Develop Bugs

Help!! Sd Card Not Seen By Device

Help! I have an XDA IIs which was working fine for the last two years. It has a 1GB SD Card in there. I used it for TomTom all this time, with no problems at all.
A couple of days ago, I forgot to grab my device from the car as I was in a rush and I left it in the car (powered off, but with TomTom running) most of the day.
When I got back in the car, TomTom wasn't working right so I closed it and tried to re-open it, whereupon I received the nasty message "Cannot determine location of data".
To put it simply, the device no longer recognises the presence of an SD Card! It's not in File Explorer, nor under Settings / Memory / Storage Card.
What is going on?
Here's a list of what I've tried already (none of these ideas has solved the issue):
o Tried a different SD Card
o Tried a soft reset on the device
o Tried a hard-reset on the device
o After hard-reset, tried a restore from a recent Active Sync backup-to-PC.
o Downloaded PocketPC Mechanic and played around A LITTLE (didn't do anything that seemed dangerous like defragging, registry cleaning, etc)
Any help will be VERY gratefully received!
Thanks
Matt

Update... but still have problem
Quick update
I also tried formatting the SD Card. No help (I have since copied all data back onto the card and it still doesn't work).

mattyboy said:
Quick update
I also tried formatting the SD Card. No help (I have since copied all data back onto the card and it still doesn't work).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Apparently, the motherboard your device is dies slowly.

Have you tried a diifferent sd card? reinstalling the software all over again?

Replying to Rafa1215
Yes, I have tried a different SD Card (as noted in the original post, list of things I have tried). It's a 128MB one which works fine in the SD Card reader slot on my PC (my main 1GB card works fine in PC slot as well).
Here's a further titbit of information which may or may not be useful in helping me:
I've tried several times to restore the backup-to-PC I made at the end of April (essentially the same stuff on the device then as now, luckily). Normally, when you insert (or remove) the card, it turns the screen on. Each time I perform the restore (of the same backup, over and over again), the SD Card slot actually performs this function when I insert the card again - but ONLY ONCE each time I restore from backup.
As for reinstalling software all over again... I have performed a hard-reset on the device, and tried the card as soon as it is ready to use... no luck there either.
In reply to vovaxxxx:
Is that a serious comment? The motherboard slowly dies? If that's true then this device is fit for nothing but the rubbish bin!
More ideas are welcome please, I thank you for the feedback!!

If you're luck enough to have a friend that have a BA you could test his sd card on your BA and your sd card on his BA. If his BA can read your card and yours can't read his then you have 2 situations:
1) Your sd card slot is dirty or slightly melted so you have no good contacts, try to clean it.
2) Time to buy a new phone or try to buy a new circuit board for your phone but for the price I think is better you get a new phone.
Edit: If you have $100 you can get a new circuit board here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=310283

search google for panasonic sd formatter or something like this, this is a lil program which is used to format your SD properly. Insert your SD card into the card reader, start the program and reformat the SD card.
The problem is within the SD card file system

xplode said:
search google for panasonic sd formatter or something like this, this is a lil program which is used to format your SD properly. Insert your SD card into the card reader, start the program and reformat the SD card.
The problem is within the SD card file system
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If that doesn't work try
Storage Tools by softwinter.com
You can at least do a Scandisk and fix any errors during the scan

OK I formatted the SD card with the Panasonic formatting utility. (Backed everything up to the PC first, from the card!)
Still no difference. To reiterate - the SD Card(s) I am trying to use are working fine in my PC's SD Card reading slot.
I think it's the hardware (i.e. the XDA itself)... LGSilva says I could try cleaning the contacts. Any recommended ways on doing this? The slot is too small to get any kind of decent cleaning implement in there, and I can't dismantle the device because it's held together with special screws (6-pointed-star-shaped heads).

Hi
the company i work for has around 300 device and this happens every now and again. not sure if this will help but normally call our mobile network and get a replacement. it's normally the card reader in the device.

mattyboy said:
The slot is too small to get any kind of decent cleaning implement in there, and I can't dismantle the device because it's held together with special screws (6-pointed-star-shaped heads).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The screws are size 6 Torx bits, suitable sets of these drivers can be bought from Maplins in the UK, although you don't mention where you are located.
There is also a guide to taking the BA to bits in the WiKi and a very comprehensive one containing pictures etc. at the bottom of the WiKi page, well worth reading both before you try taking it to bits - Mike

8GB MicroSDHC Card

Hi -
I purchased the 8GB MicroSDHC card from Verizon a week ago. It worked fine on my AT&T Tilt for a few days and than it lost all information! Fortunately, I was able to restore from backup, and it seems to be OK again. Here's the strange part: even though the original files and directories are gone, the card still counts them in used memory. I.e., the used memory is about 200 MB more than it should be, the amount of space I was using before the card crashed. This applies whether I check the memory on the device, connected by USB, or with the Card Adapter that came with the card.
Any ideas what might be causing this and how to recover the used memory short of reformatting the card?
Thanks!

If you could tell us what you did for it to crash it would help
You probably tried to partition it or something...?
Looks like you will have to format the whole card.
Maybe there is a simple way to do this but here is how i would do, if it helps :
- install WM5Storage on your PDA main memory
- start wm5storage with the option memory card and connect your PDA to your PC
Activsync then wont be sync'ing and your memory card will be seen from your PC as an USB-key. Open it on your PC and check to make sure it is your memory card that you see (and not your PDA main memory).
Then use whatever format tool to format your "USB key" with FAT like format, for example you can use HPtool (be carefull to format the key and not another drive !!!).
After this do not forget to turn off wm5storage, otherwise you will not be able to "see" the memory card on PDA side...
Hope it helps, let us know...

by the way maybe you could try this :
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
I've used it sometimes when i had started to format a hard drive instead of an usb key by mistake.
Windows was asking for formating everytime i wanted to open the hard drive folder. However, using this Testdisk tool, i was able to mount the hard drive and recover everything including my photos and music and stuff... Maybe you want to try this awesome tool, plus it is free and OpenSource.
Use wm5storage tool to use your PDA as an usb-key, then use Testdisk on this usb-drive, it might be able to see, list and recover all the "lost" files and heal the whole partition at same time.

Thanks for the suggestions - I'll post again when I have the chance to try them -

No luck
Had a similar problem with my Kaiser (HTC Rom). Yesterday I did something (don't know if it was memmaid - my guess, because otherwise I just installed some cabs I had previously installed in my Wizard with no problem) and my SanDisk 6 GB MicroSD was completely 'erased".
I just noticed after the Kaiser had created new folders over it (Application Data, Cookies, History and Temporary Intenet Folders). My assumption is that something destroyed my partition table (that's why I suspect memmaid, it may have cleaned something wrong) and now I have another partition over the old one.
I tried file recovery and found 1 GB good of files, but there were 5 Gigs on the card... I really wanted to find "program files" so I didn't have to re-install lots of stuff, but no luck.
Tried Testdisk as suggested above, but it never detects any partition, not even the current one. I guess I will have to reformat it and re-do all stuff.
Well, I may be saying lots of dumb stuff, but that's my guess.
Thanks if there is any possible help in this...

Ah, and when I insert the card via a card reader in my notebook and right click properties, it says 717MB free, which means my old files are there waiting for me (new folders have only 736KB of data)... What to do?

Guys need advise do you have to do any patch to be able to use 4-8GB mini SDHC card on your PDA?
I have a Asus P535. Have asked their support site and the reply I got is the max supported is only 4GB.

I believe I've read in more than one place that the Kaiser may support up to 32 Gig, which is the MicroSD maximum. But I may be wrong...
Fact is this has never happened with my Wizard and its 1 Gig MiniSD. Now I'm gonna increase backup and cloning so I don't have to reinstall everything...
But I'll check if there is a patch anyway. Thanks.

I am able to use Sandisk microSDHC 8GB can on Asus P535.
But need a micro adapter to miniSD

mbernstein said:
Ah, and when I insert the card via a card reader in my notebook and right click properties, it says 717MB free, which means my old files are there waiting for me (new folders have only 736KB of data)... What to do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Click properties and then click theTools tab. Run Error-checking with both options checked. When you check your card, you will hopefully see a new directory with recovered files. You can then delete them and regain your disk space. This is what worked for me -

Thanks. I tried that at the time to no avail. I did have to reformat, and then reinstall everything... Now I'm using Sprite Backup, so everything including Storage Card is backed up in case this thing happens again.
And/Or said:
Click properties and then click theTools tab. Run Error-checking with both options checked. When you check your card, you will hopefully see a new directory with recovered files. You can then delete them and regain your disk space. This is what worked for me -
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

It could be WINXP patch
I have the Sandisk 8G , it came with a small USB reader and all was working fine. However my ASUS W5 laptop also has a built-in SD slot so I installed a patch issued by Microsoft to make it HCSD compatible, and it read and write it OK but then I suddenly got the same problem that you've described here.
The disk goes blank but the files still occupy the space, even attempting to reformat the card in the built-in slot will ignore that space,i.e it shows only 5G card.
But reformatting using the small USB card reader was fine and from now on I only use the cardreader to read and write and everything is OK. In my view the XP patch was causing that problem

[Q] "SD Card mounted as read-only"?

Hi,
I'm posting this issue second time. I have a class 2 SD card with almost 1700mb of ext3 partition. the problem is that my SD turns to read only when accessing some files from my sd card. it says in the notification SD card mounted as a read only and then say "tap" to resolve the card responded unexpectedly.
tapping on it sometimes help if i remove the files that I was trying to access that created the problem. otherwise it mounts it as read only.

Hi, you sure your card is a genuine one? The problems you are having are identical to what I had. Turns out my 32gb card was in fact an 8gb card, and the problem was when capacity was reached it would go to read only. The only way to rectify this was to take the card out, place it in my PC card reader right click on properties of the drive and run the error checking tool. Hope this helps. Got my money back anyway thought £36 was a bit cheap lol! Try writing a large file to the card using your Computer, this should give you an indication if the card is genuine or not.

lewyharvey said:
Hi, you sure your card is a genuine one? The problems you are having are identical to what I had. Turns out my 32gb card was in fact an 8gb card, and the problem was when capacity was reached it would go to read only. The only way to rectify this was to take the card out, place it in my PC card reader right click on properties of the drive and run the error checking tool. Hope this helps. Got my money back anyway thought £36 was a bit cheap lol! Try writing a large file to the card using your Computer, this should give you an indication if the card is genuine or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Card is genuine. I have placed my card several times in my brothers htc hd and formatted it through windows. its almost 8 gb i checked it on windows. last time I deleted a folder which has wiered name as if the folder was corrupted. I deleted that folder n it was running fine again. but its back again.
mine came with telus, so it should be genuine. what does class signify? like i have class 2, what does it mean?

CLass is the speed of read and writes.
I recently had a problen like this it turned out to be a corrupt file in the .secure folder used for apps to sd.

rchatburn said:
CLass is the speed of read and writes.
I recently had a problen like this it turned out to be a corrupt file in the .secure folder used for apps to sd.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
then I guess its because of corrupt files but why is it so often specially when I copy something from windows.

I had this problem once after disconnecting from a Windows PC, simply connect the sd car directly to a computer and run the windows verification tool, it finds the corrupt file and your sd card starts working again

hey i recently had the same problem ,, but i figured it out and this method should work fine...!!
>First of all you should know how this problem has occurred..??,
well the reason is, we all connect the phone to system in usb mass storage mode ,,but while removing we'll only give safely remove in the system and forget to do the same in the phone ,,,trust me this the core for this problem....sd-card cannot be fully unmounted by system ,,, so you have to manually do this by your phone
so if you are using the sense rom ,,after ejecting the disk in the system ,,,in your your phone's notification area
in ''connect to pc'' menu select charging only .....this will completely unmount your memory card .
>if you are using non sense rom ,,"turn off the usb" mass storage
do this every time you connect your phone to the system ..!!!
ok now solution for your problem..
>reboot your phone to recovery mode using rom manager...
>select partition menu
>now select mount usb storage ,,,
>now you have tow options
1. either you backup every thing and format your sd-card (recommended)
or
2.mount your sd-card and check for errors in windows,,,
this should fix your problem ..
remember ,,next time when you are connecting your phone don't direly unplug the the cable..!!

qariboy said:
Card is genuine. I have placed my card several times in my brothers htc hd and formatted it through windows. its almost 8 gb i checked it on windows. last time I deleted a folder which has wiered name as if the folder was corrupted. I deleted that folder n it was running fine again. but its back again.
mine came with telus, so it should be genuine. what does class signify? like i have class 2, what does it mean?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Class number represents a multiple of 1 MB/s
So if 2 is written on ur SD card then it means that its capable of a read speed of 3MB/s

>First of all you should know how this problem has occurred..??,
well the reason is, we all connect the phone to system in usb mass storage mode ,,but while removing we'll only give safely remove in the system and forget to do the same in the phone
- Not always true, its happened to me on several occassions when not connected to PC etc... Flickie HD caused mine
If you have a mac the fix is - disk utilities - repair card
Full format I found to be better though

Question about External SD card visability

I also posted this in the Tmobile specific thread, so I apologize if you are seeing this twice. Not sure where stuff like this should go when there are "multiple" sections for the same phone.
I am total stock, not rooted yet, waiting for the 2.22 firmware update from TMO.
I have a 64 gig sd card in the phone, and, in apps like root explorer, I can see the card, and all the files I put on it.
I also have been able to move a few programs to the external card, at least partially.
but, in some programs, when I try to save a file to the external sd, or, sometimes when I try to open a file on the external sd, the card does not show up in the path. I have some movies on the card, and when I open BS Player, it doesn't show the external sd card at all.
I think I read that rooting the phone will fix this, but I am not sure if just rooting fixes this, or if you have to do something else to make it show up all the time.
I know there have been issues trying to write and save files directly to the external sd, but I think this is something different.
Thanks in advance!

wase4711 said:
but, in some programs, when I try to save a file to the external sd, or, sometimes when I try to open a file on the external sd, the card does not show up in the path. I have some movies on the card, and when I open BS Player, it doesn't show the external sd card at all.
I know there have been issues trying to write and save files directly to the external sd, but I think this is something different.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are correct, in that the new Google policies under KitKat only affect write permissions. This shouldn't affect the ability of apps to read the card. I think there is something else going on. How is the card formatted? Is it new, where did you buy it?
I've seen other folks have random issue with the M8 not reading the card (even when it works with other devices) and re-formatting on computer fixed it up.

redpoint73 said:
You are correct, in that the new Google policies under KitKat only affect write permissions. This shouldn't affect the ability of apps to read the card. I think there is something else going on. How is the card formatted? Is it new, where did you buy it?
I've seen other folks have random issue with the M8 not reading the card (even when it works with other devices) and re-formatting on computer fixed it up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
its one I have used for at least a year, with no prob..I assume reformatting, to fat 32 would be best for use on this phone?
I dont remember if I re formatted before inserting yesterday; best to do it on a pc and not the phone itself?
thanks for your input!

wase4711 said:
its one I have used for at least a year, with no prob..I assume reformatting, to fat 32 would be best for use on this phone?
I dont remember if I re formatted before inserting yesterday; best to do it on a pc and not the phone itself?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FAT32 is probably the most universal (was probably formatted that way out of the box). exFAT is supported, and some folks like it since it supports large file sizes (>4GB). But I never use files of that size, so it doesn't matter to me. Just my feeling, FAT32 is the simplest and probably safest (most compatibility) way to go.
You an try to format on the phone. But the other guy I saw that had issues, formatted the card on the phone, still didn't work (but other devices still could read it) then he formatted on PC and it worked perfectly.

unfortunately, I had to just do exfat as well, since my win 8.1 computer, and my wifes win 7 only offered ex fat or ntfs; didn't want to try fat 32 on my sons Imac, just to avoid any mac to pc issues..

Hello, it is a mystery why in Total Commander can not see the normal view external SD card. Does anyone know what the problem is?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/j81gu6s5got5y8h/Screenshot_2014-08-14-09-26-27.png

wase4711 said:
unfortunately, I had to just do exfat as well, since my win 8.1 computer, and my wifes win 7 only offered ex fat or ntfs; didn't want to try fat 32 on my sons Imac, just to avoid any mac to pc issues..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So did formatting exFAT help?
There are some good 3rd party Windows applications what will format to FAT32, if you still want to try. Thge other guy with a similar SD read issue used one such program to fix it, but I can't remember the name of the program. CNET and other websites have some reliable ratings, recommendations for such free software.
---------- Post added at 10:06 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:06 AM ----------
Lynx12 said:
Hello, it is a mystery why in Total Commander can not see the normal view external SD card. Does anyone know what the problem is?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try to format the card as being discussed on this thread.

redpoint73 said:
So did formatting exFAT help?
There are some good 3rd party Windows applications what will format to FAT32, if you still want to try. Thge other guy with a similar SD read issue used one such program to fix it, but I can't remember the name of the program. CNET and other websites have some reliable ratings, recommendations for such free software.
---------- Post added at 10:06 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:06 AM ----------
Try to format the card as being discussed on this thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think it did: i can see the external sd in more programs now, but not in all of them.
Possibly because not every program is coded to use an external sd card for storage or access to files.
Once the new firmware gets released by tmobile,(supposedly by the 18th) I will root, s-off, and unlock and see if that changes anything.
Thanks for your follow up:good:

redpoint73 said:
Try to format the card as being discussed on this thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The format I do first after you insert the card into the phone ....

Lynx12 said:
The format I do first after you insert the card into the phone ....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MicroSD cards almost always come pre-formatted (usually FAT32) and I never use the formatting offered on the phone. I've seen reports of cards formatted on the phone not working right.
Use a computer and card reader to format the card.

did not help...

wase4711 said:
since my win 8.1 computer, and my wifes win 7 only offered ex fat or ntfs; didn't want to try fat 32 on my sons Imac, just to avoid any mac to pc issues..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had kind of the same issue on KitKat the card came new but for some reason it was not working fine.
On Win 7 or 8.1
Insert card and note the letter assigned
Start "RUN" with keys [Win-Logo]+[R] and type in »(Edit-Box) "diskmgmt.msc" and press [ENTER]
Select the drive letter for the card and do a right click > Delete Volume, accept the prompt
Then select again the drive and select New Simple Volume
Follow the wizard. Assign a letter. Sometimes you may not get the option of selecting FAT32 from here in some cards. If you don't get the option, select no format. Finish.
Remove card and insert it again, Windows will prompt to format the drive. Select FAT32
You should be done

[Q] unable to mount sdcard or even format it

Had evervolv on htc desire, but recently I got system process error, finally managed to boot into recovery, but can not fix or even format it.
it mentioned usb brick, but tried to 'usb unbrick' and got message "unable to determine your CID, please report to ext4'
please help

used the instruction #13 from 1st thread and got this message:
"The system can not find the path specified"
64 bit system

error mounting Sd card
This is very strange and have tried but do not quite understand adk tools
The first issues is that the SD card wont mount:
Sometimes in recovery i can access the card and other times I cant;
I have tried to format it in windows, but doesnt allow me to.
I have tried using the tools on recovery to fix it, but hasnt fixed it.
The second issue is that when I try to reboot it says usb brick and fix it before i can reboot,
but this has not fixed the card.
can somebody please help me with this issue as I do not want to purchase another card.

Can you at least read your sd card, preferably in a card reader to remove any phone element? If so back up the whole card to PC
Then I suggest a complete reformat of the sdcard using gparted live cd: a single FAT32 (on the left) and then maximum 2GB ext4 partition. Again do this in a card reader to remove any phone or driver issues.
Copy contents back to sdcard afterwards.
If none of this works then you may simply have a bad corrupted sdcard. Although it's not a great solution to buy a new one, make sure you stick to a reputable brand, even those are not that expensive nowadays.

No .. I have tried several times, but pc can not read it.
I do have the contents copied though.
any suggestions, as pc can not read card.

eddiehk6 said:
Can you at least read your sd card, preferably in a card reader to remove any phone element? If so back up the whole card to PC
Then I suggest a complete reformat of the sdcard using gparted live cd: a single FAT32 (on the left) and then maximum 2GB ext4 partition. Again do this in a card reader to remove any phone or driver issues.
Copy contents back to sdcard afterwards.
If none of this works then you may simply have a bad corrupted sdcard. Although it's not a great solution to buy a new one, make sure you stick to a reputable brand, even those are not that expensive nowadays.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The card is Sandisk.
I can sometimes access the card on the pc using the usb, but not all the time

Well at least you have the data backed up, so nothing to lose except an sdcard.
- Are you using a card reader?
- Have you tried gparted and a card reader? This has the best chance of working.
If you can't read or see the card by any means, then not much else to suggest but a new card.

Can see it sometimes using usb connected to phone.
will try your suggestion shortly and let you know

phone say safe to remove sd card.

eddiehk6 said:
Can you at least read your sd card, preferably in a card reader to remove any phone element? If so back up the whole card to PC
Then I suggest a complete reformat of the sdcard using gparted live cd: a single FAT32 (on the left) and then maximum 2GB ext4 partition. Again do this in a card reader to remove any phone or driver issues.
Copy contents back to sdcard afterwards.
If none of this works then you may simply have a bad corrupted sdcard. Although it's not a great solution to buy a new one, make sure you stick to a reputable brand, even those are not that expensive nowadays.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
htc_desire_luke said:
phone say safe to remove sd card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
using a card reader i get "please insert disk into removable media"