How To Repair Micro SD Card Not Detected? (Full Guide)

Have you got an error message “Micro SD card is not detected” or “micro SD card is not recognized” in the digital device you are using? Well, if you are getting the same error then take a breath and just relax! I am saying so because, in this post, I am going to share solutions that will definitely help you to repair undetected or unrecognized MicroSD card and also recover data from it.

You can fix SD card not recognized issue by updating the drivers, changing the drive letter, running the CMD, and formatting the SD card. However, while applying these fixes, if you found that your vital SD card data gets deleted, you can use the best SD card recovery tool to recover deleted data from the SD card.

Let’s get started…

How To Repair Micro SD Card Not Detected Or Unreadable Micro SD Card?

Here, you will get to know how to repair Undetected or Unrecognized Micro SD Card with the best working solution that will never let you down.

So, just try them one after another and see which solution works in your case.

• Check Card Reader, USB Cable or Computer USB Port
• Repair Not Detected or Not Recognized Micro SD Card With CMD
• Update Driver To Fix Micro SD Card Not Detected In Windows 10/8/7
• Use Disk Management To Format Micro SD Card
• Format MicroSD Card
• Run Hardware And Device Troubleshooter
• Change The Drive Letter For The Unrecognized SD Card

Solution #1: Check Card Reader, USB Cable or Computer USB Port

Sometimes, your Micro SD card may not get detected if there is a problem with the card reader, USB cable, or computer USB port that you are using to connect your card.

So, in this case, you must first check that your card reader, USB cable, or computer’s USB port are working properly. If not then replace the card reader, USB cable and then try to connect your card from all USB ports of the computer. You can try to connect your card to another computer just for checking.

Solution #2: Repair Undetected or Unrecognized Micro SD Card With CMD

There are people asking – How do I repair corrupted micro SD card that is not recognized by Windows PC?

Well, if this is the case with you, then you can repair undetected micro SD card and get rid of the undetectable, unrecognized or unreadable micro SD card issue by running CMD command.

Here follow the steps:

• Insert not detected or not recognized micro SD card into a card reader and connect it to Windows computer.
• On your PC, click START, type “CMD” in the search bar, and hit ENTER. A new command prompt window will get open.

• Now type the following command: “chkdsk /X /f H:” or “chkdsk H: /f” and hit ENTER. Here you need to replace H: with your micro SD card letter name.

After this, Windows will look for corruption and if any corruption found then it will fix them. On successful completion of the process, you can re-use your micro SD card without any issue or error.

Solution #3: Update Driver To Fix Micro SD Card Not Detected

If your SD card is not recognized or not detected then it may be because of outdated drivers installed on your PC. So, in that case, you have to update the drivers to make the microSD card readable and recognized. To update drivers, follow the below steps:

• Click START > go to All Program > Windows Update (For For Windows 10 / 8 / 7 / Vista)
• Click START > go to Start button > All Programs > Windows Update (For Windows 10 / 8 / 7 / Vista)
• Next, click on “Check For Updates”.
• And then click on “Install Updates”.

Note: Since Microsoft has stopped providing the updates for Windows XP, hence you will not be able to check for updates for Windows XP.

Alternatively, you can also open Device Manager to update driver for Micro SD by following the below steps:

• Click “START”, and then “right-click My Computer/This PC” and then click on “Manage”.
• Click on “Device Manager”.
• Now find the right disk drive and then right-click on your Micro SD card and select “Update Driver” and thereafter simply follow the onscreen wizard to complete the update.

Once, completed successfully, you can go back to My Computer/This PC and you will see that your PC is able to detect your Micro SD card and you can access data stored within the memory card.

Solution 4: Use Disk Management To Format Micro SD Card

Some people have also asked – How do I format damaged micro SD card that makes it unreadable or unrecognized on Windows PC, Android phone or digital camera?

Well, in that case, follow the below steps to format the damaged micro SD card:

• First, connect your damaged Micro SD card to your Windows computer.
• On Your PC, click Start and then right-click on “This PC/My Computer” and then select “Manage”.
• On the left side, click on “Disk Management”.
• Now right click on the Micro SD card and click on “Format” option.

• Perform a quick format.

Wait for the format process to get complete.

Note: You may get the following errors:

• “Windows was Unable to Complete the Format” or
• “Card is write-protected”.

In that case, you have to first fix those issues before formatting.

Once the process gets complete you will now be able to access your Micro SD card without any issue.

Solution #5: Format MicroSD Card to Repair Micro SD Card Not Detected

Formatting SD card is another solution you can try to make SD card detected and recognized. It will delete all the data saved in it so make sure that you take backup of the complete data. To format SD card, you have to follow the below steps:

• First of all, you have to connect the undetected or unrecognized microSD card to the system.
• After this, you have to open Device Management through Run prompt, and to do so you have to press Win + R keys and then type msc and then simply press Enter key.
• Now, you have to locate the card and then make a right-click on it and then select Format

• After this, you have to select Perform a quick format and then click OK.

After this, the SD card should become readable and detectable, but it will not have any data it used to contain previously. In the future, to avoid SD card errors or corruption, make sure that you remove devices from the computer safely.

Solution #6: Run Hardware And Device Troubleshooter

This solution will also help you make your SD card detected and readable. Here, you can try the steps mentioned to repair Undetected or Unrecognized Micro SD Card by troubleshooting:

• You have to first tap the Search button on the taskbar and then type ‘troubleshooting’ in the search box. After this, you have to simply click on Troubleshooting to open it.
• Now, simply click Configure a device under the option ‘Hardware and Sound’.

• You have to then click Next in the pop-up window. It will start recognizing and detecting the microSD card and fix the issue.
• Lastly, you have to close the troubleshooter and then check if the microSD card is recognized or detected now.

Solution #7: Change The Drive Letter For The Unrecognized SD Card

Sometimes it happens that you cannot see your SD card in the system, in that case, you need to check whether the card drive letter is present.

In case, if you find that it is missing then you can simply fix this issue in very simple steps. You can do this by simply changing the drive letter and to do so, follow the below steps:

• Firstly, you have to press Windows + R keys to launch Run prompt.
• After this, you have to type msc and then press OK.
• You can then find the memory card and then right-click on the drive and then simply select the option Change Drive Letter and Path…

• After this, you have to click Add just to assign a new drive letter to the SD card and then simply click the option OK to save.

How Can I Recover SD Card That Cannot Be Read?

Even, if your microSD card is not detected on Android, computer, digital camera, or by its original device. You can still recover inaccessible digital media files from undetectable micro SD cards by using MicroSD Card Recovery Tool. It is designed to extract data such as photos, videos, and audio files from the card.

The software can easily detect the card and perform a deep scan to retrieve multimedia files from it, even if it is not detected by the PC. The software is available for both Windows and Mac computers.

With the help of the MicroSD Card Recovery Tool, you can:

• Efficiently retrieve inaccessible digital media files such as photos, videos, and audio files.
• Extract multimedia files from undetected, unrecognized, unreadable, not showing up micro SD card.
• Also recover media files from not detected, not reading, not recognized, and not showing up hard drive, external hard drive, memory cards (SD/miniSD/MMC/TF/CF/xD), pen drive, USB drives, camera cards.

* Free version of the program only scans and previews recoverable objects.

The software support all brands and types of memory cards such as SanDisk, Lexar, Transcend, Samsung, PNY, Kingston, Sony, Toshiba, and more.

Note: You must not format your microSD card or add any new data on it. If files get overwritten then chances for recovering files will become less.

Here, you can go through the step-by-step guide to recover data from a corrupted SD card.

Why Is My Micro SD Card Not Recognized?

Sometimes your mobile device or digital camera says no memory card is detected, even though the microSD card is inserted within it.

Micro SD card not recognized/detected or not showing up in My Computer? Windows read micro SD card but not accessible or Windows cannot detect or recognize micro SD card under My Computer/This PC or Disk Management after connecting it to PC?

Well, do you know why a micro SD card is not detected?

It could be due to:

• SD Card is corrupted
• Locked SD card
• Micro SD card got infected with virus or malware
• Drive letter is lost
• The card contains lots of bad sectors in it
• Partition loss

How To Identify Undetected or Unrecognized Micro SD Card

Well, the symptoms of undetected or unrecognized micro SD cards may vary. They are as follows:

• The card is showing up, but cannot open.
• Throwing error message “Please insert a disk into a removable disk’.
• The phone cannot read micro SD card or there are no valid media.
• A card cannot be used error in a digital camera.
• SD card shows 0 bytes space issue.
• And so on…

In any of the above scenarios, how to fix unreadable Micro SD cards and recover data from micro SD cards with ease.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Conclusion

Though there could be several causes and unexpected happenings that can make your MicroSD card undetectable, unrecognized or unreadable. So, you must always be ready to deal with such situations.

After going through this post, I hope you have got various effective solutions to repair Undetected or Unrecognized Micro SD Card. But as mentioned in the post that you must first use the MicroSD Card Recovery Tool to recover important photos, videos, and audio files from the card and then move ahead to fix/repair the undetectable Micros SD card.

However, you can also prolong SD card life by removing the SD card safely from the device, not filling the memory card completely, using multiple cards, etc.

Taposhi

Taposhi is an expert technical writer with 5+ years of experience. Her in-depth knowledge about data recovery and fascination to explore new DIY tools & technologies have helped many. She has a great interest in photography and loves to share photography tips and tricks with others.