Why doesn't my phone see the memory card? First, you should decide on the type of problem and try to solve it yourself. Although for many people in this case it is easier to contact a workshop so as not to waste their time.
We are talking about a small device for digital equipment that allows you to increase its memory. Such a device can be: mobile phone, computer, tablet, digital camera, etc. Modern technology It has a fairly large built-in memory, but only for basic tasks. Some people like to watch movies on their phones, others need music on their phones. If the phone does not see the flash drive, what to do in this case and how to fix this problem?
There are 3 main types:
MicroSD (11 x 15 mm). It is the most popular and widespread type. Micro SDs are used mainly in mobile phones, but can also be used in other technical devices using a special adapter. Due to the versatility of MicroSD memory, they are the most preferred.
MiniSD (21.5 x 20 mm). It is an outdated type due to the greater popularity of other formats; it is used in portable equipment.
SD (32 x 24 mm). It is used in technology where fast data exchange speed and a large amount of information storage are fundamentally important. This includes a camera, video camera and similar equipment.
They all come in different storage capacities, but SD is divided into 4 generations:
SD 1 (8 MB-2 GB).
SD 1.1 (up to 4 GB).
SDHC (up to 32 GB).
SDXC (up to 2 TB).
There are many storage devices and adapters for them. Through the adapter you can see a flash drive that was previously unreadable. It may also look like a USB flash drive.
Therefore, if the DVR does not see the memory card, then the problem may be its type, so you just need to replace it. After all, DVRs require storage media with high data exchange rates.
Phone: solutions
If the phone does not see the memory card, what should I do in this case?
This means that the selected flash drive does not fit the phone model. If the phone does not see the drive, although it is inserted, this does not mean that it fits and should open. The fact is that each manufacturer of cellular devices and flash cards has its own characteristics. Most often, the instructions contain a list of SD cards that are suitable for the device. The incompatibility criterion may be size, data transfer speed, drive version, etc. If the smartphone does not see the memory card, then the problem may simply be their incompatibility.
You need to purchase a card that your cell phone supports, but if you have important data on the media, you can use other data transfer devices, such as adapters and card readers.
What to do if there is no contact with the drive? Not everything is exactly the same; there are minimal errors everywhere, including production. This can happen over time. How to make the map visible? If the phone stops seeing the memory card for no apparent reason, then you just need to remove and reinsert the drive. In this case, it is important that the device is turned off, otherwise the data on the media may be damaged.
The card has a damaged sector. In this case, you should check the card on your computer for errors using the adapter. If it doesn't help, then format it. These actions are acceptable provided that the flash drive is visible to the computer.
Blocking on the card itself. Sometimes it may not open on the computer even because of such a small thing. Using programs, you can remove the lock, but in some cases it can be removed manually on the storage medium itself.
System glitch, crash or freeze. In this case, you need to restart the device.
If after all the manipulations the storage device stubbornly refuses to be detected and the phone does not read the memory card, you should take the drive to a specialist. Solve the problem yourself in this case not worth it. In addition, the damage may not be visible to the naked eye. It may also be that the flash drive does not appear after repair, so you should check all this on the spot.
Laptop: solutions
Why doesn't my laptop see the memory card? The computer can also be included in this issue - there are actually not many main reasons. As with mobile phones, some causes can be fixed on your own.
Same name for flash drive and other storage media. In this case, the flash card is not detected as a separate drive and crashes occur instead. If the memory card has the same letter in the name as the built-in logical drive on the computer, you should change the name of the flash drive. This can be done using standard means through the disk control panel. How to get into it depends on the operating system.
There are no necessary drivers for reading. It happens that the computer is not equipped with the proper software. But this determines how efficiently the machine will serve. Here you need to download drivers from the Internet, disk or other storage medium.
The reason that the computer does not see the memory card may be physical damage to the computer, laptop or drive itself. Therefore, it is better to take it to a specialized center or to a specialist.
One possible reason is viruses. Here you need to install an antivirus and carry out a full diagnostic, followed by cleaning the system. It is not recommended to install several antiviruses, as this will put a load on the system.
Card reader: solutions
Why doesn't the card reader see the memory card? A card reader is a device for writing, reading and formatting flash cards. The card reader may not work normally for some reasons: it is either physical damage or incompatibility with the flash drive.
The device can be external or built-in. The names speak for themselves and possible reasons why the device does not see the SD card, they have the same. It is worth emphasizing that the card reader ignores the card in case of errors that may occur when formatting it on a computer. If he doesn’t see the camera’s memory card, then it may simply be a matter of model incompatibility.
Camera: solutions
Why doesn't the camera see the memory card? What is the problem?
Locked flash card. There is a small visible lever on the side of the drive that you just need to slide.
A very common reason why a flash drive is not readable is that the amount of information on the card is incompatible for a given camera model. The only thing that will help here is to change the card itself to a different type.
Banal physical damage. What to do if the problem is with the camera? It is best to take it to a diagnostic center. If the problem is in the flash drive, then it is wiser to simply change the card.
Tablet: solutions
Why doesn't the tablet see the memory card? All the above reasons also apply to the tablet (freezing, bad contacts, breakdown, incorrect formatting, etc.). The methods for solving them remain the same.
Conclusion
Above we discussed all the main reasons why a flash drive does not function, and ways to solve these problems. PSP was not considered here, since PSPs are not so popular and have similar problems to the computer. In addition to the methods described above, it is worth mentioning that flash drives can be recovered using various programs. If the computer makes a sound detecting a flash drive, but the memory card is not visible, then the HDD Low Level Format Tool can help in this case.
It is also worth considering that if a drive is readable on one system, it is impossible to say for sure whether it will be viewed on another. If something doesn't work for unknown reasons, don't be upset. Sometimes you just need to be more careful with your equipment and accessories. Then she will not stop working. Many problems can also be avoided by reading the operating instructions in advance.
Good day everyone!
Today, the popularity of SD flash drives, I think, is not inferior to USB flash drives. Judge for yourself: phones, tablets, cameras, camcorders - SD flash drives (sometimes called SD cards) are used everywhere!
In general, I must admit that SD cards are quite capricious devices, and it is not uncommon that the computer does not recognize or does not see it. In these cases, usually, we immediately remember what is on the flash drive important photos, files, data - which simply need to be 100% returned and restored!
In this article, I will give the most common reasons for the invisibility of an SD card by a computer (laptop), as well as recommendations for eliminating them. I hope my modest advice will be useful to someone. So...
Many users confuse one point (although it is not key, it will help in solving the problem). I will show it using the example of one user question.
I took the card from my phone (microSD) and inserted it into my new device, but he suggested formatting it. Then I brought her back to old phone, but he also wanted to format it. My laptop also does not see this card and offers to format it. What to do? Help me get data back from a flash drive.
Case in point. The laptop sees your flash drive and even offers to format it - i.e. it doesn't understand that there is data on it, it can't recognize your flash drive, it can't read the file system (in this case, the file system is marked as RAW).
This often happens due to:
- file system failure on the flash drive;
- Windows cannot read a file system that is unfamiliar to it (for example, this often happens with disks connected to a TV - it can reformat them into its file system, but then Windows does not see them).
By the way, many people make one mistake when connecting microSD to a computer: when inserting the card into the adapter, they do not push it all the way in (see photo 1 below). As a result, the PC simply does not see anything when connecting the SD adapter.
Checking the flash drive: fixing file system errors
In this case, you can try to restore the functionality of the flash drive and all the files on it using the error checking and correction utility - chkdsk (built into Windows).
To do this, do not agree with Windows' suggestion to format the media (screenshot above), but just run command line (The easiest way: press Win+R, then type CMD and press Enter, see screenshot below).
Checking the disk/flash drive
An example of recovery is shown in the screenshot above. After such a simple procedure, the flash drive returned to its original state. working condition and still functions normally to this day.
When the check is successful, the command line will usually say something like: "Windows checked the file system and found no problems. Further actions not required".
Typically, if there was a small file system failure, then chkdsk it will be eliminated and the flash drive will become readable (after this procedure, both a phone and a laptop can read it).
Now what if chkdsk did not help, but the files need to be restored from the flash drive...
Recovering files from a flash drive
If, after trying to correct errors, Windows still intends to format it (that is, the OS sees it, but does not recognize it), then first of all, I will recommend that you restore files from it (if, of course, you need them).
Once you format the flash drive, it will be more difficult to recover data from it (and if new files are written, it will be completely impossible!).
There are special programs for data recovery. I will list some free and popular ones in the table below.
Instructions! How to recover photos from a MicroSD memory card or USB flash drive -
3 free data recovery programs
| Recuva
One of best programs for low-level formatting of various drives: hard drives, flash cards, etc. Main features:
How to format an SD card in HDD Low Level Format Tool:  Letter conflict: drive letter changeIn general, when you connect any drive (including a flash drive), Windows assigns a letter to this drive (for example, F:). But there is such a “glitch” that a letter is assigned incorrectly: for example, one that is already in the system - as a result: a conflict occurs and your flash drive is invisible! Therefore, if the flash drive is invisible, the first thing I recommend doing is going to "Disk Management": look at the drive letter, change it (it is possible to format the media). 1) To do this, first press the buttons Win+R, to line "Open" enter the command diskmgmt.msc and press Enter.
2) Next, find in the list the disk (microSD card) that is not displayed (not visible) for you. Right-click on it (sign-1 in the screenshot below) and select from the context menu "Change drive letter or drive path" . If the flash drive you are looking for is not listed in Disk Management, proceed to the next subsection of this article. If the file system is marked as RAW, the flash drive must be formatted (more on this at the beginning of this article).
Change drive letter 3) In the next step, press the button "Change"(number 1 on the screen below), then set the slider to "Assign a drive letter (A-Z)" and choose some unique letter (one that is not in the system). You agree with the changes made. Sometimes, you may need to restart your computer (laptop).
If the problem was related to an incorrectly specified drive letter, the flash drive will become visible and will work as normal... SD card classes and formatsSD card SD cards are different - they differ not only in volume and manufacturer, but also in size, class (operating speed), generation. All this, of course, can affect the visibility of the SD flash drive in the card reader... SD Card Sizes There are three form factors of SD cards: SD, miniSD, MicroSD (differ in size). Cards are used in a variety of portable devices: phones, cameras, video cameras, tablets, etc. The most widely used are microSD cards (due to their compact size, they can be inserted even into a miniature phone or MP3 player).
To connect a microSD card to a laptop or computer, a small adapter is always included with it (see photo below).
Typical information on the SD card
Manufacturer : No comments here. The only thing is that when you buy an SD card for yourself, I recommend choosing well-known manufacturers: SanDisk, Transcend, Sony, etc. SD card type
Important! Compatibility table of card readers and SD card types In principle, on each card reader (on the packaging with it) it is indicated which cards it supports. Naturally, if you insert more new map- he simply won’t see it and you won’t be able to read it. The table below will show you the compatibility of card readers and SD card types.
Card class (speed) Typically, SD cards do not indicate operating speed (in MB/s, although sometimes this is indicated), but the class of the card. Using the tables below, you can find out what speed your card will support. Important: the higher the speed, the more expensive card. Some devices require a specific card class (for example, a camera, otherwise video recording will be slow or not at all) - so be careful with this point! Speed class UHS speed class
Capacity, card size The bigger, the better. True, try to proceed from real needs: if you need to store a dozen or two photos, then maybe there is no point in overpaying and taking a high-capacity card? Lack of driversIt is quite possible that your flash drive is not displayed due to the fact that the drivers for the card reader are not installed. In this case, the card reader itself does not work, which means it will not read the SD card. In this case, usually the flash drive is not visible in "Disk Management" , and in device manager - the light opposite the device will light up question mark(means there are no drivers).
There is no driver (that's why the flash drive is not displayed...) - Device Manager How to enter Device Manager
In the device manager, look at the “USB Controllers” tab; it should just show something like “Realtek USB 2.0 Card Reader” (see screenshot below). There should be no question marks or red icons lit in front of the device.
If you do not have a device (card reader) in the lists, and there are unknown devices with question marks (example - ) - most likely you simply do not have a driver. There are several ways out: PS A few more tips:  This is where I end this article. For additions on the topic - a separate merci in advance. All the best! |
Today, the method of storing data on portable flash drives has gained quite a lot of popularity. And now all flash drive manufacturers are fighting to create the smallest in size and largest in memory capacity flash drives, leading positions in minimum sizes occupy Micro SD cards.
Micro SD flash cards are currently the smallest data storage devices that have been put into mass production.
Due to their very fragile structure, these drives quite often become unusable due to physical damage or incorrect completion of work with such flash drives.
There are often cases when, after a short period of working with a card, it becomes unreadable or is not detected by devices at all, so you cannot rely on the long-term operation of such a drive. I advise you to use a Micro SD card as a space for work, and not for permanent storage of information. Although every day manufacturers of such SD cards are improving their durability, and are bringing them closer to the possibility of using them for permanent and long-term storage of information.
Reasons why the computer may not detect the Micro SD card:
· Hardware problem.
· Flash drive failure.
· Assigning an already assigned partition letter.
· File system conflict.
· Malicious programs in the 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 considering and eliminating the most common causes of malfunction of such a flash drive.
How to check if the Micro SD card is detected on the 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 a new disk, then the flash drive has been identified. 
Second way. If nothing appears in Explorer, then it’s worth checking whether the computer has even detected that an SD card is connected to it. To do this, go to my computer, right-click on the computer and select “Manage” from the drop-down menu. 
After which the Computer Management window will open, there is a menu on the left side. We need to select the “Disk Management” section.
In the displayed statistics, we can see all connected drives 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 your computer through an adapter or through a card reader, and nothing happens, you should first check that these pairing devices are working.
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 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 functionality of the adapter.
Drivers for card readers can be downloaded and installed from the manufacturers’ official websites; if you have a portable card reader that connects via a USB port, then download the drivers from the manufacturer’s website. If you use a laptop's built-in card reader, then you can download 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 that do not have a driver installed. Such devices will be marked with a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark. 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
If you have checked the functionality of the above devices and are convinced that they are working properly, 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 connecting it to some device: smartphone, camera, etc. If the flash drive is not detected in any device, then most likely it is physically damaged and cannot be repaired. To contact service center You can only be motivated by the presence of important information on the map.
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 resolve 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 capacity 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 have assigned a letter to our partition, now we check its presence in Explorer.
File system conflict
There are often cases when a flash drive is detected, but it cannot be opened. 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 to format it into the NTFS file system.
To do this, right-click on the flash drive and select “Format” from the drop-down menu. 
In the format 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 into NTFS format, after which you can open it.
Malware in the operating system
When faced with the problem of identifying a Micro SD drive, you may not even suspect that the culprit for all this may be malware, so-called viruses, which can block USB ports and prevent the computer from working with your memory card.
In this case, it would be best to conduct a full scan of the system with your antivirus program, or resort to free antivirus programs that can help you with this.
I will recommend you one of these – 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 Dr.Web website at https://free.drweb.ru/cureit/
Download the program and start scanning.
When finished, remove all malware found 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 unambiguously answer the question “Why does my computer not see the memory card?”, since this may be due to problems of various nature. To avoid making mistakes and solve the problem, you should take turns following all the steps described in this article.
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, they most often fail due to their very fragile structure. Use this type of drive to directly work with files, saving them in more secure places.
Hello.
Today, one of the most popular types of media is a flash drive. And no matter what anyone says, the age of CD/DVD discs is coming to an end. Moreover, the price of one flash drive is only 3-4 times more than the price of a DVD! True, there is one small “but” - it is much more difficult to “break” a disk than a flash drive...
Although not often, one unpleasant situation sometimes happens with flash drives: you remove the microSD flash card from your phone or camera, insert it into your computer or laptop, but it doesn’t see it. There can be many reasons for this: viruses, software errors, failure of a flash drive, etc. In this article, I would like to stop on the most popular reasons for invisibility, as well as provide some tips and recommendations on what to do in such cases.
Types of flash cards. Is SD card supported by your card reader?
Here I would like to dwell in more detail. Many users often confuse one type of memory card with another. The fact is that there are three types of SD flash cards: microSD, miniSD, SD.
Why did the manufacturers do this?
There are just different devices: for example, a small audio player (or a small mobile phone) and, for example, a camera or photo camera. Those. The devices are completely different in size with different requirements for the speed of flash cards and the amount of information. This is why there are several types of flash drives. Now in more detail about each of them.
1. microSD
Size: 11mm x 15mm.
MicroSD flash cards are very popular thanks to portable devices: players, phones, tablets. Using microSD, the memory of the listed devices can be increased very quickly by an order of magnitude!
Usually, when purchasing, they come with a small adapter so that this flash drive can be connected instead of an SD card (more on them below). By the way, for example, to connect this flash drive to a laptop, you need to: insert micsroSD into the adapter, and then insert the adapter into the SD connector on the front/side panel of the laptop.
2.miniSD
Size: 21.5mm x 20mm.
Once popular cards used in portable technology. Today they are used less and less, mainly due to the popularity of the microSD format.
3.SD
Size: 32mm x 24mm.
Flash cards: sdhc and sdxc.
These cards are mostly used in devices that require a large amount of memory + high speed. For example, a video camera, a car video recorder, a camera, etc. devices. SD cards are divided into several generations:
- SD 1 – from 8 MB to 2 GB in size;
- SD 1.1 – up to 4 GB;
- SDHC – up to 32 GB;
- SDXC – up to 2 TB.
Very important points when working with SD cards!
1) In addition to the amount of memory, SD cards indicate speed (more precisely, class). For example, in the screenshots above, the card class is “10” - this means that the exchange speed with such a card is at least 10 MB/s (more details about classes: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital). It is important to pay attention to what speed class of flash card is required for your device!
2) microSD using special. adapters (they are usually written adapter (see screenshots above)) can be used instead of regular SD cards. True, doing this always and everywhere is not recommended (precisely because of the speed of information exchange).
3) SD card readers are backward compatible: i.e. if you take a device that reads SDHC, it will read SD cards of 1 and 1.1 generations, but will not be able to read SDXC. This is why it is important to pay attention to what cards your device can read.
By the way, many “relatively old” laptops have built-in card readers that are not able to read new types of SDHC flash cards. The solution in this case is quite simple: buy a card reader that connects to a regular USB port; by the way, it looks more like a regular flash drive. Price: several hundred rubles.
SDXC card reader. Connects to a USB 3.0 port.
The same drive letter is the reason for the invisibility of flash drives, hard drives, and memory cards!
The fact is that if your hard drive has a drive letter of F: (for example) and your inserted flash card is also F:, then the flash card will not be displayed in Explorer. Those. you go to “my computer” - and you won’t see the flash drive there!
To fix this, you need to go to the “disk management” panel. How to do it?
In Windows 8: press Win+X, select “disk management”.
In Windows 7/8: press Win+R and enter the command “diskmgmt.msc”.
Next, you should see a window that will show all connected disks, flash drives, and other devices. Moreover, even those devices that are not formatted and that are not visible in “my computer” will be shown. If your memory card is on this list, then you need to do two things:
1. Change its drive letter to a unique one (to do this, simply right-click on the flash drive and select the operation to change the letter in the context menu, see screenshot below);
2. Format the flash card (if you have a new one, or it does not have the necessary data on it. Attention, the formatting operation will destroy all data on the flash card).
Changing the drive letter. Windows 8.
Lack of drivers is a popular reason why the computer does not see the SD card!
Even if your computer/laptop is brand new and you just brought it from the store yesterday, this does not guarantee anything. The fact is that the store sellers (or their specialists who prepare the goods for sale) could simply forget to install the necessary drivers, or simply be lazy. Most likely, you were given disks (or copied to your hard drive) with all the drivers and you just need to install them.
In general, there are special programs that can scan your computer (or rather, all its devices) and find the latest drivers for each device. I have already written about such utilities in previous posts. Here I will give only 2 links:
- Programs for updating drivers: ;
- Finding and updating drivers:
Connecting an SD card via USB using some device
If the computer does not see the SD card itself, then why can’t you try to insert the SD card into some device (for example, a phone, camera, camera, etc.) and connect it to the PC? To be honest, I rarely remove the flash card from devices, preferring to copy photos and videos from them, connecting them to my laptop via a USB cable.
Do I need special programs to connect my phone to a PC?
New operating systems such as Windows 7, 8 are capable of working with many devices without installing additional software. Installation of drivers and configuration of the device occurs automatically when the device is first connected to the USB port.
For each brand of phone/camera there are utilities recommended by the manufacturer (see on the manufacturer’s website)…
1. Try connecting the card to another computer and check whether it recognizes and sees it;
2. Scan your computer for viruses (). It is rare, but there are some types of viruses that block access to disks (including flash drives).
That's all for today, good luck everyone!