Develop Bugs

SD Card Randomly Appears Empty

Hey, I've had my Evo for a couple weeks now, and have recently started experiencing an issue that has been since happened quite frequently - the SD card will randomly appear empty, and I won't be able to add files to it. The only way to get around this, it seems, is to reboot the phone.
At first I thought my MicroSD card that came with the phone was defective, so I got Best Buy to exchange it today, but it just started happening again! My phone is rooted and running the latest RvU ROM, if that could have anything to do with it. Does anyone have any help, or is this just a hardware problem? (If it is, I'll just exchanged the phone at Best Buy, since I'm within my 30 days.)
Thanks!

vonStemmington said:
Hey, I've had my Evo for a couple weeks now, and have recently started experiencing an issue that has been since happened quite frequently - the SD card will randomly appear empty, and I won't be able to add files to it. The only way to get around this, it seems, is to reboot the phone.
At first I thought my MicroSD card that came with the phone was defective, so I got Best Buy to exchange it today, but it just started happening again! My phone is rooted and running the latest RvU ROM, if that could have anything to do with it. Does anyone have any help, or is this just a hardware problem? (If it is, I'll just exchanged the phone at Best Buy, since I'm within my 30 days.)
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same thing for me. I tried Baked Snack and now Fresh 0.5.3, both have the same issue. Rebooting seems to work for a short time, but it always fails when I'm using programs that access the SD a lot such as the Gallery app or the Camera. As long as I stay clear of those it seems to hold up a bit longer, but I've had it fail while using Astro File Manager too.
When I was running The latest stock OTA I had no issues. I posted a similar question in the threads for both ROM's with no response yet. Because of that, I was beginning to think I had a bad card too.
I don't want to go back to stock. I just can't understand why this keeps happening.

Glad to know I'm not the only one.. I just wish there was some resolution to this.
I contacted HTC and they said it wasn't a known issue with the phone, so they said I should go to Best Buy and exchange it. So maybe our SD slots are just defective?

I have this problem too. It empties every day it seems and I need to reformat the SD card just to get it working again. It erases all my pictures and video and is very frustrating.
It seems to happen most often when I am taking a picture or going into Gallery, but has happened in other instances as well.
I hope HTC releases a solution that addresses this.
Also, it tells me in the notification bar that the SD card is damaged or unsupported file type or something along those lines.
And for the record, I am running a stock Evo.

i welcome u guys to my world.i been having the problem since day one tried everything and nothing worked.fully rooted,new radio,tried few roms,formated SD card,put in a new SD card and still that random SD failure.i reboot about 3-4 times a day and its really irritating.im afraid i might brake my evo one day or jus claim for a new one.

GHOST99K said:
im afraid i might brake my evo one day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is how I feel

I'm tempted now to go back to stock and verify, but I never had a single issue on my phone until it was rooted. However, it's possible that the problem was there and I didn't encounter it.
If I take that step and find that it is still an issue on the stock OTA, I will most likely try to get the card replaced or have the phone if it persists after a new card.
It's very inconvenient and makes the camera pretty unreliable. Plus I am a field tech, and I store .pdf's on the card for different devices. If the SD is frakked I can't be sure I can get to important paperwork in the field.

It's not the SD card.I have already reformated the SD and even put a new 16gb SD card but same issue everyday.
Sent from beneath the earth using XDA App

It's definitely not the SD card. I've formatted it, gone to Best Buy and had the SD card replaced, and used a different SD card.
It could be the ROMs we're using, but I've got a serious problem with this phone if using a rooted ROM does this.. And few other people are experiencing the problem. That leads me to believe it's a hardware defect.

My suggestion jus get your phone exchanged ASAP.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

Yeah.. I've contacted Best Buy and they'll let me know when they get their next order in

Unfortunately I am am outside my 30 day exchange period so I cannot do that.

Well, I hate to break it to you guys, but custom ROMs is not the issue. I am stock and have had my phone since launch morning (June 4) and today, for the first time, my SD card contents disappeared. I was changing wallpaper when the default wallpaper kept coming up as the wallpaper. Note that the when selecting a wallpaper, the gallery showed all my images (cached?) but when I went to Gallery, nothing was there. I pulled the battery to reboot and now the SD card contents are back.

I had the same thing happen with me. I've also experienced other strange things related to the card. When hooking the phone up to my macbook, sometimes files copy and sometimes they don't (to the card). I was thinking it was an app corrupting the card. I've tried large files (100-200mb) and small files (like apks or old video game console roms). It seems that when data is going to the card very aggressively, it doesn't wasn't to copy. What I mean by aggressive is like 2+ dialog boxes of files being copied at the same time.
More often than not, it seems like lots of small files pisses the phone off and it parts me back by bowling the card. Lots of files means hundreds to thousands.
I saw this thread awhile ago but didn't look at it until today. At least I'm not going crazy or even maybe have a bad card. The cards never gave me any problems with the devices its been in for maybe the last 3 years until last week.
I gotta find another card to try. I am using sandisk 16gb. Maybe a different brand? Anyone try that yet?
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

I'm doing a test now. I removed the suspect 16gb card from the phone and put in a 8gb card that has never been in the evo ever. I put the 16 in a sd adapter which goes into a usb adapter. All are official sandisk. I formatted the 16 in my macbook as fat32. I am now copying 8557 files to the card which size total is about 6.97gb. After a few minutes, I'm down to 6291 files to go and almost half way finished copying. I have not received one error message or anything that might lead me to believe there is something wrong somewhere. I'm starting to think there's nothing wrong with the card(s). It's the gd phone! I am so pissed now!!!! I keep looking back at the progress window and it's chugging along no problem. I am thinking about something tho. When I was changing cards I noticed that even when the card's lock bar was down, the card could wiggle a little. HMM. I'm gonna get a piece of thick paper and put it on top of the card and see if that helps make the card not want to wiggle as much when the lock bar is in place.
I will report back if I find out if it works or not in like 24 hours or less.
I don't think it makes any difference what rom you are running but I went to the one stock rooted "EVO_1.47.651.1_Rooted_stockrom.zip" one calkulin posted.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=712695
That link is just in case someone stumbles across this post later and wonders what I'm talking about.

So far, so good. I will give progress reports when I'm at work when I'm able to. I hope I may have stumbled across a simple fix to a defect.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

I had the issue you guys are talking abou this is what I did to resolve my issue.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Just got a new SDHC card and simpleroot worked. The SDHC that came with my phone died. I placed a spare in there that was a 2gd regular micro and Hboot would not read the IMG for nothing.
If simple root is not working then it's the Sh!tty card acting up.
Happy ending for me.

vonStemmington said:
It's definitely not the SD card. I've formatted it, gone to Best Buy and had the SD card replaced, and used a different SD card.
It could be the ROMs we're using, but I've got a serious problem with this phone if using a rooted ROM does this.. And few other people are experiencing the problem. That leads me to believe it's a hardware defect.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For those who post before reading the thread, I am STOCK and this also happened to me. Battery out/in fixed the issue (for now).

So far I'm going on around 16 hours without the card screwing up. If you wanna try this, get a business card. Pull the card out of the phone. Lay the card on the business card at a corner. Measure about twice as long and normal width. Cut the business card. Fold the piece in half length wise so its the same size as the sd card. If it's too big, snip the non folded end of the paper and measure it so that its the same size as the sd card. Put the card into the phone and make sure its ask the way in. don't force it to hard. Then hold the card down and slide the paper, folded end first, on top of the sd and into the card bay. Make sure the paper isn't sticking out of the card well where the battery would be on top of. Gently push and lock the lock bar down onto the card. If you have to push firmly then the paper is too thick. Place the battery in the phone and put the cover back on. That extra bit of thickness added to the card I think is keeping it from scooting around in the sd card well and judging by the size of the contacts on the card, it wouldn't take much movement to get off the contacts. The folded end under the lock bar and the other end being held down by the battery I think is doing the trick. Just power down before removing the battery next time.
So far, this is working for me and I'm keeping my fingers crossed...
Just another update and bump off the topic...
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

I agree the ROM probably isn't the problem, but definitely come back and let us know if the paper helped at all. It could just be that the SD card is loose.. It seems like sometimes if my SD card stops being read, but I leave the phone alone, it'll work again later, without rebooting, which is odd.

[Q] phone will not recognize sd card at all

Okay so I dropped my evo on memorial day. The back cover came off and out came the battery, sd card was intact and still locked into phone. I put the battery back in, and when the phone turned on it kept saying sd card not mounted or found whatever. I've tried mounting it through recovery, it can't find it. I can't take pictures nor see my gallery. I bought a sdcard adapter. It's a sandisk sdhc adapter but my computer will not recognize it when I insert it. It reads the sandisk microsd card just fine but not the samsung
Im running cm7 and everything was working flawlessly until I dropped it.
Any ideas?

I had the same problem with my 32gig SD. It turns out my card just broken from the fall. After trying to format it and mount it a million times I gave up and sent it back. New card hasn't given me one problem. Hope it helps.
sent from my lazy a$$ at "work"

i just dont see how it can be broken considering it looks like it did the first day I had it lol

The outside may look fine but the internals are microscopic and I know even some of the best card out are only rated to take a 10 foot drop. Maybe you could borrow a friends sd card to test it out. Thats how I found out it was my sd. I formatted and put my factory 8 gig back in and it worked just fine.

jimisdad said:
The outside may look fine but the internals are microscopic and I know even some of the best card out are only rated to take a 10 foot drop. Maybe you could borrow a friends sd card to test it out. Thats how I found out it was my sd. I formatted and put my factory 8 gig back in and it worked just fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just hooked it up to my computer. It recognizes the phone but does not allow it to become a storage device because of drivers that are not installed

ok so I realized something. The computer I am currently using is my new comp which it is not the comp that i rooted my phone with. when i hook up my phone there is a driver that will not install and windows 7 cant fix it. Could it be that I need to re download the driver in order for it to see my sd card on my phone?

Is my phone killing my memory card(s)?

Ok so i had a 32gb card and it started failing on my phone, it would work sometimes or ask me to format it, sometimes it would work fine so i assumed it was about to die soon so i was able to back everything up,.
Bought a new 64gb sandisk card, the one suggested from the accessories list...well i've been using it for about a week now and it just died on me today.
doesn't even get detected...
i never formatted, it, read that this phone could support it right away...well now nothing works and i've lost everything....again!!!
this is really frustrating...i've lost some major saved games and it's depressing
could it be the phone...or was it just a bad card
i've used the original charger and battery at all times...
any clues?

krazyq said:
Ok so i had a 32gb card and it started failing on my phone, it would work sometimes or ask me to format it, sometimes it would work fine so i assumed it was about to die soon so i was able to back everything up,.
Bought a new 64gb sandisk card, the one suggested from the accessories list...well i've been using it for about a week now and it just died on me today.
doesn't even get detected...
i never formatted, it, read that this phone could support it right away...well now nothing works and i've lost everything....again!!!
this is really frustrating...i've lost some major saved games and it's depressing
could it be the phone...or was it just a bad card
i've used the original charger and battery at all times...
any clues?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look for File Restore Plus software. it will retrieve all of your lost files in your micro SD card. this happened to me a few times but this software saved my butt!

I may be wrong here but I seem to remember some people having issues withe the 64gb cards. Search around and youll probably find something.
Also check www.sdcard.org for more info on the sdxc cards and a sd formating tool that may help.
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda app-developers app

[Q] Sd Card Not Working

Ok i have searched the the forum and none seem to directly apply to my issue so ill post this and hope its not a repost. I have the 2014 edition and i picked up my tablet off the table yesterday and noticed some icons greyed out. I went into settings/storage and noticed the sd was not mounted which was odd so i clicked mount and nothing happened and i realized it said insert sd. I took the card out and put the card from my phone in and it didnt recognize that one either. I put the card from the tablet in my phone and it worked instantly. I have formatted the tablet installed the stock rom, installed cleanrom. Nothing seems to work. Obviously my warranty is void and as i can find no apparent way to untrip the knox counter (go to hell samsung with that stupid efuse crap) anyone have any other ideas to repair this thing. It has no been dropped or anything that i can recall nor water or anything of that nature it just decide to stop working i imagine. thanks in advance.

bart796 said:
Ok i have searched the the forum and none seem to directly apply to my issue so ill post this and hope its not a repost. I have the 2014 edition and i picked up my tablet off the table yesterday and noticed some icons greyed out. I went into settings/storage and noticed the sd was not mounted which was odd so i clicked mount and nothing happened and i realized it said insert sd. I took the card out and put the card from my phone in and it didnt recognize that one either. I put the card from the tablet in my phone and it worked instantly. I have formatted the tablet installed the stock rom, installed cleanrom. Nothing seems to work. Obviously my warranty is void and as i can find no apparent way to untrip the knox counter (go to hell samsung with that stupid efuse crap) anyone have any other ideas to repair this thing. It has no been dropped or anything that i can recall nor water or anything of that nature it just decide to stop working i imagine. thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have had three (name brand) go bad in the last 10 months or so. I now always get the replacement warranty with each one. The last one just before I got the Note was the first replaced by the warranty. Well worth the 4.99 for a year of replacement.

bart796 said:
Ok i have searched the the forum and none seem to directly apply to my issue so ill post this and hope its not a repost. I have the 2014 edition and i picked up my tablet off the table yesterday and noticed some icons greyed out. I went into settings/storage and noticed the sd was not mounted which was odd so i clicked mount and nothing happened and i realized it said insert sd. I took the card out and put the card from my phone in and it didnt recognize that one either. I put the card from the tablet in my phone and it worked instantly. I have formatted the tablet installed the stock rom, installed cleanrom. Nothing seems to work. Obviously my warranty is void and as i can find no apparent way to untrip the knox counter (go to hell samsung with that stupid efuse crap) anyone have any other ideas to repair this thing. It has no been dropped or anything that i can recall nor water or anything of that nature it just decide to stop working i imagine. thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are other postings in the G-Note 2014 section that have reported the same issue.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2678229
In almost all the cases it is NOT the tablet but the card.
Even if the card works in a phone but not your tablet does not mean that your tablet is defective.
I have a few questions for you that will help us to help you.
What brand is the card?
What class is the card?
Did you purchase it from a local retailer or Ebay?
Was it sold to you bulk or in a genuine retail package?
How old is the card?
What file system is the card formatted as?
Have you tried another card in your tablet?
.

kkretch said:
There are other postings in the G-Note 2014 section that have reported the same issue.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2678229
In almost all the cases it is NOT the tablet but the card.
Even if the card works in a phone but not your tablet does not mean that your tablet is defective.
I have a few questions for you that will help us to help you.
What brand is the card?
What class is the card?
Did you purchase it from a local retailer or Ebay?
Was it sold to you bulk or in a genuine retail package?
How old is the card?
What file system is the card formatted as?
Have you tried another card in your tablet?
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is a genuine card. It is a sandisk ultra 32gb card i bought from walmart or bestbuy or something local i forget where but it was a big name place not something online. Card is less then a year old file system is whatever android formatted it as i tried the card from my phone it doesnt work in my tablet either its definitely my tablet and not the card.

bart796 said:
It is a genuine card. It is a sandisk ultra 32gb card i bought from walmart or bestbuy or something local i forget where but it was a big name place not something online. Card is less then a year old file system is whatever android formatted it as i tried the card from my phone it doesnt work in my tablet either its definitely my tablet and not the card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see...... You made this determination just because it works in your phone and not in the tablet or do you have a second SD card that you tested in the tablet and it did not work as well?

kkretch said:
I see...... You made this determination just because it works in your phone and not in the tablet or do you have a second SD card that you tested in the tablet and it did not work as well?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually i tested 3 different sd cards in a 32 gb an 8gb and a 2gb none of them worked but all worked in my samsung galaxy s3 and in my card reader in my laptop which says to me that it is the tablet itself not the sd cards

Just something I would do is flash stock rom with Odin and start over and see if that helps if you can't return it.Do you have jellybean or kit kat on it? I saw with a post so where and they were saying kit kat won't read the external ad cards.

Micro SD Card corrupted? [write protected]

Hi folks of XDA! I am in a bit of a pickle right now with my micro SD card that I purchased a while back from ADATA.
Long story short, I purchased a 64GB micro SD card from ADATA due to my needs of a little more storage than what this phone offered. I ended up using the micro SD card as adoptable storage as I wanted to be able to use both my internal and micro SD card for 'everything'. It worked great until the night before I was suppose to go on a cruise: music wasn't being downloaded as it said it had insufficient storage space, and I couldn't take pictures with the camera app because it couldn't find the storage. I got frustrated as it was showing I had over half of the storage available on my SD card and I just did not have time to meddle with this problem; it was late at night and I simply needed my phone for taking pictures & videos & music.
I ended up doing a 'no no' and ripped the micro SD card out of my HTC One M9 without formatting or anything (literally just popped it out of my phone), restarted the phone, and surprisingly nothing was corrupted; everything on my phone was still working. But not surprisingly, the micro SD card got a little weird where when I put it back into my phone, it did not recognize it and my phone wanted me to format the micro SD card. Fair enough. I did that and it said it could not be formatted ("Volume partition disk: 179,32 public' failed..."). Fair enough.
I went onto my Windows 10 PC, slotted my micro SD card into the adapter that it came with, slid the little notch away from the 'lock' on the adapter, and my computer says it needs formatting. I try formatting it but all it keeps saying is that it's 'write protected'.
I slid the notch on the adapter to the lock, and away, as well as kept it in the middle; nothing helped, it kept saying it was write protected no matter which part it was on.
I tried using scotch tape to cover it as some people on the internet found it to work when their slid mechanism broke. Still did not work.
Tried using another adapter, and it still said it's write protected.
Resorted to using the DiskPart technique via CMD; everything shows up, the micro SD card status is online and disk 1, 58GB, 0 free space.
Tried going further into the steps (i.e. "attribute disk clear readonly" & another way, "select partition"), and it says it could not be recognized due to fatal error of hardware.
Would anyone happen to be in this situation before and was able to get their micro SD card fixed or knows a fix for me? I'll be happy to give you more in-depth detail if needed. Thank you!
Moomoomania

Did you figure it out? I've had similar issue. I had to insert and remove multiple times until my PC recognized it... I think when I booked to Linux it worked though.

That sounds to me like the SD card is toast. I think it's built into the cards themselves that if the controller is going, it goes into read-only mode so that you can get your data off of it. I had an SD card bite it the first day I owned it a few years ago in a camera. I would use either a Linux VirtualBox or Linux Live Disc to copy your data to your computer and buy a new card.

bigp951 said:
Did you figure it out? I've had similar issue. I had to insert and remove multiple times until my PC recognized it... I think when I booked to Linux it worked though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately I still haven't figured out how to fix my micro SD card; it's just sitting on my desk collecting dust and sadness. I'll update this thread if I happen to fix it!
Also, "booked to Linux"?
uagent said:
That sounds to me like the SD card is toast. I think it's built into the cards themselves that if the controller is going, it goes into read-only mode so that you can get your data off of it. I had an SD card bite it the first day I owned it a few years ago in a camera. I would use either a Linux VirtualBox or Linux Live Disc to copy your data to your computer and buy a new card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fortunately everything important like photos were already backed up into the cloud and my micro SD card has life time warranty so I guess I'll have to end up using it. AHHH cost of shipping & time from my impatience with removing the micro SD card. My hunch is that the encryption that occurred when I used the micro SD card as an adoptable storage may have ultimately screwed it up... ://
If anyone have any clues to how to fix the problem or would like me to try things with it, feel free to post a reply

Moomoomania said:
Unfortunately I still haven't figured out how to fix my micro SD card; it's just sitting on my desk collecting dust and sadness. I'll update this thread if I happen to fix it!
Also, "booked to Linux"?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried using Linux but it's not working.
I'm having Two SD-cards collecting the dust as yours .
Please reply if you find any solution for revering those adoptable sd-cards back to working.
Thank U....

The nature of solid state memory is that any errors causes a complete failure. You will never recover the sd card. Return it to the manufacturer for a replacement.
Beamed in by telepathy.

DevelopersWork said:
I've tried using Linux but it's not working.
I'm having Two SD-cards collecting the dust as yours .
Please reply if you find any solution for revering those adoptable sd-cards back to working.
Thank U....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey! Sorry for the late reply (school exams) but mine is still collecting dust and will be probably forever. For the price that I've paid (~$30), it's not worth to replace and it's better if I just purchased a new SD card. Time + effort to get a new one is far too great for me to care about getting a replacement.

Moomoomania said:
Hey! Sorry for the late reply (school exams) but mine is still collecting dust and will be probably forever. For the price that I've paid (~$30), it's not worth to replace and it's better if I just purchased a new SD card. Time + effort to get a new one is far too great for me to care about getting a replacement.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply
But even after sdcard replacement if you use same rom in your device then the new one is also going be damaged
My device has only customs roms of android 6.0 so there still bug in them if i get new sdcard i cannot use latest version in my device So i have to search for solution to unlock these sdcards

DevelopersWork said:
Thanks for the reply
But even after sdcard replacement if you use same rom in your device then the new one is also going be damaged
My device has only customs roms of android 6.0 so there still bug in them if i get new sdcard i cannot use latest version in my device So i have to search for solution to unlock these sdcards
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh I see. Fortunately for me right now, I am not using a custom ROM. I've been sticking to stock HTC and will proceed to do so until HTC stops giving out updates. I am not quite sure what you could do except try to manage with the 32GB like me by deleting all unnecessary apps, putting all your photos and videos into Google photo, and caching music that you find yourself listening to the most these days. So far it has been working well for me to the point where I don't find it necessary to have an SD card anymore! Perhaps it's a different case for you.