The problem of the constant lack of space on mobile devices has been relevant, perhaps, from the very moment of the appearance of smartphones. The world does not stand still, the quality of content and its variety is growing. As a result, music, movies, games, photos take up more and more space on smartphones. This is where the memory card comes to the rescue, which makes it easy to solve this problem. But what about cases when the phone does not recognize the microSD? This can be a serious problem, as most users store almost all of their data there. Fortunately, there is a solution. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at what to do if the phone stops seeing the memory card. Let’s figure it out. Go!
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Causes and solutions to the problem
First of all, you need to determine the cause of the problem, the solution will directly depend on this. Various factors can provoke a problem, and we are not always talking about a malfunction.
System crashes
Often this phenomenon is nothing more than the result of a system failure, and then the issue is solved by a banal reboot of the device or removing the card and reinstalling it.
If, after rebooting your mobile device, you do not get the desired effect, try clearing the cache of the phone’s internal memory, for which you will need to enter recovery mode and, by going to the service menu, select the “Wipe cache partition” item, and then reboot.
Contacts are loose or dirty
Try to remove the memory card, reboot your mobile device, and then carefully insert it, since the microSD could simply “move away” from the contacts a little, which resulted in such a nuisance. The contacts can also be dirty, as a result of which the smartphone cannot recognize the carrier through the layer of dust. If so, wipe the contact surfaces with alcohol (use a soft, lint-free cloth) and try installing the card again. The microSD slot is also best done neatly, while cleaning it thoroughly using, for example, a toothpick. When the slot is cleaned, we return the card to its place and check the work – see if the medium is read.
File system corruption
If we are talking about damage to the file system installed on a removable microSD drive for sorting and quickly searching for information, you will also encounter the fact that the smartphone cannot recognize the card – it cannot be read, or a reading error occurs when trying to access.
Recovery means formatting the card, during which all the data stored on the media will be deleted, so the solution is suitable if there are no important files on the card.
You can fix the software damage yourself, and before proceeding to formatting, which is an extreme measure, if there is no duplicate information on the microSD, you can try to restore the drive using Windows tools.
To complete the procedure, we take out the card from the phone, insert it into the card reader and if he sees it, we try to fix the problem:
- We find the connected device by opening “This computer” (“My computer”), right-click on it and select “Properties”.
- We go to the “Service” tab and click “Check and restore the SD card, after which the scanning process will be launched, during which the search and correction of the errors found are performed.
- At the end of the procedure, remove the USB flash drive from the card reader and install it in the smartphone slot. We check if a mobile device sees it.
If there is no positive result, you will have to format the removable media. Since the smartphone does not read it, we again use a computer or laptop for this:
- We connect the microSD by inserting it into the card reader.
- Go to the “This computer” folder and click on the shortcut of the connected PCM flash drive, select the “Format …” option.
- The formatting settings assume the choice of the file system. The default is FAT32, which is recommended for most flash drives, but if you do not plan to store files larger than 4 GB, then the parameter can be changed to “NTFS”.
- We remove the marker from the “Quick formatting” item, since in this case we are talking about restoring the card and by pressing the corresponding button we start the process.
- When the formatting is complete, the system will notify the user with a message, we remove the card, install it in the phone and check the work.
Another way involves using the SD Formatter utility. With this program, you can easily format the drive in the desired file system (FAT32 or exFAT). The interface of the utility is extremely simple and even an inexperienced user will not be difficult to understand it.
ADVICE. In some cases, updating your phone software can help. As for formatting, if the first time it did not give the desired result, try formatting in a different file system.
Physical damage to the CD card
The next reason is the banal failure of the memory card. Despite the fact that its device is extremely uncomplicated, physical damage or overheating can turn the microSD into a useless piece of plastic. It’s pretty simple to define. You just need to try to insert the card into another smartphone. If it is still not recognized, then it’s not the phone, and you’ll have to buy a new one. Repair in this case is impractical, since buying a card is cheaper than repairing it, but if you have certain skills, you can try to disassemble the card and check the integrity of the contacts.
Incompatibility
Another reason is the incompatibility of the drive with a smartphone. Yes, it happens. Usually, this problem is typical for older smartphones, which may not support more modern formats. To be on the safe side, always read the documentation for your mobile device before purchasing a memory card to avoid such troubles.
Modern smartphones also may not read the map due to the larger memory capacity than provided by the mobile device. So, if your device supports cards of no more than 128 GB, then it will not recognize a 256 GB media.
Also, difficulties in recognizing a memory card may arise if you often took it out, and not quite accurately. As a result, the tracks in the nest could be erased, which, of course, did not affect the work in the best way. In this case, you should think about purchasing a new smartphone.
It also happens that microSD is not recognized by a specific application, while such problems do not arise with other programs. Here everything is solved quite simply. You need to open the application settings and specify the memory card as storage.
Now you know why the phone can not read the memory card of the smartphone and how to fix it. Write in the comments if you managed to get rid of the problem, tell other users about your experience and ask any questions you are interested in on the topic of the article.