My SD Card Is Unfindable

[reversalmushroom]

I have this SanDisk 512 meg SD card, and few days ago something mysterious has happened to it. My computer (or any device for that matter) refuses to acknowledge it existence. I put it in my laptop, nothing happens. I put it in my Wii, it says that the device inserted into the SD card slot cannot be used. I put it in my mp3 player, it freezes and then says "media not detected".

I tried putting it in an SD card reader and two drives pop up regardless of whether or not something is actually in the reader, Removable Disk (E:) and Removable Disk (F:), when I click the 1st one (the 2nd one just says that there's no disk inserted) that window freezes and no longer responds, and when I end the process it ends Windows Explorer altogether (for some reason) instead of closing just that window. But when I take the SD card out, everything unfreezes and that window fast-forwards to where it would've gone if it hadn't frozen (but because the SD card isn't in there it kind of defeats the purpose). Also the SD card becomes very hot.

My other SD cards are recognized by all my other devices, and because the SD card is basically a ghost, I can't even reformat it to fix it, and I'm hoping that there's a way to solve this and...AND keep my data.

Just so you know, I used it for Homebrew Channel purposes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op1V5eWpTQQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtMCSMh3 ... re=related

It was full of emulators and roms from consoles including, but not limited to, NES, Sega Genesis, SNES, and Turbografx-16. I'm wondering if doing so damaged my SD card, as the Wii was not intended to use SD cards in this way.

[AI The Original]

I'll put aside the legality of the Homebrew Channel , but it seems like your SD Card is defective. If reformatting it doesn't work, it's a sign that the SD card is damaged and irrepairable. You also state that your other SD Cards are working properly.

Do you have the data stored elsewhere?

Also, does your computer show two removable drives E and F when you do not pop in your SD card reader?

Your Wii should not have problems reading the SD card.

[reversalmushroom]

1. It cannot be reformatted, the computer says nothing's in there and I can't interact with it in any way, shape, or form, and all other devices treat it the same way.

2. No. I did not forsee this.

3. No. And it's always done that, so do my other ones of the same brand so I guess it's normal.



My SD card looks like this:

[AI The Original]

Have you tried the SD card on another computer? From your answers, it can be that the computer software is bad or the IOGear USB Drive is bad.

SInce that looks like a plug-and-play device, there should be a way to uninstall the software and try again. I'm not sure how to do that. I use SanDisk SD cards and I have not had any problems with it.

[reversalmushroom]

Yes I have tried it on another computer and the outcome is the same. Also my computer is a laptop, which means it has a built-in SD card reader-which won't acknowledge it either. And, it's not the computer, no device that reads SD cards will read this specific SD card.

[AI The Original]

It sounds like this particular 512MB card is defective. Are all the SanDisk SD Cards you're using causes this problem?

If the SD card is defective, it will be almost impossible to recover the data.

[CBlockDis]

It sounds like this particular 512MB card is defective. Are all the SanDisk SD Cards you're using causes this problem?

If the SD card is defective, it will be almost impossible to recover the data.

You, sir, had it right in your first post. This post too, but you had the right answer from the start. :p

SD cards are cheaply made storage devices, and heavy usage can damage them quickly. MicroSD cards are much more fragile than those are too...

[AI The Original]

CBlockDis, I was only guessing the cause of the problem in my first post. However, it was too early to make that claim so I had reversalmushroom made sure other components are working fine before I finalized it. It seems like all the other components are working fine and it's only this card that's causing a problem.

Reversalmushroom, just throw this one out and use your other SD cards. the programs you have on that SD card are replaceable unless you have only 1 copy of your backed-up Wii System Files.

[CBlockDis]

CBlockDis, I was only guessing the cause of the problem in my first post. However, it was too early to make that claim so I had reversalmushroom made sure other components are working fine before I finalized it. It seems like all the other components are working fine and it's only this card that's causing a problem.

Reversalmushroom, just throw this one out and use your other SD cards. the programs you have on that SD card are replaceable unless you have only 1 copy of your backed-up Wii System Files.

Ah, I figured it was the SD card just reading his first post, but mainly because I've had a few fail that did the exact same thing. There's only been once that it was a hardware failure but it was only the Computer's Case USB ports on the front that were defective from being used too much, just had to switch it up. The SD card thing is a redundant issue in general though, but it was his first sentence "but my computer(or any device for that matter)" that was comment that sold me on the SD card failure. Was a bit vague of a statement, but I assumed he meant he tried it on numerous platforms(other comps, Wii, his mouth, etc).