What would cause my microSDHC card to refuse to add/delete anything?
Asked by
Sarcasm (
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December 10th, 2010
I got an SD card for my phone, for storing pictures/videos (and to easily get them onto my computer). It acted fine for a few weeks, but now it’s refusing to cooperate.
If I delete anything from the card (Whether it’s connected to my PC, or to my phone), it will get deleted. But if I then pull the card out and plug it back in (Either to the PC or to the phone), the deleted things will return.
If I save anything to the card from the PC, it’ll show that it properly saved. But if I then remove the card and plug it back in (To PC or phone), that new thing will be gone.
If I try to save anything to the card from my phone, it’ll just save as a broken image. If I try to transfer that broken image from SD card to internal memory, it will give me “Invalid filename” error.
I can still properly save (and txt/email) photos if I set it to save to my internal memory, but then if I try to transfer that to the card, it will get saved as the broken image.
So long story short, the card likes what it has on it, and doesn’t want to change for any reason. And that’s kind of problematic.
I’m not rough with my phone, I haven’t dropped it, I don’t expose it to extreme temperatures or sunlight (There’s a nerd joke here, but I can’t be bothered), I haven’t had it go swimming in the toilet. I’ve been good to my phone and the card.
And it’s pretty clear to me that it’s an issue with the card, given that this error is happening both on the phone and on my PC.
Could anyone think of any reason that this would be happening, or ways to fix it? Or should I just go get a different card?
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6 Answers
Swapping the microSDHC card between the mobile telephone and the PC may have corrupted the card. “Copy” everything to your PC, make sure it was copied—get a new card.
Try connecting to PC with USB to phone in future. Some cards do not like going from phone to PC and back.
@Tropical_Willie I can understand that the swapping wouldn’t be good, but, that is what the cards were designed for, I think it’s weird that after just a few weeks issues would arise due to it, though I guess there are always going to be lemons.
The USB link for my phone has never been great, which is why I went with an SD card instead.
The PC and the mobile may have DIFFERENT conventions for storage. You can read Mac files on some PC’s and vice versa but sometimes you corrupt the file structure.
Did you add anything to the card from the PC? ? ?
I have in the past, yeah, but right now I’m not able to (It just disappears from the card once I remove it).
The card may have been re-formatted of the PC.
Since I don’t know what you have & haven’t tried already (it’s been 6hrs since you posted this Q. That’s like a year & a half in technology time) I am just going to bullet point a bunch of ideas & you can go through them & scratch them off one-at-a-time.
-Do a quick check of the properties of the SD card. What permissions are you allowed? Make sure you are allowed to read/write. & also make sure the card isn’t locked in anyway.
-Reformat the SD card. Try to salvage what you can & reformat it, either with your computers OS built-in disk formatter – or download a third party program.
-Format the card to FAT16 or FAT32, depending on the size of the SD card. Larger sized models (2GB or higher) you should format it to FAT32.
-When unplugging the card – take all the little steps. Properly right click & choose to eject the card. Wait for confirmation message. Then wait for a while before you finally do pull the card out. I have never trusted a hot-swappable device, ever. I always take the precaution to do things slowly, especially when dealing with sensitive materials.
-Something that may be a problem. When you delete data from a SD card while it is plugged into the computer – check to make sure the data is not in the desktop trash bin. I know sometimes – the data will remain on the card until you delete it from the card & empty the trash bin before removing the card.
-How are you plugging the SD card into the computer? Does your computer have a built in card reader or are you using a portable card reader? Sometimes low-quality portable card readers can screw up a SD card. If you use a built in reader – check to make sure drivers are up to date.
-Something that has happened to me a couple times… when I insert the SD card, the lock tab gets pushed back as it slides into the device/reader.
-Replace the card with a shiny new one. :) (I recommend Kingston or A-DATA)
What brand is the SD card & where did you buy it? Spending a couple more bucks on a higher quality card is always worth it. The store from which you bought it – will determine what you can do with it, if it is a lemon. I buy from Newegg. I have bought about 12 SD cards from them over the years. Whenever I get a lemon (has only happened twice) they have let me keep the card & have sent me a replacement with no charge.
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