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Help Error With SD Card - Needs Reformatting

icanicant

icanicant

Lurker
Hi,

A couple of weeks ago my SD card stopped working on my android phone. It said that it needed reformatting.
It has been a couple of weeks now and it doesn't even seem to see the SD card anymore.

I have got a card reader and plugged it into my computer, the computer read it fine. I have now copied everything across from the card to my computer as a back up.

I don't really have anything that precious on the card, it is just annoying because I had so many apps and things set up on the card that no longer work.
My questions are:
Is there any way to restore my card on the phone with all the apps etc still working or is it a case of reformatting the card and redownloading all the apps?
If the card does need reformatting, how do I get it to do so through my phone, as it can't seem to detect it anymore?

Thanks in advance,
Dave
 
I took it out to have a look at it and then put it back in and now my phone can detect it again. I must not have pushed it in far enough the last time I had a look haha

So the situation now is:
My phone can detect the SD card. When I go to my files and browse the SD card it says there are 0 items. None of my apps that were stored on it work either
 
Android version: 6.0.1

I struggle to remember how I exactly moved the apps but I think it was through the application manager and then there would be an option for some (not all) apps where you could move to SD card. I can't find that option any more though.

I did get an update relatively recently, roughly around the time the card stopped working.

Don't know if it matters but I notice that when viewing the SD card under Storage it can see that 33GB has been used up.
 
Was Android 6 already installed on your phone before or it has recently been updated to Android 6 ?
 
icanicant said:
I think it has been recently updated to it.

It is a few years old
Click to expand...
My guess is that your SD card has been partially used by the previous Android version, after the update to Android 6 took place, the old app data on your SD card is unusable by the new version so you need to reinstall all those apps.
 
Ok.

Do you think the card does need reformatting as well?
Seems a bit weird that I can't know copy apps over to the SD card.
TBH due to the small amount of internal memory my phone has, I couldn't reinstall any of the apps
 
As your phone is running Marshmallow now, you can format your SD card as adoptive storage so you can move as much apps as you wish to the card, freeing your phone's internal memory.
 
If you are going to use an SD card for adoptive storage, I'd highly suggest starting with a new, name brand card, minimum Class 10 and verified 100 authentic. SD cards, especially inferior ones, are prone to failure when used in this type of service with constant read/writes. You want to make sure your card is genuine/not fake and not moments away from crashing before you put your apps and data on it. And back up regularly.
 
Yes any SD card class 10 would do the job, avoid paying for the new, expensive UHS card because your phone usually doesn't support it. Those cards are made mainly for consumer cameras and video recorders.
 
IDK. I was trying to help someone setup there S5 and hit that road block. Not really sure if it was a very necessary feature or not as apps tend to run slower off the sdcard and it shortens the life span.
But yeah, I've got 100 personal apps on my Nexus 6 64gb. And plenty of room for more.
 
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Personally I'm confident with the method using SD card as additional apps memory. I used Link2SD for years on a Sandisk 32GB without problem. Of course the speed isn't as optimal as the internal memory, but I can live with it because I like that phone and want to make the best of it.
 
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