• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help Suddenly my SD card doesn't work?

slanch

Newbie
Jun 6, 2010
40
0
So my phone all of a sudden crashed while I was playing a game. Then it froze when booting after doing a battery pull. Now it loads no problem but my SD card isn't loading, nor the apps on it, and so I'm getting a ton of forced closes and such.

I've tried unmounting and mounting the card and restarts and battery pulls and still no dice.

Any ideas?
 
yes.


I can access the card via my computer but for some reason the phone won't read it. I have no contacts, my apps on the card are inaccessible and all the programs forceclose.

So, try what I said. Put the card in your computer, copy the entire contents of card to computer, format to FAT32, put back in phone. If it can now be read by phone, plug into computer, mount as disk and begin transferring previously copied files back to card. You could even do this on a file by file basis and unmount after each to make sure there are no issues.

And save your contacts as Google contacts from now on. Then you'll have no worries about ever losing them :D
 
Upvote 0
any idea why when i try and open any apps i get a ton of force-closes all at once?

Well, my guess is that if you had all your apps running from your sd card, and you sd card is no longer accessible, your apps can't run.

b) the easiest way to get it back to normal

Easiest way. . .pull the sd card, format it, factory reset.
 
Upvote 0
I had a similar problem with my first SD card. My phone didn't reboot, but it kept unmounting the card. In my case, the PC could kind of read it, and my daughters phone could mostly read it, though most of the files were jacked.

I was able to reformat the card and it worked. But I didn't trust it anymore, and bought a new one a couple days later. Been fine with the new one.
 
Upvote 0
I have the same problem, but once I restart my phone all seems back to normal. I noticed that wherever I use the navigation, it happens. Can anyone else confirm this as well? It only started happening after the new google maps update.

EDIT

OK, so I try to see if my computer can recognize my SD card, and it's a no go. My friend has the same problem, so I'm wondering if it's happening because of some sort of update. Kind of weird to have bad SD cards for all of us, right? When I go to settings-->SD & phone storage, the error message pops up :SD card unexpectedly unmounted." This is actually pissing me off a lot, so if anyone has any help out there or has the same problem besides slanch, my friend, and myself, please say so. It'd be a little bit more relieving to hear that we're not the only ones.
 
Upvote 0
I'm having a similar issue with my SD card and apps stored on it. The phone shows that it can see the card (tells me I have 4.71GB available). But it can't read or load any of the apps on the card. I have been having little glitches for the last couple days with this and now they won't load...even after battery pull or hard reboot.

Oddly enough, my issues started at the exact same time I got the upgraded Market. Updates wouldn't load properly, can't get the phone to delete an app, etc. I wonder if it's related in any way.
 
Upvote 0
So my phone all of a sudden crashed while I was playing a game. Then it froze when booting after doing a battery pull. Now it loads no problem but my SD card isn't loading, nor the apps on it, and so I'm getting a ton of forced closes and such.

I've tried unmounting and mounting the card and restarts and battery pulls and still no dice.

Any ideas?

My guess is you were in the middle of a read or write to your SD card when the phone crashed. That altered the fat table which renders the info on the SD card useless. The fix would be to format the card and reinstall your apps. I would do multiple checks prior to the format if you have information stored there that you don't want to lose. A format will remove everything.
 
Upvote 0
olbriar is right on, the FAT32 table is corrupt. Following the suggestion of copying the card's contents to your PC and formatting the card and then copying the files back to the card will work. I have had to do that in the past. Now I make a backup of my SD card and internal storage at least once a week just in case. It takes only about ten minutes and if something goes wrong in the future at least I know I am covered.
 
Upvote 0
It's weird, cuz I was able to use DropBox to move all of my pictures/videos off of the SD card to the DropBox folder, but my SD card isn't recognized when hooked up to my computer, either directly through the phone or through the SD card reader. I don't know how I can backup the card, in this case, or even reformat it.

Verizon sent me a new phone, in case this was the problem, but it wasn't. They will be sending me a new card and hopefully this fixes the problem.
 
Upvote 0
So I ended up reformatting my SD card and was wondering what the next step was. Do I have to do a factory reset since all my apps that I had on the SD card no longer work? And if so, what's the best way to get all of my apps back? I have backed up all of the apps on AppBrain.com, so at least I know which apps I had downloaded. Please help.
 
Upvote 0
mine is doing something similar, sometimes when i am using camera, looking at pics or going on music, it keep sayin to end even if i have already ended it. whenever i turn the phone on it says "removed SD card. insert a new one" if i insert a new one, it dosent do anything. i dont know why it wont work i have put it in my old phone and the memory card works so idk why it wont work on my android i hope there isnt something shot i just got this yesterday. please help.
 
Upvote 0
Welcome to the forums!

Sorry it's under such troubled circumstances, but many of us joined that way, so you're in the right place.

Maybe it's a small problem that's easily fixed - although, whenever they happen, they always feel like they're complex (I sure know that one, myself).

So - how about some more info?

When you say you just got this - are you referring to your Incredible or a new SD card? If you meant the Incredible - did you get it new? If you meant the SD card, please say size, brand, and where purchased (oddly - that's very important, trust me).

When you say the SD card works in your old phone - what kind of phone would that be?

And just to be kinda complete - have you moved the SD card into a computer or printer, and/or have you had your Incredible connected to a PC/Mac/Linux via the USB? (Not saying to do those things - just asking IF.)

Maybe with some more background, we can zero in on this one.

As an encouragement, I've seen beaucoup SD problem posts and only the rare few that aren't solvable.
 
Upvote 0
As an encouragement, I've seen beaucoup SD problem posts and only the rare few that aren't solvable.

You haven't seen any SD probs where the computer couldn't do anything with it either and it was still solvable have you? :( When I stick the card in the computer the computer sees the files but can't do a thing with em. The disk repair utility on Win 7 detected errors then basically said everything was bunk and moved most of my actual data to the "found problems" folder. Sooooo...pretty sure it's totally shot. I have no interest in reformatting and trying to use it cause I'll never trust it. I stuck a much smaller one in my phone and it seems to function fine so the phone isn't the problem (as if that wasn't already apparent ;0) ) Any other recovery tricks? Should I put it in the freezer overnight? Heeheeheeee. :D

I've seen my second question asked all over the board but not answered...any way I can access my apps if I (GULP) never backed them up? How about my stupid verizon ring tone that I paid for?

Considering a factory reset to try to solve yet another problem (gmail contacts will NOT and never have synced) Sort of seems like I've lost everything else, why not. Whole 'nother thread there...
 
Upvote 0
Oooh - bummer. I think you're right to not trust a potentially blown device like that.

As for your apps - have you tried https://market.android.com ? Your apps may already be inventoried there.

As for your Verizon ringtone - sorry - no idea on that one.

How are you managing your contacts without gmail/contacts?? Were they on the original SD card? Have you already lost them?
 
Upvote 0
I had my phone contacts transferred to the Incredible from my old (dumb)phone. My gmail contacts just live their lives here in computer world. Never the twain shall meet.

I didn't lose any contact info in the SD death (that's something right? :rolleyes::))

Will putz around with it, check out the marketplace for my apps, etc, a little more after work, thanks for your help! :D
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones