Why does the computer not see the microsd. How to recover a microsd card if the computer does not see it. Other Important Choice Characteristics
To date, the method of storing data on portable flash drives has gained quite a lot of popularity. And now all manufacturers of flash drives are fighting for the creation of the smallest and largest flash drives in terms of memory, the leading position in the minimum size is occupied by Micro SD cards.
Micro SD flash cards are by far the smallest storage devices that have been put into mass production.
Due to the very fragile structure, these drives often become unusable due to physical damage, or incorrect completion of work with such flash drives.
It is not uncommon for cases when, after a short period of work with a card, it ceases to be read or is not detected at all by devices, so you cannot rely on the long-term operation of such a drive. I advise you to use the Micro SD card as a space for work, and not for permanent storage of information. Although every day the manufacturers of such SD cards improve their durability and bring them closer to the possibility of using them for permanent and durable storage of information.
Reasons why the computer may not detect the Micro SD card:
· Hardware problem.
Flash drive failure.
· Assign an already assigned partition letter.
· File system conflict.
· Malicious programs in operating system.
If your Micro SD card is no longer detected by your phone, camera or other device, then you need to remove it and insert it into your computer to diagnose, identify and fix the problem.
Let's move on to reviewing and eliminating the most common causes of failure of such a flash drive.
How to check if a Micro SD card is detected on a computer?
In order to understand whether your computer has detected your Micro SD card, you can use 2 methods.
First way. Open my computer and check the connection of the new partition. If you have appeared new disk, then the flash drive was defined. 
The second way. If nothing appeared in the explorer, then it is worth checking whether the computer has determined at all that an SD card was connected to it. To do this, go to my computer, click right click mouse on the computer and select "Manage" from the drop-down menu. 
After that, the Computer Management window will open, in it there is a menu on the left side. We need to select the "Disk Management" section.
In the displayed statistics, we can see all the drives connected to the computer, determine their volume, or set the partition letter.
If you did not see your SD card in this list, then read the following reasons and their solutions.
hardware problem
If you are trying to connect your SD card to a computer through an adapter or through a card reader, and nothing happens, the first thing to do is to check these interface devices for operability.
If you use a card reader to connect the card, then try inserting a known working Micro SD card into it, if a known working card is also not detected, in this case check and reinstall the card reader drivers. If after all the attempts made nothing has changed, then most likely the problem is in the card reader.
If you are using a laptop, then most likely you are trying to insert an SD card through an adapter, directly into the laptop's built-in card reader. If nothing happens when using this connection method, then I recommend checking the drivers for the built-in card reader first, and then checking the adapter for operability.
Drivers for card readers can be downloaded and installed from the manufacturer's official websites, if you have a portable card reader that connects via a USB port, then download the drivers from the manufacturer's website. In the event that you use the built-in laptop card reader, then you can download the drivers from the official website of your laptop manufacturer.
In order to check whether the driver of your card reader is detected by the system, you need to open the “Device Manager”, to do this, press the key combination Win + R and in the “Run” line that opens, enter the command “devmgmt.msc”.
The "Device Manager" window will open in which you can see devices on which the driver is not installed. Such devices will be marked with a yellow triangle with an exclamation point. If there are no such devices, then expand the "Portable devices" section and make sure that the computer has detected the card reader itself in order to discard the option of a non-working device.
Flash drive failure
In the event that you have checked the performance of the above devices and made sure that they are in good condition, then it is worth checking the Micro SD card for physical damage, cracks, chips, deformation or damage to the outer layer, since such a flash drive consists of many small tracks, which are easy to scratch and tear.
Try to connect it to any device - a smartphone, camera, etc. If the flash drive is not detected in any device, then most likely it is physically damaged and cannot be repaired. Only the presence of important information on the map can motivate you to contact the service center.
Assigning an already assigned partition letter
This type of problem occurs quite often. This happens when an SD card is connected to a computer, the system assigns it the same letter as the existing partition, because of this a conflict occurs and we do not see our flash drive in the list of computer disks.
In order to fix this type of problem, open the "Computer Management" section described above.
After getting into the "Disk Management" section, we need to find our flash drive, focus on its volume, select a disk that matches the volume of our Micro SD card. Right-click on it and select "Change drive letter or drive path ..." from the drop-down menu.
A window will open in which we need to click the "Add" button.
In the window that opens, select the letter for this section and click OK.
Done, we set the letter to our section, now we check its presence in the explorer.
File system conflict
It is not uncommon that there are cases when a flash drive is defined, but it does not open. The reason for this may be a file system conflict or a damaged file system of the Micro SD card itself. If the data on the flash drive does not play any role for you, then you can try formatting it to the NTFS file system.
To do this, right-click on the flash drive and select "Format" from the drop-down menu. 
In the formatting window that opens, in the "File system" section, select NTFS, set the Volume Label and click the "Start" button.
Thus, we formatted the Micro SD card to NTFS format, after which you can open it.
Malicious programs in the operating system
Faced with the problem of detecting a Micro SD drive, you may not suspect that malware, the so-called viruses, can be the culprit for all this, which can block USB ports and prevent the computer from working with your memory card.
In this case, your best bet would be to perform a full system scan with your antivirus program, or use free antivirus programs that can help you with this.
One of these I will advise you is Dr.Web CureIt!
The program is absolutely free and is intended only for scanning and finding virus programs and removing them.
To download this program, go to the official website of Dr.Web at the link https://free.drweb.ru/cureit/
Download the program and start scanning.
After the end, remove all found malware and after restarting the computer, try connecting the Micro SD card again.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many reasons why your computer does not see the Micro SD card, so it is impossible to unequivocally answer the question “Why does my computer not see the memory card?”, As this can be caused by various problems. In order not to make a mistake and solve the problem, it is worth doing all the steps described in this article in turn.
Also, do not forget that when formatting, all information from the flash drive will be deleted.
And I still advise you not to store important information on drives of this type, as they most often fail to work due to a very fragile structure. Use these types of drives to work directly with files, saving them to more secure locations.
Portable storage media made a splash in the computer technology market - with their appearance, data transfer was not difficult. At one time, floppy disks had a small but sufficient amount of memory to store text documents, bitmaps and tables inside. They were replaced by optical discs - a product that is an order of magnitude more expensive than floppy disks, but with a large amount of memory. It was then that it was born new era in multimedia - cassette recorders have replaced players. There were also discs that could be overwritten like old floppy disks. And it seemed that everything was enough for everyone and the discs took their place in the industry, but progress did not stand still.
The person wanted to reduce the size of the disk and increase the amount of memory on it, and the disk also did not possess special strength. And then came the era of flash drives. It was hard to imagine that a small piece of plastic could store as much information as a disk, while the size of this piece was ten times smaller.
A flash drive is a portable memory storage device, like a hard drive, and is connected using a USB port. But sometimes it happens that the computer, for some reason, does not see it. What to do in such situations? Let's figure out how to restore a micro SD flash drive if the computer does not see it?
Mechanical damage
First you need to find out if it has mechanical damage. The small size of the drive, in this case, plays a cruel joke with the owner, since the flash drive does not have standard type chips. Accordingly, the slightest interference will lead to a non-working state. In other cases, special utilities will help us.
Formatting a flash drive
Move on. The easiest way to "revive" a flash drive for a computer is to format it on another device, be it a phone, tablet or camera. With a high degree of probability, after that the computer will be able to recognize it.
No drivers
If this did not help, it is possible that the computer does not have the necessary drivers to read this drive model. Even the newest computers and laptops cannot boast of having the latest drivers. So we open the browser and look for special programs for automatic updates. If you want to figure it out yourself - follow the section "My Computer", then "System Properties", then select "Device Manager". Select the name of your flash drive from the list, right-click on it and select Update Driver. Updating your USB drivers may also help.
Conclusion
If you failed to restore the SD card and the computer still does not see it, it is better to contact specialists. And be sure to watch this video on flash card recovery.
I received a request on the topic "MicroSD memory card is not detected." The full text of the request is below in the screenshot.
As you already understood, the client was interested in the possibility of repairing a damaged memory card. After carefully reviewing the sent pictures with damaged memory cards, I came to the conclusion that there are chances to recover data from a damaged microSD, and they are pretty good.
As for the possibility of repair, the opposite is true here. In the case when there is physical damage, then there can be no talk of repair. And it's not even about this particular case, but about the situation as a whole. MicroSD card production technology does not imply repair options, although there are exceptions, but this is an exception to the rule. You can learn about repairing flash drives in my blog blog ..
Reminder:All -micro and -mini SD are monolithic flash drives, with all the consequences. You can read more about data recovery from monoliths in this publication.
Important:If there is important data on the card, and the microSD (microSD) is not working, then you should think about the need for repair. Repair can destroy all data, without the possibility of further recovery of information.
What to do if MicroSD is not detected
The fact is that almost all memory cards, for the most part, cannot be repaired, but there are some nuances. So, for example, I had cases when clients brought me such memory cards, well, completely with "childish" problems. Below I will give a couple of examples.
Case #1
The client calls, they say I had an SD card in the camera, but one day it was no longer detected in the device, and there, well, “mega important pictures” are. First of all, I thought that there was a problem with the card controller, but everything turned out to be trite and simple.
Solution. It turned out that the client did not have an SD card at all, but a microSD inserted into the SD adapter (photo example below). After removing the microSD from the adapter and connecting via a card reader, I was able to access the contents of the disk in the normal mode (without any "unknown" manipulations) and copied the data to the client's flash drive. For this, I was even ashamed to take money. Here such cases happen.
The thing is that SD adapters are a very unreliable “device” and you should not trust him. The strangest thing for me is that even some professional photographers use such a crutch, which I still cannot understand.
Case #2
Contacts are oxidized. There are also cases when oxides appear “banally” on the card connector. In such cases, the microSD is not detected by the phone or any other device to which it is connected.
Solution. The solution here is, well, very simple, and for this we need - the usual stationery gum and a cotton swab with industrial alcohol. In general, you can do without alcohol, but how can we do without such a “device”. To eliminate oxidative processes, you need to take an eraser and gently (without the use of brute physical force, but without gentle rubbing) go over the contacts with an elastic band until they become shiny as in the photo below. After making sure that the connector contacts are well cleaned, you need to apply a little alcohol on the ear stick and clean the contacts and wait until the alcohol dries.
On this, perhaps, the article on what to do if MicroSD memory cards are not detected can be considered closed. All good mood and life without breakdowns that could not be fixed.
If you have any questions about this topic - write in the comments below the article.
More information about data recovery from memory cards can be found in the section "Data recovery."
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A flash card is the most functional and popular storage medium in modern times. CDs have their own positive sides, but the amount of memory, ease of use and other factors on the side of the flash drive.
You can also connect a USB flash drive to an Android smartphone, and even the cost today is on the side of the memory card, because cheap options will cost only a couple of times more than DVD-RW.
Only it's much easier to disable or lose a memory card
It happens that a person removes this storage medium from his own smartphone or digital camera, but the computer does not open it. This is due to virus infection, software failures, and breakdown of the device itself. In such a situation, you need to restore the micro flash drive by changing the partition letter or in other ways.
VARIETY OF DEVICES OF THIS TYPE
Before you restore a memory card, you should familiarize yourself with the varieties of this small but useful detail. People are not very versed in this issue, which also brings problems. Today, three types of SD devices are produced: micro, mini, SD.
It would seem, why divide one species into three more additional ones. But this is a logical decision, because SD is used in various technologies: camcorders, video recorders, smartphones, mp3 players, etc. Gadgets differ in size and requirements for the power and memory of the device. Therefore, there are three subspecies, which are worth familiarizing yourself with in more detail:
- microSD. The micro SD memory card, due to its format and storage capacity, is commonly used in smartphones, tablets and media players.
A small device allows you to increase the memory of the gadget several times
- MiniSD is already slightly larger than micro. They are used on players and phones that are already 5-10 years old.
Today gave way to the previous option
- SD. This is the largest type that is used in photo and video equipment, in particular, in car recorders.
This option is distinguished by a large amount of memory and good speed.
Interestingly, the first option, if necessary, can be turned into a third one using an adapter. A micro card is inserted into this adapter, and then the design is inserted into devices that work with SD.
But this combination will not be able to fully replace the large version, because the speed of work will be too low
IMPORTANT NUANCES IN USING THE MEMORY CARD
- In addition to the amount of memory, speed is also indicated on the surface of the product (to be precise, the class). So, if this indicator is 10 for a flash drive, then you can transfer data to the device at a speed of 10 MB per second. It is worth considering which class is necessary for the normal operation of the gadget.
- A memory card for a phone can be used as an SD card using an adapter. But, as already mentioned, it is not advised to do this due to the mismatch of the class of parts.
- The USB card reader for flash drives must be selected based on compatibility. When a gadget that opens SDHC is used, it will be able to work with SD 1 or 1.1, but it will not work to read SDXC.
Before buying devices for reading, you need to consider this characteristic.
Notebooks that are 7 years old or older may be equipped with standard card readers, but they cannot open SDHC. A card reader that connects via USB will help solve the problem. It costs a couple of hundred rubles. You can also use an otg cable (it will help you connect a micro sd card reader or a regular USB flash drive even to a smartphone).
SAME NAME OF SECTIONS
Let's return to the problem of device unreadability. A flash drive will not appear in the "My Computer" menu if it is given the name D, and the operating system section works with the same name.
fig.1. Unlocking a USB flash drive in such a situation is not difficult, for this the Disk Management menu opens (the combination of the Win and R keys and the command diskmgmt.msc)
A menu will appear on the screen, which displays the folder of each disk, and devices connected via the USB input. When a memory card appears in this menu, you need to reanimate the flash drive in one of the following ways:
- Put a unique letter in the name, under which there are no sections yet.
fig.2. This is done by pressing RMB and then selecting the operation to change the letter
- Format the SD card using regular Windows tools or using special utilities. But it is worth considering that all files from the storage medium will disappear.
PROBLEM WITH DRIVERS
If you can connect the USB flash drive to the tablet, but not to the computer, then the necessary driver may not be available.
It happens that employees of hardware stores forget or do not have the desire to install necessary components and sell computers like that. Included with the equipment should be disks with drivers, the installation of which will not take much time. If the computer is not new, or the disk with the "firewood" is lost, then the almighty Internet will help. In such a situation, the recovery of a micro sd flash drive will be limited only to the search and installation of components.
Special utilities are available on the Internet to analyze the operating system and find the necessary drivers, they will greatly simplify the task.
CONNECT WITH OTHER GADGETS
If the flash drive connects to the phone without problems, but it is not visible on the PC, then why not use this smartphone as a conductor and connect it directly to the computer (you can use the otg usb cable)
Most users rarely pull out a memory card to work with files through a computer.
The only concern is whether special software is needed for this purpose. In new versions of the operating system, you do not need to install anything else, Windows 7 and 8 automatically install device drivers. If desired, you can also use the program from the manufacturer (for example, NokiaPCSuite).
As you can see, the restoration of the map microsd memory- it's a simple matter, sometimes you need to install drivers, change the partition letter, or use third-party devices.
Over the past few years, the digital technology market has seen a significant increase in the share of mobile devices - smartphones and tablets running Android, iOS and Windows. The range of "smart" phones continues to grow even now, which cannot be said about the flash memory built into mobile gadgets. Compared to the ROMs of desktops and even laptops with SSDs, smartphones and tablets have very little memory, barely enough to store apps and photos.
On the other hand, most smartphones and tablets support memory expansion through the installation of MicroSD and MicroSDXC cards, the memory capacity of which can reach 2 TB. It is a worthy alternative to a hard drive, but, alas, like with hard drives, troubles can also happen with SD cards. One of the most common is a malfunction when the smartphone does not see the memory card. Users have to face the same problem when connecting other storage devices, for example, the same flash drives connected using an OTG cable.
Our task today is to figure out why the phone does not see the memory card and what can be done to fix this problem.
Temporary failure
Let's start with the most simple and obvious things. Sometimes in the Android operating system, like in any other OS, minor glitches occur, as a result of which certain functions stop working. This also applies to recognition by the device of an external drive. If earlier the card was normally detected and suddenly stopped, restart the gadget. If the problem is temporary, after the restart, the SD card will become visible in the system.
Memory card is out of order
This is perhaps the worst thing that can happen to a memory card, especially if valuable data has been recorded on it. To avoid damage, carefully remove the card, inspect the contacts for signs of damage, oxidation, etc., and then insert it into another mobile device or connect it to a computer or laptop via an adapter. If the memory card does not work on the phone, but is detected by the laptop, even with errors, it is very likely that the file system has been corrupted. Such a card can still be saved, or at least data can be recovered from it using special programs.
If the memory device does not show any signs of life, it is probably completely out of order. But in this case, do not rush to throw it away. A non-working card should be taken to a service center where it will be checked by competent specialists. At the same time, you should eliminate hardware problems in the phone itself by inserting a working SD card into it. If it is not determined, with a high degree of certainty it will be possible to talk about the breakdown of the built-in card reader.
Damaged operating system files
If the SD card is visible in the boot menu Recovery, but is not detected in the operating mode of the smartphone, this may indicate problems with the system software that have arisen due to damage to OS files by viruses or by the user (on rooted devices). If you suspect damage to the system files, try to restore them using the functions of the Recovery mode "wipe cache partition".
Some special applications have the same function, for example, 4EXT Recovery and TWRP Recovery(The recovery option in them is called the same). An alternative option is to reset the device to factory settings with a preliminary backup of important data and applications. What to do if the phone does not see the microsd memory card even after the reset? Look for other likely causes of the failure.
The memory card is not compatible with the phone
There are currently four generations of microSD cards: SD 1.0, SD 1.1, SDHC, and SDXC. Smartphones and tablets capable of working with the latest generation cards will also work with drives previous versions, but older phones will not recognize the new format SD cards. If you bought, say, an SDXC card and, after inserting it into an old phone, realized that the gadget does not detect it, go back to the store and consult the seller about this. Perhaps the purchased card is simply not suitable specifically for your gadget.
File system failure
The same MicroSD cards can be used in different devices - smartphones, laptops, cameras and so on, but this versatility sometimes leads to problems. So, quite serviceable, but at the same time, an SD card that previously worked in another device is often not readable on the phone, but readable on the PC without any problems. The reason for this is most often either a failure in the file system of the card, or a file system that does not match the mobile device. The problem is fixed by formatting in FAT32, the file system used by most smartphones in memory cards by default.
Formatting is best done on a built-in computer or third party program, for example, SD Formatter.
File system errors can also cause other kinds of problems. If the memory card is not readable on the phone, and it is impossible to write data to it, but it itself is detected at the same time, this often indicates the presence of FS errors. Although it is impossible to exclude a more serious reason - the wear of memory cells.
Problems with a flash drive when connected via an OTG cable
You can connect to a mobile device not only a microSD card, but also a regular USB flash drive using an OTG cable or an adapter. As in the case of memory cards, the phone does not always see the flash drive. Since flash drives and microSD cards use a similar type of memory, all of the above applies equally to flash drives with a USB connector.
However, before checking the flash drive, the quality of the connectors, etc., you need to make sure that the smartphone supports the technology USB OTG On-The-Go, which provides power supply from the micro-USB port to an external drive. To do this, either study the documentation for the phone, or install the application on it. USB OTG Checker, which will show whether the gadget supports external USB drives or not.
If it does not support, it makes sense to contact the service center and find out if there is a way to provide such support at the software level, that is, by installing or updating the firmware.
But there are other reasons why the phone does not see the flash drive. If the media has a USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 connector (and most of them), the Android version must be at least 3.1 installed on the smartphone. There is a high probability that a too large flash drive will not be detected, as well as a flash drive formatted in the NTFS and ExFat file system. In relatively rare cases, it is not possible to connect an external USB drive to a smartphone due to the lack of.
There are also such models of gadgets that themselves are not able to automatically mount a USB drive. To connect a flash drive to them, you need a special application, for example, stick mount. And one moment. It has been noticed that the phone sometimes does not see a flash drive or micro sd card if the drive's file system has too large clusters. Try reformatting the media with the minimum cluster size set to FAT32.
