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[Q] Questions About A "Read Only" Micro SD

A week or so ago, I flashed this ROM onto my phone. ([ROM] (v1.2.6_r2) Nexus AOSP Gingerbread 2.3.4 - Faux123 [Jun-26-2011] - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1068367&page=189)
I had to end up switching back to stock ROM. Ever since the flash back to stock, my memory card has been "locked"
In the process of flashing my phone back to stock, my external Micro SD card became locked to "Read Only". I cannot format or erase any of the content that was stored on my card during the flashings. It literally seems to be "LOCKED" onto the card.
I've tried the windows format option in the Device Manager. I've also tried the Windows Command prompts. NOTHING has worked. Formatting the card in my phone does nothing. No data gets erased.
With the card in my phone, I can access all my files (movies, music, pics, etc). But I cannot modify, delete, or add any new content! (Example, I cannot select my External SD as a valid storage location for new pics in the camera.)
Does anyone have any ideas on how to reformat this card to get it working for me again. It is a 16gig card. I hate to throw it out.
Thanks.

I would recommend trying Panasonic's sdcard formatter. It seems to be pretty good at formatting sdcards that other programs have trouble with.
http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/sd_formatter20.html
Another thing you could try, you can format your sdcard inside clockwork recovery mod. (Under the mounts and storage section if my memory serves)

mstrk242 said:
I would recommend trying Panasonic's sdcard formatter. It seems to be pretty good at formatting sdcards that other programs have trouble with.
http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/sd_formatter20.html
Another thing you could try, you can format your sdcard inside clockwork recovery mod. (Under the mounts and storage section if my memory serves)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes thats good one ! +1

avetny said:
yes thats good one ! +1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for the suggestions
That did not work. I ran the SD formatter and the windows formatter and my content is STILL on the card.
CWM won't format the card either.
Any other ideas?

Did you try partitioning the card? Just one 16GiB FAT32 partition?

Joe-retired said:
Did you try partitioning the card? Just one 16GiB FAT32 partition?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Joe -
That is officially over my head.
How would I go about doing that?

Can you get the card replaced under warranty?
Since you tried formatting the sd card, I am assuming you have backed up everything on it.
As easy way is in Clockwork recovery mod choose -> advanced; then choose -> partition;
when prompted for a partition size for the ext partition choose the smallest, also the smallest for swap (I think you can choose 0 for this one) continue to follow prompts and the card will be partitioned.

One more thing to try if that doesn't work:
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php
Go to this site, download the cd or usb disk version and boot off it. Now, plug your card into your computer (NOT through the phone, use a usb reader. If you don't have one, you can probably pick up a cheap one for around 10 bucks.), you may need to rescan the disks after you plug the card in, to make sure gparted sees it. Now, delete the entire partition, so there is no partition at all on the card.
Boot back into windows, plug the card in, try to format it again. I've seen this happen when you have a damaged mbr on the sdcard. Also, when you format in windows, (if your system will allow it), id try to format it to a 64k cluster size instead of 32k. (on a 16gb card 32k is the default cluster size.) It'll speed it up a bit. (not really needed, but a nice boost.)
The last thing you can try, if all else fails, boot into clockwork recovery (assuming you have it installed) and format the sdcard through there.
If all that fails, I'd say you have a bad card. But try those steps first, hate to see you throw the card away if it's still good. )

[SOLVED] Phone's SD card not showing up in My Computer

Hi,
I just bought the Desire S and it comes with an 8GB SD card. When I plug my phone into the computer to browse the SD card, the SD card doesn't show up in My Computer. I've tried USB storage ON and OFF, debugging Mode and nothing works.
When I go to Computer Management -> Disk Management, the SD card shows up as "Unallocated". I cannot assign a drive letter to it as well.
I took the SD card out of the phone and plugged it into the computer using a card reader and it showed up in My Computer and was working fine. I put it back into the phone and plugged the phone to the computer and selected SD card storage option on the phone and I can't browse the SD card any more.
I've already formatted the card as FAT32 using Windows 7 before putting it into the phone.
I can browse the SD card just fine using a file explorer on the phone.
What could be the problem? why isn't the SD card showing up when I plug the phone into the computer?
I'm running MIUI 1.9.30 ROM, but the problem was also present with the original HTC ROM as well.

maybe you should try to format it through phone's settings, even better if you try to use a sense rom

Do you have htc usb drivers on your pc? Not sure if this they are required to browse the sdcard whilst in the phone, but they maybe?

The best you can do, you must format your SD card (all partitions) with your recovery (Ext3 or Ext4).
If you have used 4EXTRecovery or CWM, it's easier. (I prefer 4EXTRecovery )
At the end I think it will be ok

chris5s said:
Do you have htc usb drivers on your pc? Not sure if this they are required to browse the sdcard whilst in the phone, but they maybe?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I downloaded the "HTC Sync" tool and installed it but it doesn't recognize the phone probably because MIUI is installed on the phone.
Does anyone else have MIUI installed and managed to get it to work? Or is there some USB drivers I need to install?

philos64 said:
The best you can do, you must format your SD card (all partitions) with your recovery (Ext3 or Ext4).
If you have used 4EXTRecovery or CWM, it's easier. (I prefer 4EXTRecovery )
At the end I think it will be ok
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But Windows doesn't recognize Ext3 or Ext4, so I still won't be able to browse my SD card on the computer.

456456 said:
But Windows doesn't recognize Ext3 or Ext4, so I still won't be able to browse my SD card on the computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed, except if you use Droid Explorer on your PC (you can read all partitions from your phone with).
Except your SD partition who's must be in Fat32, all the parttions must be in Ext3 or Ext4.
That's why I'm write that's you can format your Sd card with your recovery.
For exemple, mine is:
System => ext4 => capacity :549 MB => free: 101MB
data => ext4 => capacity :1156 MB => free: 427MB
cache => ext4 => capacity :142 MB => free: 138MB
sd ext => ext4 => capacity :0 MB MB => free: 0 MB
sdcard => fat32 => capacity :29543 MB => free: 15369MB
In my pc, the only partition that I can read is sdcard

I tried Droid Explorer but it is buggy, incomplete, very slow, and overall crap.
I tried RCMix3D 1.5 ROM with Sense 3.5 and Android 2.3.5, and still the SD card doesn't show up on the computer. I have HTC Sync installed, but it crashes when I plug the phone in.
The SD card is formatted as FAT32.
Is there anything else I can do to browse the SD card on my PC? What did you guys do to get your SD card to show up on the PC for the first time?
Thanks for your help.

456456 said:
I tried Droid Explorer but it is buggy, incomplete, very slow, and overall crap.
I tried RCMix3D 1.5 ROM with Sense 3.5 and Android 2.3.5, and still the SD card doesn't show up on the computer. I have HTC Sync installed, but it crashes when I plug the phone in.
The SD card is formatted as FAT32.
Is there anything else I can do to browse the SD card on my PC? What did you guys do to get your SD card to show up on the PC for the first time?
Thanks for your help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some daft questions:
Did the SD function fine ever, eg with stock ROM when you first got the phone?
Have you tried an alternate SD card in the same phone?
Have you tried a different USB lead?
Have you tried on a different PC?

Have you tried another USB cabel?
Swyped from my Desire S

[Solved]
I found out what the problem was. After having a look at My computer -> Properties -> Device Manager, I found that two of the USB Controllers were not working properly and the SD card was detected as an "Unknown Device".
I uninstalled HTC Sync, fast boot drivers, and anything related to Android or HTC from my computer.
I then uninstalled the USB controller drivers by right-clicking on each and selecting Uninstall, and the same for the "Unknown Device". After a restart Windows started scanning for drivers for these devices and they started working perfectly again.
The SD card now shows up in My Computer when I plug the phone in, without the help of any HTC drivers.
I hope that helps others who come across this problem. Thanks to everyone who tried to help me with this problem. I appreciate your help guys.

i had that too.... i formatted it wiht my desire hd and it worked

Great to hear that this is resolved.
Best to edit your opening post #1 (using Advanced edit) and prefix the title of the post with [SOLVED] so as to note it's resolved.

[FIX][CWM] Error: Unable to mount SDCARD in CWM (and CF-ROOT)

Hi people!
I have seen many people have a problem with the above mentioned error in CWM. Although there are any threads on the topic, none of them are really clear (and often speculate) the method to fix it. And there is a lot of confusion regarding the "sdcard" in the i9003. This is my attempt to clarify and provide a reasonable fix (which worked for my Class 10, 16GB Micro SD (SDHC)).
It goes like this:
-> Boot into CWM recovery
-> Choose any options pertaining to the external sd card (such as backup, restore or install file from .zip)
-> The command returns with an error about how it can't mount "sdcard".
Now, there are a few thing that you have to be mindful of:
1) The "sdcard" mentioned in CWM for the i9003 is actually the external sd card.
- It is done this way so that everything works with the external sd and not with the internal 2GB sd that is present on our phone.
2) The internal sd is referred to as "sd-ext".
3) This pertains to the CWM of our phone. After booting into Android, it is back to "normal".
I tried to do a format in Windows 7's default formatting tool with FAT32, exFAT and NTFS (just eliminate the possibilities) with "default allocation size". It didn't work. Even choosing a larger allocation size did not work.
The Fix:
-> The optimal recommended filesystem for an android SD Card is FAT32.
-> Using the "SD Formatter" (version 3.1 as of this writing) from the SD Association ended up solving my problems.
-> The download link, for Windows (A MAC version is also available), from their site is here. You have to click "I Accept" and accept the terms of the EULA (but who really reads those things anyway ) ?
-> Use a card reader (using your phone is not recommended), make sure you have selected the right card and that you have backed-up all the data on your card (incase you didn't know - formatting erases all your data!).
-> I chose "Quick format" under options and made sure "Format Size Adjustment" was off (These are available under "options").
-> It's done in a few minutes, and it works GREAT! :-D
Cheers people! Hope this clears up some stuff!

This thread deserves to be made a sticky thread...
Moderators please make sure to consider this
Btw - nice job dude you explained it all very well!
Tapashocked via my gt-I9003 with a random keyboard of my choice !

Finally solution came..it works like a charm...thank you so much Bro..

I was bugged by the same problem a few moths ago....
I solved it by Going to Settings > SD card ad phone storage >SD CARD> Umount sd card > Format SD card....

@Lord: thanks mate!
@Symdroid: your welcome! Glad to have helped!
@Neojith: Yeah that usually works, but for some odd reason it didn't work for me last time.
Also, this works without fail even if your SD card is unrecognizable (or comes up as corrupt/damaged) in Android but is detected on the computer.
Sent from my GT-I9003 using XDA App

Man i dont hav any card reader....why cant i do this while it's inside the phone? :-(

Give it a shot... It may work (but be sure you're formatting the right card)!
I recommended a card reader as it is faster, and in most cases the card wasn't detectable by Android but was detectable using a card reader.
Sent from my GT-I9003 using XDA App

Got cranium ROM 3.1 and its not working on my phone. It shows the drive in the PC but i cannot access it. But the phone still reads whats on the SD card. It works well before with kPE...

kudos Erahgon, it worked!
FYI I didnt even use a card reader, used the phone itself (too lazy to search for a reader at home)

Srry guys, was outta town for a few days!
@vadexlux: Good to hear that it works from your phone as well!
@lbraddx : If it's not accessible even in Windows, your card is probably corrupted. Do a quick format in Windows, then use a data recovery software to recover your files. After that, format using the method in the first post, and remember to back-up your files.
Sent from my GT-I9003 using XDA App

Erahgon said:
Hi people!
I have seen many people have a problem with the above mentioned error in CWM. Although there are any threads on the topic, none of them are really clear (and often speculate) the method to fix it. And there is a lot of confusion regarding the "sdcard" in the i9003. This is my attempt to clarify and provide a reasonable fix (which worked for my Class 10, 16GB Micro SD (SDHC)).
It goes like this:
-> Boot into CWM recovery
-> Choose any options pertaining to the external sd card (such as backup, restore or install file from .zip)
-> The command returns with an error about how it can't mount "sdcard".
Now, there are a few thing that you have to be mindful of:
1) The "sdcard" mentioned in CWM for the i9003 is actually the external sd card.
- It is done this way so that everything works with the external sd and not with the internal 2GB sd that is present on our phone.
2) The internal sd is referred to as "sd-ext".
3) This pertains to the CWM of our phone. After booting into Android, it is back to "normal".
I tried to do a format in Windows 7's default formatting tool with FAT32, exFAT and NTFS (just eliminate the possibilities) with "default allocation size". It didn't work. Even choosing a larger allocation size did not work.
The Fix:
-> The optimal recommended filesystem for an android SD Card is FAT32.
-> Using the "SD Formatter" (version 3.1 as of this writing) from the SD Association ended up solving my problems.
-> The download link, for Windows (A MAC version is also available), from their site is here. You have to click "I Accept" and accept the terms of the EULA (but who really reads those things anyway ) ?
-> Use a card reader (using your phone is not recommended), make sure you have selected the right card and that you have backed-up all the data on your card (incase you didn't know - formatting erases all your data!).
-> I chose "Quick format" under options and made sure "Format Size Adjustment" was off (These are available under "options").
-> It's done in a few minutes, and it works GREAT! :-D
Cheers people! Hope this clears up some stuff!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've used above method but still failed..i flashed another CWM also failed. is there any other way?
please help me my phone is dead for a week now

Can you access the card from your phone? Can you access it from your computer?
What are the specs. of the SD card?

Erahgon said:
Can you access the card from your phone? Can you access it from your computer?
What are the specs. of the SD card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cannot access from the phone. but when i flash with odin there is part saying 'error can't mount sdcard-skipped wipe data' but when i check the sd card from my pc its empty and i lost all my file in sd.
here another weird thing, you said the 'sdcard' in CWM is the external sd. I can't mount 'sdcard' but I can mount 'sd-ext'; when i took out my sdcard then I can't mount 'sd-ext'. so I think in my case 'sd-ext' is my sdcard. thanks for replying though. can you figure out my problem?

iming88 said:
cannot access from the phone. but when i flash with odin there is part saying 'error can't mount sdcard-skipped wipe data' but when i check the sd card from my pc its empty and i lost all my file in sd.
here another weird thing, you said the 'sdcard' in CWM is the external sd. I can't mount 'sdcard' but I can mount 'sd-ext'; when i took out my sdcard then I can't mount 'sd-ext'. so I think in my case 'sd-ext' is my sdcard. thanks for replying though. can you figure out my problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flashing with ODIN? What were you flashing with ODIN? When you flash with ODIN it doesn't do anything to the external-sd card.
Have you done an internal-external sd swap? If so, and you want to flash a new firmware using ODIN, you must re-partition (i.e. Use the latona pit file) and then proceed with the flash. After the flash, you may once again swap the external and internal sd cards. I haven't tried this, so this is just my best guess. If this doesn't work, try using your old vold.fstab file (read this thread for more details).

Erahgon said:
Flashing with ODIN? What were you flashing with ODIN? When you flash with ODIN it doesn't do anything to the external-sd card.
Have you done an internal-external sd swap? If so, and you want to flash a new firmware using ODIN, you must re-partition (i.e. Use the latona pit file) and then proceed with the flash. After the flash, you may once again swap the external and internal sd cards. I haven't tried this, so this is just my best guess. If this doesn't work, try using your old vold.fstab file (read this thread for more details).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
still no luck

Fascinate owner here. Had the same issue with CWM red (3.x) and Green (4.x).
All I did was reformat the card in Android. You have to unmount it in Settings > SD Card. Then simply Format. All your data will be erased but CWM will be able to read your card again.

WOW... I have THAT trouble too (on a I9100!), read this (googled) post and think.. "hmmm.... all other works fine with the ext. SD-Card... that can't be the fix..."
BUT i test the fix and OMG!... Now all CWM troubles gone! PERFECT!
Thank you very very much! I love the XDA community! *smak* ;-)

Is there any way to do the same for the internal sdcard coz my external sdcard reads fine but internal phone memory as well as internal sdcard are corrupted!

WOW
hi dude..its works like..hapi man!!!Thanks alot!

Relaxasaurus said:
Fascinate owner here. Had the same issue with CWM red (3.x) and Green (4.x).
All I did was reformat the card in Android. You have to unmount it in Settings > SD Card. Then simply Format. All your data will be erased but CWM will be able to read your card again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have been seaching for this problem, and I was lucky enough to come across your post. After formating my SD card within android, the problem is solved, and now I can backup to and restore from my external SD card. I am using Galaxy Tab 2.
Thank you!!

Formatted my SD card...and now it won't work

My SD was acting a fool (after deleting many ROMs, it still said I had 73MB free). Nothing I did would change it so I decided to format the card. I used Disk Utility (on Mac) and formatted for FAT32. After I did that, my phone said it was in a format it couldn't recognize, so I formatted it from the phone itself. Now, when I enter recovery and attempt to install zip from sdcard, then choose zip from sdcard, it says "E:Can't mount /sdcard". I don't really know what to do, as I formatted it from my phone. I figured that was sure fire but I guess not so much. I tried to find what format I need the SD card in to work properly but I couldn't find anything.
Can someone help me out?

Fat32 is correct for the phone. Do you have a usb reader for the sdhc microsdcard or one of those sdcards that let the microsd card fit in to read it from the pc?
Sent from my LG-P999 using xda premium

Reboot in recovery, if it says it can't mount it... pop out the sd from your phone and pop it right back in and see if it works. No need to mess with mount points for it either.
Also, did you check if your lost.dir folder is taking up space? Sometimes that thing can get big.

Could have been a bad flash, try to flash it again. I know I had a problem when I bought a new sd card. You can also try to flash it from a different phone. Otherwise, if you have access to a pc, I can tell you how to format it from the command line, which is, in my opinion, better to do if you're having a problem with the quick format that the phone does.

ericalanMICHAEL said:
My SD was acting a fool (after deleting many ROMs, it still said I had 73MB free). Nothing I did would change it so I decided to format the card. I used Disk Utility (on Mac) and formatted for FAT32. After I did that, my phone said it was in a format it couldn't recognize, so I formatted it from the phone itself. Now, when I enter recovery and attempt to install zip from sdcard, then choose zip from sdcard, it says "E:Can't mount /sdcard". I don't really know what to do, as I formatted it from my phone. I figured that was sure fire but I guess not so much. I tried to find what format I need the SD card in to work properly but I couldn't find anything.
Can someone help me out?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like what i did one day when i wanted to wipe everything so i did including formatting my SD card through recovery. so it left me with nothing on my phone including a bootable rom! lol. if this is the case with you. Here is what i had to do. Download a new rom to my PC then plug my phone into my PC via USB/ Boot into recovery/ Mount storage/ Mount SD card/ Copy the Rom to SD card then Flash the Rom. Not too sure if this helps, I hope it does, again it sounds like the same problem i had.

Sometimes SD cards break...for some reason they will just stop working, probably due to manufacturing techniques. My old 256mb card went bad, I just tossed it yesterday as a matter of fact. it had no name brand. I still have a 4gb pny that works perfectly and a SanDisk 32gb which also works great. If you do have to get a new SD card, I would recommend getting the highest class you can afford highest out the right now I believe is C10. That will increase your transfer speeds....both of my current cards are class4 and it can take a little bit of time to transfer gigs of data between the phone and computer. If you have any other device that can accept the "card" put it in there and check if it can send and receive data/ format to proper disk size, if not then your card is broken.

Once you go class 10 you don't look back lol
Loving my Lexar 32gb class 10 microsd.
Sent from my LG-P999 using xda premium

[Q] How to format a micro SD card.

How to format a micro SD card.
I had a HTC Touch Pro2 16gb micro sd card that has about 14gb on it. It was starting to get really slow to copy any size file to it. so i copied off the full contents to my pc (with the micro sd in a card reader) and in windows explorer, did a right click, format, format fat32. I seem to remember the size wasn't exactly correct but cannot remember exactly. format went really quick and i started coping back over my file. the copy stopped saying there was not enough room. tried another format and now it says that there is just 241kb of size (my only option in the drop down), File Systme Fat is my only option, and Allocation Unit Size FAT is my only option. I do not have a Volume label. Any thoughts? Would love not to have to buy a new card.

Try to format in FAT32 once more and do full format, not Quick. preferably via PC

Dancer-Sk said:
Try to format in FAT32 once more and do full format, not Quick. preferably via PC
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True that. Had the same problem once. What I did was to use a different SD Card reader and delete off the contents first before trying format (non-quick).
If that doesn't work, google for an alternative sd card formatter.

Download Ubuntu Live CD and run it w/o installing. Connect your Cardreader and start the Program "Gparted".
Now you can format your SD-Card in many Datatypes, maybe Windows is faulty at your Cardreader, but with Linux it should work fine.
Ubuntu Download: www [dot] ubuntu [dot] com/download/ubuntu/download
P.S.: If Gparted is not listed in the App Drawer, get it from the Ubuntu Softwarecenter by simply searching "Gparted".

Hi,
Here is a tool what will make formatting a SD Card easy. Just download this tool and select Full erease. Then it will be okay. Also partitions which are hidden are now ereased try it and let me know!
Tip: Search in google SD Formatter 3.1 and select the first link!

The SDFormatter 3.1 did the trick. Windows XP formatter had no options for Fat32 and only saw 224kb of my 16gb micro sd card. The SDFormatter 3.1 recognized the full 16gb. Not really sure about the options. Even though there are only three the FULL options did not seem to work at first but after the quick my card was formatted, windows saw 16gb, copied my data back and now my phone is good. thanks.

Flash memory just gets slower when it get fuller, formating doesnt help that.

Dark3n said:
Flash memory just gets slower when it get fuller, formating doesnt help that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Formatting deletes every thing so it was to speed it up?!? ;/)
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium