It puts a 100% proper “certified” SD format and file system on the card, which a quick format is enough to do. Block sizes, offsets, etc. A good way to get a card to 100% true spec. On older cards that could get their size messed up by some traditional formatting utilities, you could tell it to fix that. On newer cards, it checks and fixes that automatically but they are not prone to that problem anyway.
A full overwrite format, while it doesn’t do any specific diagnostics, can tell you:
The card is the capacity it claims to be (copying a bunch of files and do this too, but this is easier), a good way of finding the counterfeit cards.
Finds and marks bad cells/blocks (not a specific feature of that utility, but writing to every cell will force the card’s internal controller do this).
If a card is totally dead or has enough bad cells that it runs out of spares, it will fail, telling you the card is no good.
I do wish it would report how many bad cells it found etc but given the other benefits of using it, it is my go-to. A few bad cells here or there not necessarily an issue, a whole bunch, and the card is dying and will probably have more every time you write to it. Similar to old spinning hard drives, when they started reporting bad sectors, they were junk.
Trying to remember if I’ve ever attempted to run something like chkdsk or fsck on an SD card. Not sure if it would work or possibly damage the card. I guess fsck is more likely to work being linux based, but who knows.
I have run various data recovery tools against them and they work pretty well. Usually can access most of the files, a few will be corrupt but SD does a good job of locking itself down when it senses failure is imminent.
That makes me wonder what (if anything) SpinRite would do, but that’s getting way off topic. I’m still curious about the answer to @K6CCC’s question, but I think @cjcain already answered that as I re-read:
I did try a brand new card in one of the replacement cameras, and hit same issue.
Yes, it was 120V outdoor extension cords and the USB plugs are within 6 feet of the camera. (for both OG-T & V4)
All SD cards that failed were working in other cameras.
I did not try full overwrite of SD card, but can do that.
Originally I had the wyze outdoor power adapter (from power brick to camera) running in parallel to one outdoor extension cord, so wondering if that could have caused interfearance/issues initially.
After replacing that outdoor adapter with the original USB plug/cord, that cord is also running parallel to one of the power cords.
Maybe that is causing interference? I will try to re-route the USB cable away from all power cords.
Pretty unlikely, your entire power system (all your outlets) are just essentially parallel extension cords.
We need to figure out the common denominator -
Did all 3 OG-Ts get plugged into the outdoor power adapter? Possibly it is dying and putting out too high a voltage which has damaged each cam (or the SD card chipset at least).
All the SD cards at this point have been in an OG-T that has had the issue I believe. Possibly that has damaged each card.
A less likely scenario but possible, the outlet(s) or circuit that they all run off is putting out low voltage or otherwise noisy/bad power, and the OG-T is maybe more sensitive to this. If it is just low voltage, it may not have damaged anything, but it just can’t get the OG-T to run reliably causing issues with each one.
I’d say at this point, try taking the best card you have (probably the Samsung Pro Endurance), use SD Card Formatter (SD Memory Card Formatter for Windows/Mac | SD Association) to do a full overwrite format (will take a while). Hook up the OG-T inside somewhere using a power adapter you’ve never used with these cams/outdoor plugs before (can be a phone charger or other USB adapter that puts out at least 1000ma). See what happens. If everything runs good, transfer that same setup to the outdoor location and see what happens. If problems start again, you need to look at the extension cord and/or outdoor outlet. Voltage at the end of the extension cord may be too low.