SD Card Formatter (FAQs)FAQs
SD Formatter FAQs
SD Card Formatter is a program (application) that provides easy and quick access to SD, SDHC, and SCXC card formats. SD Association has framed it to clear out all the files stored on your SD card.
Usually, formatting tools provided with Mac and Windows can format SD Cards, but they may not be optimized for SD/SDHC/SDXC Cards, and it may result in lower performance.
SD/SDHC/SDXC Cards have as standard a “Protected Area” for SD Card security purposes. The SD Memory Card Formatter does not format anything within the protected area in the SD/SDHC/SDXC Cards.
- Connect/ insert an SD card to the computer.
- Open My Computer/ This PC to open file Explorer.
- Identify your SD card device under “external drives and devices“—Right-click on your SD card device. Select the Format option from the menu. This opens the Format window.
- Choose the file system format. You will get the three options – NTFS, FAT32, exFAT. Which option to choose depends on what size storage cards you’re using.
- Click Start.
- Connect/insert your SD card to the computer. If your computer does not have an SD card slot, Place your SD card within the card reader decently.
- Click on “My Computer“. This will open the internal and external drives of your system.
- Identify your SD card device under “external drives and devices“.
- And right-click on it. Click on “Format“.
- After selecting “Format”, a format window appears in the newly emerged menu of “File System formats”, select the “FAT” option.
- Click on “Format” at the bottom of the window and wait for the process to complete. This may take several minutes.
- Take a note of the drive letter assigned to your SD card device.
- Enter “command” in the search box.
- Right-click the “command prompt” icon and always select the “Run as administrator” option.
- In the newly opened command windows, enter “chkdsk” followed by the drive letter assigned to the SD card device, then by a colon symbol and /f. (e.g., chkdsk H: /f)
- Press Enter. Check disk will check for errors and try to fix the corrupt SD card. After some time, if it shows “Windows has made corrections to the file system“, the damaged SD card is fixed correctly, and you have access to data now.
- Connect your SD card to the computer.
- Right-click on My Computer/This PC and select (click) “Manage“.
- On the left taskbar, click “device manager” and click “+”, which is next to “USB Serial Bus controllers“.
- Right-click on the yellow exclamation mark that pops up and selects “Update Driver Software“. Then select “Automatically search for updated driver software“.
- Wait till the driver is installed and restart your computer.
- Due to spyware or virus– If a virus attacks the SD card. Your phone will no longer be able to read it.
- The slot is compressed– The design of the slot is very fragile. If the thickness of the battery exceeds a specific limit, the slot may get squeezed.
- The wires inside may be bent– Frequent use makes the wires bend and rust.
- SD chip is dirty– very often, there is an accumulation of dust or dirt due to the careless protection for chips.
The most common reason why the SD card is undetected is SD card is a faulty, incorrect, or obsolete card reader. Maybe the card reader is not compatible with the SD card. The SD card is formatted improperly. This may happen due to the wrong selection of the file system.
Another cause of an undetected SD card is the dirt and dust that accumulate over chips, leading to poor contact.
Hardware problem– Either your USB slot or the card is faulty. If your SD card is not recognized or not detected, it may be because of obsolete drivers installed on your PC.
- Unmount and remount the SD card device– find the SD card section in settings. Perform the mount SD card or unmounts SD card operations to solve the problem. This is the most effective solution to solve some SD cards, not issues recognized. Your phone should not be connected to the computer during the above process.
- Restart your Android phone.
- Remove phone battery and SD card, and then put them back.
- Clean your SD card lightly. Poor contact between slots and cards may be the reason.
- Repair hardware problem – either your android or SD card may be damaged.
- Factory reset Android phone.
There is minimal possibility of data recovery if your card is physically damaged. But there is still a chance to recover the data if it is corrupted due to the virus’s attack.
Using a card reader, insert the corrupted SD card into your computer, and note the drive letter. Type “command” in the windows search box and Right-click on the “command prompt” icon and choose “Run as administrator“.
In the command window, type command “chkdsk [drive letter assigned to SD card device]: /f” and hit enter. Check disk will start to check and fix any errors on the corrupted SD card and recover data stored.
- Run the command prompt .command window will open type “diskpart” on the keyboard and hit enter. Next type the command “list disk” in the windows and hit Enter.
- The new window will show the disk connected. Select the SD card. Next, enter command “select disk 0“, then hit Enter.
- Next, type the command “Attributes disk clear read-only” and press enter.
- Attributes will be cleared, and Write this action will remove protection.
- These actions will remove the attributes and write protection from your micro SD card.
- By Checking the Physical Write Protection. If the switch is moved down inadvertently, then slide up the tiny switch toward the SD card’s top.
- If this does not work, try out the following steps.
- Run the command prompt .command window will open type “diskpart” on the keyboard and hit enter. type command “list disk” and hit Enter.
- The new window will show the disk connected. Select the SD card. Next, type command “select disk 0”, then hit Enter.
- Next, type “Attributes disk clear read-only” command and hit enter.
- Attributes will be cleared, and Write this action will remove protection.
- This will remove write protection from your micro SD card.
A tiny sliding switch is provided on the left side of the SD card. It is provided to prevent the accidental deletion of data stored in it.
If you are caught into the problem of a write-protected SD card, look at the small switch on the side.
If the sliding switch has unintentionally been moved down towards the bottom of the SD card, it will lock the card and will be writing protected.
Unlock the SD card by sliding the tiny switch up towards the highest of the SD card. This may unlock the SD card and take away the right to protection.
Now you will be able to delete and modify the content on the SD card.