How To Spot And Test A Fake Micro SD Card

I don't think you've run into a counterfeit, though anything is possible. I do think your MicroSD is either damaged, or else was used in a device that formatted it to that size. If running Windows, I would open up Command Prompt as an administrator and run Diskpart to completely blank the drive so it can be formatted again. The following page may help: https://www.seagate.com/support/kb/how-to-diskpart-eraseclea...

One thing to keep in mind is that, in general, MicroSD cards use the absolute bottom of the barrel chips in them. They can fail when least expected. I know: I had it happen with a 512GB model.

I would not buy any cards from Amazon as counterfeit cards are common. With memeory prices high this might even be more common today than a year ago.
Just because a card purchase is “filled and shipped by Amazon” doesn't give you a good guarantee they are genuine. It is my understanding by a neighbor (a Best Buy Manager) that Amazon sells the same product from many vendors, and the ordering system handles the sale. So let's say I give Amazon 100 counterfeit copies of a brand XYZ 32 GB SD card to sell for me. Amazon also buys direct from the importer 100 copies of the genuine brand XYZ 32 GB SD card for sell under the conditions filled and shipped by Amazon. All the cards labeled as brand XYZ are placed in the same stock bin and the computer simply handles who made the purchase and a robot (most likely) draws the card from the bin. But in this example you have 50/50 chance of getting a counterfeit card.

Amazon regards the products as fungible, meaning that an SD card made by brand xyz is the same regardless of who is selling it. Further, if a warehouse in Brooklyn runs out of stock of the brand xyz 32 GB cards, the order may be filled from a warehouse in Harrisburg PA regardless of who has supplied the cards in any given bin.

So buyer beware on these small commodity type of items; you may not know what you get, until you get it!

Now my same neighbor tells me that Best Buy at the Corporate level purchases thousands of cards every year, and they purchase them direct from the importer. They are then disseminated downward to the individual stores based on the BB inventory system. There isn't any unknown middle person, the card is supplied from importer >> Best Buy Corporate >> local Best Buy store. The odds are much higher in this scenario to get the genuine article.

I cleaned it, but now it won't format.

to "slam" Micro Center like that. They're not fake, and they're a legit outfit. Do I go there much? No. As a matter of fact have a certificate for free memory as I type.

it's in St. David's near Radnor. Lots of folks like them as they're the only legit bricks and mortar left.

I learned a new term this year: echo chamber. Negative posts abound on the internet, and they tend to be magnified by the internet. Positive comments are not heard at all, so, it's easy for something small to appear large and to take down businesses on the ether.

Free is a marketing tool, to get foot traffic. There isn't any ill will to jam up your devices, c'mon now.

To reformat SD cards it's best to use the SD card reformatting software published by the SD Association itself:

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/

Scroll down a few replies and use the formatter suggested. If that doesn’t fix it consider trashing it.

To clarify, I only recommended using Diskpart because a device may have formatted it to only be 60MB. SD Formatter, as good as it is, doesn't always pick up on the fact the drive has been formatted in such a way that the bulk of its available storage is invisible. Thus, using Diskpart to completely wipe out any partitions on the card that Windows would mark as unallocated space is useful. Speaking of which, when looking at the card in Disk Management, does it show all 32GB as unallocated?

That said, with the drive now totally blank, SD Formatter should see it as a RAW drive and should format it properly, if the card isn't in fact damaged. In my experience however, a MicroSD that is damaged won't be readable at all. Not with Diskpart, not with Disk Management, and not with SD Formatter.

I downloaded this and used it.

I just got a message "Formatting was successfully completed."

I now have a capacity of almost 29 GB.

That can now go in the Garmin Nuvi 3597.

Thank you!