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Phone stopped recognizing microSD card

The other night I was watching a movie, checking my phone periodically. With it in my lap, it lit up at one point to alert me that the SD card had been unexpectedly removed. So I took off the back cover, popped it out and popped it back in and it still didn't recognize it.
I restarted the phone multiple times and even when connected to my computer through USB it doesn't recognize that there's an SD card, although I don't have a stand alone SD card reader to try out. Is there anything I can try, or is my card dead?

If you could get an SD card reader, you could use your computer to format it. Is it the 8gb that came with the phone?
CM7 Inspire 4G

Yeah it's the one that came with the phone.
Sucks because all of the puppy pictures of my new dog are on there.

it happened to me also a couple of days ago. When i got it to read the sdcard to format it on my computer, it said it was only a 30mb card not a 8gb card. Then i could not format it at all. i did a full wipe, but nothing worked. Replaced it with a 16gb card.

jwlyons said:
Yeah it's the one that came with the phone.
Sucks because all of the puppy pictures of my new dog are on there.
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Click to collapse
Exact same thing happened to me back on CM7 RC1, with the stock card.
There's an SD formatter that I used to have on my computer. I think it was made by Toshiba...search the Internet for it and at least you could get a little more out of your SD, at the cost of formatting it.
CM7 Inspire 4G

Here, give this a try:
http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/index.html

[Q] No memory available on my droid incredible.

I'll start with this even though I'm not quite sure if it's related. I recently unrooted my droid incredible because I need to bring it back to Verizon.(The speaker is blown on it.) Everything went fine until today.
I was looking at the phone and all of a sudden I have no memory available on the phone or sd card. I had space yesterday and have not done anything to it since. I plugged the phone into the computer to see what I was dealing with and I do have no space. Some of the files on both the memory card and phone storage have a title Mus****.tmp (the stars are different for each) all are in the root. They are all 0kb. I am assuming I can just delete them? I have a bunch of music on there and used v cast to put them back on after I wiped the phone. Worst case senario I am planning on wiping the memory card when I get the new phone and hopefully that works, I just want to make sure this wont happen to the new one.(I plan to root that one as well.)
I appreciate any help.

WTF - Warning - SD Card contents

I haven't searched but saying that I've never seen anything like this on Desire or Sensation threads before.
I went to copy something over to the phone (using Windoze Explorer) and when I looked at the contents. I saw the attached. The phone, when I use Root Explorer, and PC agree :-((
For reference I've used Linux, PC (Explorer) and ADB 100% to copy files over successfully before, so no posts about using one or not using one.
All the Filenames etc. have been completely screwed up. Looks like they've been converted to DOS 8.3 format.
I have never ever seen this before. I think I must have run something on the PC when the phone was USB connected. It's about the only thing I can think of, the phone/SD Card/ROM have been 100% reliable so far.
LUCKILY, I made a rare backup of my SD Card yesterday. I usually remember to make one once in a blue moon.
All I can think is to recommend folks to disconnect the USB drive when not needed and do Backups (of the Phone and also the SD Card).
Anyone seen this before ??

sorry to say this to you but your memory card has gone corrupted.
i know this because this has happened to me alot of times.
this happens if you use unbranded memory cards but this also happens to branded memory card.
the only solution i can give to you is buy a new memory card. and the main reason this happen when you connect your phone to your pc/laptop and use it as diskdrive and take the wire out while transferring data.
the only way to prevent is to use a safe remove usb and than change your diskdrive to charge only and wait till everything is loaded and then disconnect your usb wire.
also if you fornat your memory card it will work but i can tell you this that this willhappen again and this could happen without connecting your phone to computer. so to only prevent data loss buy a good new memory card.

Shery4life said:
sorry to say this to you but your memory card has gone corrupted.
i know this because this has happened to me alot of times.
this happens if you use unbranded memory cards but this also happens to branded memory card.
the only solution i can give to you is buy a new memory card. and the main reason this happen when you connect your phone to your pc/laptop and use it as diskdrive and take the wire out while transferring data.
the only way to prevent is to use a safe remove usb and than change your diskdrive to charge only and wait till everything is loaded and then disconnect your usb wire.
also if you fornat your memory card it will work but i can tell you this that this willhappen again and this could happen without connecting your phone to computer. so to only prevent data loss buy a good new memory card.
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Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm 99.8% sure it still works and he doesn't have to buy a new memory card yet .. I don't know where you get the idea that his memory card is completely dead! It looks like he still has his files, there's just all that junk in there! Worse comes to worst, he has to reformat it which I think may not even be necessary
Anyway, I've had a similar situation as yours and "repairing it" fixed those issues up. I didn't even reformat it, just repaired it. Try that! (Assuming you haven't already reformatted it anyway)

KAwAtA said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm 99.8% sure it still works and he doesn't have to buy a new memory card yet .. I don't know where you get the idea that his memory card is completely dead! It looks like he still has his files, there's just all that junk in there! Worse comes to worst, he has to reformat it which I think may not even be necessary
Anyway, I've had a similar situation as yours and "repairing it" fixed those issues up. I didn't even reformat it, just repaired it. Try that! (Assuming you haven't already reformatted it anyway)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Update:
Card is fine. Just the filenames/pathnames got screwed.
As I said luckily I had done a backup of it yesterday, only by accident. I mounted the card on the PC directly (USB adapter) and deleted / copied stuff back.
It must have been something on my PC I ran as it changed the filenames/pathnames to 8.3. I did run something (can't remember the name) as I had problems doing the copy (SD Card to PC) for the backup. A few (4 if I remember) files were too long, exceeded the 255 limit. I D/L something to see what was the issue, turned out to be some book preview I'd accidently down loaded from the market.
All good and working now....
As I said just a warning that **** on the PC can screw the SD Card on the phone.
Backups (Nandroid and SD Card) are a pain but can be life savers.

KAwAtA said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm 99.8% sure it still works and he doesn't have to buy a new memory card yet .. I don't know where you get the idea that his memory card is completely dead! It looks like he still has his files, there's just all that junk in there! Worse comes to worst, he has to reformat it which I think may not even be necessary
Anyway, I've had a similar situation as yours and "repairing it" fixed those issues up. I didn't even reformat it, just repaired it. Try that! (Assuming you haven't already reformatted it anyway)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i don't mean that he should buy a new memroy card because after formating/repairing it the memroy card will work but this corruption can happen again. if this happens again the onl;y thing he can do is buy another memroy card. this has hapened to my unbranded memroy card which was 16 gb class 10 and it happened atleast 5-6 times. since i couldn't take another corruption i have ordeered class 10 32gb lexar memory card which is working fine and its hasn't gave me any problem since i've been using it

Man that's what happened to one of my other 4 gb cards I don't use anymore. It was kinda funny. I ended up reformatting it, but an odd thing has happened... 3gbs went down to 1.7gbs... I can't even access the remaining 2gbs... no matter what I've tried.
I didn't buy a new card since it works just fine. Been using it as a "mini" file storage card for 4 months and no issues yet. =D

You sure everythings fine? A lot of files on that card read "0KB" which is definitely not a good thing.
Best of luck.

Anyone with any issues with an SD card should first attempt a low level format.
I'll leave you all to Google that one.
Sent from my MyTouch_4G_Slide

It's fine.
Just that something I used, never used it before, to check filename/pathname lengths (due to FAT issues), seems to have converted everything to DOS 8.3 format. The ones that didn't conform to that were created after a phone re-boot.
This was only as a warning that **** does happen and backups, while a pain in the arse to do, can save a load of pain.
Off to try some ICS ROMs now so expecting a load more pain, d/l, CWM, Wipe, Swear, revert back to CM7. ;-)))) Just need to make sure that nothing updates my HBOOT..

Try .. A Full format of the SD Card
You need to do a Full format and wipe of the SD Card .. I have " fixed" a few this way.
I use: HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - Seems to work for me

GS3 destroying SD cards?

My shiny new Galaxy S III has now destroyed two 32gig micro SD cards on me. About two weeks after I installed the first card, my phone started giving messages about the SD card being improperly removed, then it would immediately try to re-mount it, then would say it was removed again, then finally started just repeating the "unable to mount SD card" error until I physically removed the card. I argued with best buy to give me another one, and now today (about two weeks after installing the new one), the same thing happened. I put the card into a USB reader to try it on my computer, and now even my PC does not recognize the card.
Has this happened to anyone else? What can I do to fix this?! I pre-ordered the phone from verizon, so I'm now well out of warranty replacement time.

codeman0624 said:
My shiny new Galaxy S III has now destroyed two 32gig micro SD cards on me. About two weeks after I installed the first card, my phone started giving messages about the SD card being improperly removed, then it would immediately try to re-mount it, then would say it was removed again, then finally started just repeating the "unable to mount SD card" error until I physically removed the card. I argued with best buy to give me another one, and now today (about two weeks after installing the new one), the same thing happened. I put the card into a USB reader to try it on my computer, and now even my PC does not recognize the card.
Has this happened to anyone else? What can I do to fix this?! I pre-ordered the phone from verizon, so I'm now well out of warranty replacement time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a 32gb MicroSD card and haven't had a problem. I do wish I could use it more as internal memory rather than hardly usable external storage...but that's a different issue.
Sorry I couldn't help, but just wanted to say that Galaxy S III does support that much external storage. Maybe a hardware issue? Try troubleshooting it with another MicroSD card.

codeman0624 said:
My shiny new Galaxy S III has now destroyed two 32gig micro SD cards on me. About two weeks after I installed the first card, my phone started giving messages about the SD card being improperly removed, then it would immediately try to re-mount it, then would say it was removed again, then finally started just repeating the "unable to mount SD card" error until I physically removed the card. I argued with best buy to give me another one, and now today (about two weeks after installing the new one), the same thing happened. I put the card into a USB reader to try it on my computer, and now even my PC does not recognize the card.
Has this happened to anyone else? What can I do to fix this?! I pre-ordered the phone from verizon, so I'm now well out of warranty replacement time.
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Click to collapse
Gotta be the cards you're getting I would think. I had a 16gb card that came with my Droid x almost 3 years ago in it for almost 2 months before the card finally crashed.(I'd abused that card tho, carried it in my jeans pocket, left it sitting on my table etc) Then I put my 64gb in it. It's been a little over two weeks now and no probs with it. I've written too it and erased and so on so I've actually used it. It's almost full now actually lol.

I have that same 16 GB from the droid x. Do I still need to format it if I flash a ROM? And how do I check what format its in
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

My 32gb card was doing that on stock until I finally installed a custom rom. No problem since.
Synergized GS3

SD card gs3 issue
I also had trouble with my external 16gb card after flashing 2 ROMs (synergy & beans v9). I was not even able to get a computer to recognize the sd card after the flashing.
I thought it had to do with using a stock, then rooted stock, then custom kernel. i thought the combination and repeated TBU access over a 4 day period just trashed it. maybe there is more to the story?

1) What is your ROM flashing history (what roms, how long were each installed)?
2) Which rom did you notice the problem on?
3) Were the original and replacement cards the same make/model?
4) What format were the cards in (FAT32, exFAT, or other)?
5) are/have you overclocked your cpu?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium

bby144 said:
I have that same 16 GB from the droid x. Do I still need to format it if I flash a ROM? And how do I check what format its in
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
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Click to collapse
nope. all i did was take my 16 gig from my droid x (that OEM card is tough) and slap it in my s3.. and it works.

mybook4 said:
1) What is your ROM flashing history (what roms, how long were each installed)?
2) Which rom did you notice the problem on?
3) Were the original and replacement cards the same make/model?
4) What format were the cards in (FAT32, exFAT, or other)?
5) are/have you overclocked your cpu?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the responses guys. I'm still fully stock, I haven't done anything to the phone (yet). I don't know what the format was, I just put them straight into my phone and let it do whatever it wanted to do. The original and replacement are the same make and model, from the same store. So before i panicked too much, I was considering buying a new/different card from amazon and seeing if it does the same thing still.
Just didn't know if anyone else was experiencing this, or had any thoughts on why that would randomly happen on a completely stock phone?

codeman0624 said:
I was considering buying a new/different card from amazon and seeing if it does the same thing still.
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Click to collapse
That sounds like your best bet. There are plenty of crappy cards out there. My ADATA 8GB class 10 has been great so far. I have noticed that the GS3 gets really hot right near the cards (micro sd and sim). Can't be great for the cards long term.
I've had my VZW GS3 since 7/5 and have been fine with my card. I've seen plenty of people who've had trouble with FAT32 vs exFAT, but none who have lost their card.
I have seen a ROM break cards before (an early AOSP gingerbread build for the Fascinate claimed one of mine), so I've actually been looking. This is the first thread I've seen.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium

mybook4 said:
That sounds like your best bet. There are plenty of crappy cards out there. My ADATA 8GB class 10 has been great so far. I have noticed that the GS3 gets really hot right near the cards (micro sd and sim). Can't be great for the cards long term.
I've had my VZW GS3 since 7/5 and have been fine with my card. I've seen plenty of people who've had trouble with FAT32 vs exFAT, but none who have lost their card.
I have seen a ROM break cards before (an early AOSP gingerbread build for the Fascinate claimed one of mine), so I've actually been looking. This is the first thread I've seen.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium
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Click to collapse
I've also noticed it gets really hot toward the bottom of the phone. Now that I think of it, both times I noticed the SD card issue right after taking the phone out of my pocket. Maybe it's just getting too hot? I wonder if my case is also holding in a lot of the heat and making it worse? I wish there was a way I could test things without breaking an SD card every time!

My GS3 fried a new 32gb card that I put in it after about 3 weeks. Randomly got an "unreadable SD card error", can't correlate with any specific activity. I reformatted the SD card & it works again in the phone. I was rooted, running stock at the time. Maybe it's the heat, but I don't recall it being hot at the time (I also don't recall it not being hot...)

Try sandisk.I was having problems with lesser brand
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

I have been using the 32 GB San Disk brand card that came with my thunderbolt and it's been working great.
I really don't know what could cause that to happen to a card and I haven't noticed any other reports of it happening with this phone.
If it comes down to it VZW SHOULD give you a replacement because it could be something to do with the card slot in the phone. I would try talking to them if you can't get it worked out.

So going on the theory that maybe it's just getting too hot, I just ordered a 16gig sandisk ultra micro SD card. It claims to be "temperature proof", whatever that means. Hopefully that clears things up, otherwise I'll have to deal with Verizon, and I'll be super mad if they give me a refurbished phone when this issue actually started two weeks after I got the phone.
If I don't post back here then you can assume all has gone well!

16gb card from droid x
same as others, used the same 16gb card from my droid x, transferred to the bionic when it was released, and now have been using it in the GIII since release. no issues.

I don't believe the phones are getting too hot to do the damage. The hottest temp my battery has gotten had been 106 and they say that heat damage isn't even a concern until around 140 or so. I would think the cards could take the same if not more than the batteries.

I had a similar problem, my sd card wasn't destroyed, but it would randomly become unmounted. It started happening after I hooked my phone up to my corporate email and it forced me to encrypt my device. After I removed the corporate account it stopped happening. This was all on stock TouchWiz from the factory.

codeman0624 said:
My shiny new Galaxy S III has now destroyed two 32gig micro SD cards on me. About two weeks after I installed the first card, my phone started giving messages about the SD card being improperly removed, then it would immediately try to re-mount it, then would say it was removed again, then finally started just repeating the "unable to mount SD card" error until I physically removed the card. I argued with best buy to give me another one, and now today (about two weeks after installing the new one), the same thing happened. I put the card into a USB reader to try it on my computer, and now even my PC does not recognize the card.
Has this happened to anyone else? What can I do to fix this?! I pre-ordered the phone from verizon, so I'm now well out of warranty replacement time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have had my 64gb SD card for a month and so far nothing went wrong. did you buy your SD cards from a reputable source? I have always used sandisk SD cards try buying one from Sandisk or even Samsung. if you bought your card from ebay make sure the card works, I have heard that some times people sell damaged cards for very cheap. But other than that good luck.

16 GB class 10 sandisk 30 mb/s version died on me with this phone after 2 weeks, stock ROM, formatted with phone. It was brand new.
The error I had was it became read only. And no it was not fixable, I tried everything. Low level format, checking permissions, different OS's, putting it in SD adapter and messing with lock switch on there.
I read class 10s are more prone to die quicker and aren't necessarily better, but just different from a lower class. Ie a lower class will last longer because it read and writes differently and doesn't skip certain safeties like a class 10 does.
Running a class 4 16gb sandisk now and it is annoyingly slow.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

Been having problems since day one

Man I've been having problems since day one. I've had it for a couple of days now and I'm so frustrated that I'm thinking of going back to my LGV10 and returning it back. At first I was super excited to open up the package but then......
1st problem...
Wasn't able to install the SD card and sim card. I kept on trying to install it but it would jump out of its slot and fall off. With the weight of the phone I had to also not just try to insert the cards but try to not drop the phone while juggling to balance it.
2nd problem.....
SD card doesn't read...
I have a 200gb SD I had on my V10 so I thought I could just pop it in and enjoy me some movies on this big screen and enjoy some music but Nope, it doesn't seem to want to read it and making me reformat it. I don't think so.
I installed a new one. Had to format it and thought I could transfer files to it and..
3rd problem.....
No OTG..... I didn't know that I tried to manually install some files and no luck.
Oh yeah I dropped it already also but good thing it was on the carpet.
I really really like the phone so I there's anything anyone can help me with I would be much appreciated .
Thanks and sorry I had to vent..

This phone could be great, but it really needs some dev love. If it could be unlocked and rooted I really think a custom rom could make this phone really shine. Maybe in the near future. For now I went ahead and ordered the Zenfone 3 Ultra. Going to spend the next week comparing the two. If I can get over the lack of LTE and the Zenfone has better user experience I will probably return the Lenovo.

MR.MEMORYLANE said:
Man I've been having problems since day one. I've had it for a couple of days now and I'm so frustrated that I'm thinking of going back to my LGV10 and returning it back. At first I was super excited to open up the package but then......
1st problem...
Wasn't able to install the SD card and sim card. I kept on trying to install it but it would jump out of its slot and fall off. With the weight of the phone I had to also not just try to insert the cards but try to not drop the phone while juggling to balance it.
2nd problem.....
SD card doesn't read...
I have a 200gb SD I had on my V10 so I thought I could just pop it in and enjoy me some movies on this big screen and enjoy some music but Nope, it doesn't seem to want to read it and making me reformat it. I don't think so.
I installed a new one. Had to format it and thought I could transfer files to it and..
3rd problem.....
No OTG..... I didn't know that I tried to manually install some files and no luck.
Oh yeah I dropped it already also but good thing it was on the carpet.
I really really like the phone so I there's anything anyone can help me with I would be much appreciated .
Thanks and sorry I had to vent..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had a 7" display phablet. It had simcard instructions printed on the back shipping plastic. I kept the plastic on because it was a very handy reminder and was hidden by the case anyway. The way I did the simcard in Slot 1 and the sdcard in Slot 2 was to keep the phone flat on its face on a table. Open the slots one at a time... Install the cards... The table made it so easy!!! My simcard had to go into a plastic adapter to make it the right size and it was a real juggling act before I tried this - it also aids in not losing the teenie cards. They land right on the table. Now, it's possible that you have to put the phone on its back on the table... It just depends on the orientation of the card in the tray and the tray in the slot!!! Don't let that be the reason why you return the phone! Try it!!!
Another thing, I am not a techie but a few people here have mentioned that our old sdcard format doesn't work in this phone. They have (usually) purchased a new card (which I'm going to do once I get lucky enough to get this phone in my hands!) and reformatted it to work in this phone and then transferred the data from the old card onto the new one... I am not a techie so I am still going to research this different format... I still have some questions about whether my pc card reader reads that format or do I need to get a reader? Are a lot of newly released phones changing the sdcard format? Why would they request the new format? But I am not letting that stop me... I really want this phone. In my area the Chinese phones don't give good MMS text performance or I would be doing an ASUS Zenphone 3 Ultra!!!
Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

Yeah I figured out the card inserts & I also installed a brand new SD card. I format it to how it was suppose to be and I installed one song. Took me forever just for that one song. I just hope to figure it out before it's to late to return. Just want to be happy with it if you know what I mean lol.. Thank you