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](https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/117662/which-ps1-memory-cards-work-on-a-ps2-slim) here suggests only certain PS1 cards work well with the Slim