick to go into some sockets I've seen.

them) : I do not need to try to scribble the text myself. :-)

I keep my unused uSD cards in the standard SD card adapters they come with. So far, the few I have stay in the devices I bought them for (Pi2, Pi zero, and a Medion PNA), but if I kept a library of them,I think I'd write on the standard card adapter and do something cryptic with coloured dots or a single letter to show which uSD card should be in a particular standard SD card adapter.

Martin,

That is why I never tried the, as far as I could tell, bulky paper ones (had some numbered "dots" laying around which I used for marking other stuff), but forgot all about the Dymo plastic ones.

By the way, I've tried to the label on both the back and the front side. While putting them on the front side seems to make it a bit more difficult to put the card into the RPi slot, I'm a bit hesitant to put them on the back (where they do not seem to give as much trouble), as that moves the cards contacts further away from the contacts on the RPi ...

Regards, Rudy Wieser