Help SD Card unmounts and mounts when unlocking phone

[Punkrulz24]

Hello all,

I've searched around for this issue and haven't found anything useful. I have a 32gb SD card in my Samsung Galaxy S4. Today or last night when I would unlock the phone, I noticed in the notifications bar a message about my SDCard unmounting and remounting. There is nothing in the notifications panel. I'm not sure how I would troubleshoot this issue on the phone (in regards to logs and such). I presently have photos, wallpapers, and music on my SD card. I've confirmed I can access the photos successfully after this happens.

Can someone please steer me in the right direction on where to start troubleshooting?

 

[shmn]

Is it a SanDisk? Its a bad card. Get a replacement from SanDisk.

 

[Punkrulz24]

I'm in contact with Sandisk support now. In the mean time do you know of any good backup applications for the phone that would allow me to backup the SD card?

 

[Punkrulz24]

Sandisk is denying that there are any problems due to the fact that I can read the card both on the phone and while the phone is connected to the computer. They are pointing their finger at Samsung stating that it's the phone that's losing the connection, and that they don't know anything about any "bad" SD cards floating around. Offff course.

 

[twister6]

32GB SanDisk cards do have a problem with a controller. It's intermittent behavior, but it exists! There is a huge thread on XDA forum with a lot of people having problem with this specific capacity card. I got mine back in December from Amazon, it worked for about 4 months until started giving me a problem with mount/unmount. SanDisk just replaced it under warranty. Just had to provide to them my Amazon order number, and they took care of it.

Now here something interesting. When I filed a claim they asked me to list characters/numbers from the back of that micro-SD card. My card was directly from Amazon in generic package and had nothing on the back. The replacement I got had some stuff scribbled on the back. So, makes me wonder if that was a bad batch or maybe a shady seller. Either way, contact SanDisk - they will take care of the problem. Regarding backup, make sure you periodically copy card content to your laptop or backup drive, etc.

 

[Batesd7]

This is not just a SanDisk issue or limited to 32g cards. Both my mate and I have 64g cards mine is a SanDisk. Both our S4 are intermittently unmounted then fixing itself within seconds of this anomaly happening. These are top of the range cards. It also happens on our S2. This is not limited to Samsung folks. Other brands that run an Android ecosystems are experiencing it. So, does Win8 phones with microsd functionality experience similar problem? I sorry to say but I don't think it's a hardware issue there are way too many discrepancies popping up. I'm thinking Android just may be not up to scratch on this one. Remember other phone brands and other sd card brands and sizes are experiencing this. What do you think?

 

[Batesd7]

Oh, sorry Punkrulz, get a good little card reader for your PC if you haven't already got one. You will be able to copy all the files from the SD card to a backup folder that you create on your PC. I use mine to swap around movie, comics and stuff on my 64gig card. I am starting to get use to the unmount/mount disruption but just not good enough. I heard that the S4s could take a 128gig card. I might try to approach Google's Android with this problem and see how they pass the buck on this issue. Remember, the S4 is a brilliant bit of tech and it's not just the only one experiencing this, HTC, Sony and others are from what I can make out. Oh, I think you're replacement Sd just had quality control initials or pass checks on the back. I noticed this when my S2 went back to be fixed. Writing on bits and pieces . Dazz

 

[Punkrulz24]

I do have a card reader for the PC but it's the media tray on my printer. I don't have issues when I connect my other card / SD card adapter to the media tray. The one I had from Samsung took me several tries of reinserting to the media tray to read.

Eventually the card completely died. Wouldn't be read by computer or phone at all. If the computer read it, it would come up with a message stating I needed to format. I would try the format and it wouldnt be able to complete. I'm waiting on the replacement from sandisk right now.