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I recently bought a PS2 Slim. It seems to work fine. I didn't realize I needed a PS1 memory card, so without much thought, I bought the cheapest one on ebay. The brand is Hyperkin (so it's not official), and it came in a sealed package.

I put it in, fired it up, and when I tried to save a Gran Turismo 2 file, I was prompted to format the card, so I did that, saved my game, and restarted the system. The save was there, so everything seemed fine.

I played about 10 hours between various games, saving and loading just fine, using 5 or so blocks (I definitely didn't fill the card). Then while playing FF7, after having saved a few times already in my session, when I tried to save again, I was prompted with "Memory card not formatted. Format now?". I wasn't really thinking, so I just said "yes". My other saves were now gone, but I was able to save the current game, and just continued playing.

I lost the progress in my other games but I hoped it was just a one-time glitch because the card was "new" or something, but I continued to use the card after this, and I was able to save and load normally for another 15 hours of play between my games.

And then it did it again. I was playing FF Tactics, I had already been playing for an hour or so, I had saved just fine a few times, and suddenly when I tried to save again, I got message saying "Game data corrupted", and then after hitting OK, I got the "Memory card not formatted. Format now?" message.

The PS2 browser now sees the card as an unformatted card.

My question is: are these normal symptoms of a bad card, or is there any reason I should think the PS2 itself is bad? I realize the common wisdom will suggest to get an official Sony card, but has anyone else tried this particular card with a PS2 slim?

I've put a couple hours into FFX with a PS2 card and it seems fine so far, so I suppose if that card gets corrupted somehow, then I will have a clear answer.

I'm going to try getting an official sony ps1 card, but is there anything else I'm not realizing about this issue? Another question here suggests only certain PS1 cards work well with the Slim

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    My money is on it being a bad card. I don't really have any evidence to back this up, aside from a) all my really old cards still work on my pretty broken ps2 and b) they are Sony originals.
    – nailbones
    Sep 16, 2016 at 2:26
  • A third option: Could it be Final Fantasy stuffing up the card?
    – Robotnik ♦
    Sep 16, 2016 at 8:06
  • I thought of that but the card never even got half full
    – parker.sikand
    Sep 16, 2016 at 9:11

2 Answers 2

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When I bought my PS2, all the official cards were sold out, so I bought a knock off one. I don't remember the brand, but it gave me nothing but problems, including the formatting issue you're having. I then bought a Sony card once I could find one, and it worked perfectly forever after.

I suppose it could be an issue with your console, but my money is on the card. My situation isn't exactly yours, but I've had enough problems with off brand PlayStation accessories to blame them first. To see if other people had this problem with this card, I checked out the reviews on Amazon. Overall they're surprisingly good, but there are a few reports of the exact issue you're having.

Of course, the only way to know for sure is to try a different card or use your card in a different PS2, but I would just assume it's the card.

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  • Yeah, 3rd-party accessories simply aren't as reliable as original products. I once bought a 3rd-party N64 controller, and a couple of months later the analog stick would no longer return to its original position. By comparison: My original N64 controller was already several years old, and (apart from a little dirt) it looked and behaved like it was still brand new.
    – Nolonar
    Sep 16, 2016 at 8:37
  • Yep, I've even found that accessories by reputable companies like Logitech don't work as well as the Sony stuff. (My conspiracy theory is that Sony has somehow caused this on purpose.) I was really surprised to see this card had four and a half stars on Amazon. He may have just gotten unlucky, but why risk all your game saves to save a few bucks?
    – Kat
    Sep 16, 2016 at 8:56
  • It's just so annoying that it would work for a good stretch and then randomly corrupt itself. I figured the card would either work totally, or not at all, that's why I had a weird suspicion abut the PS2 itself.
    – parker.sikand
    Sep 16, 2016 at 9:19
  • It is weird, and it does seem rare, based on the reviews. I'm not sure how many of the good reviews were based on a slim PS2 though. It could be some compatibility issue, and not completely the card's fault. I doubt it's a problem with your specific console, though.
    – Kat
    Sep 16, 2016 at 9:27
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I have suffered the same issue. I bought a ps2 slim played ps1 games for many hours then my entire ps1 memory card erased all data so I gave up on playing ps2 games for abit and stuck to ps2 for now and law and behold it happened again with my ps2 card. Which I've owned for many many years and never had an issue with, yes its NOT an official one it was a max memory card.

I have come to the conclusion that it is my slim console because the console it self is actually damaging my discs by leaving a faint ring around the edge of the disc (just like when you have an Xbox 360 console vertically with a game in and it topples leaving the game damaged) However the games still work for now. I'm waiting on an older model of the ps2 and hoping that none of these problems happen again.

One more thing to note also is I have a friend who is a total gaming nerd and he says that slim ps2s were always designed cheaply and rushed so alot of problems did occur with the slimline model. I'm hoping he is right.

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  • Your answer seems a little unclear. Do you think/have evidence that the OP's PS2 is the problem?
    – Angzuril
    Jan 26, 2017 at 6:05

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