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Help Suddenly can't write to SD card anymore

M

Matthew D

Guest
Hi all,
I have an Xperia Z1C and a 64GB SD card running Android 5. All has been well for a long time until a couple of days ago when I was transferring an app to the SD card and the phone crashed and rebooted. Since then I had files disappear when I tried to write them to the SD card, and now I can't write any files to the card.

- If I try on the phone (via Ghost Commander and the Storage Access Framework) I get an I/O error.
- If I connect the phone to a PC and try copying files that way, the copy operation just hangs for a few minutes then gives me an error about the phone being locked (which it isn't).
- Even apps can't write to it. The camera is set to write files to the SD card, and now taking a photo makes the camera app crash, and no photo is saved.

I can read from the card fine, and if I physically take it out and plug it into a card reader, it will read and write with no problems. Chkdsk reports no errors.

So it seems that the phone is just suddenly refusing to write to the card, though the card itself and the filesystem is ok.

Has anyone else had this issue? Any ideas on how to resolve it?
Any thoughts much appreciated. This makes the card (and phone) pretty useless.
 
Hey Matthew, welcome to our AndroidForums.

I'm guessing what you're seeing is indeed a failing SD card and the information you posted above kind of reinforces this (i.e., I/O errors, hangs even on your PC, etc.).

Reading is a non-destructive process whereas writing involves changing what was there before and encoding the new information.

Maybe read-off all of the data you have on the card, re-format it, and re-write the data? (that will, of course, "add to the pile" of writing, though...).
 
Many thanks for the thoughts. It may be that it's failing, but what makes me wonder about this is that I can write to it without any problems if the card is directly plugged into the PC. I wrote 7 or 8 GB to it with no issues at all. It's only when I try and to it when it's in the the phone that there are any issues.
 
Hmm, I'm not familiar with your device (Xperia Z1C)...is it a new(ish/er) device and is it rated for the class/speed of the SD card?

(I sort of would imagine that it would be, but that's the only other thing I can think of)...
 
It's a Sony. It's less than 2 years old if I recall. I've written many GB to the SD card fine for a long time. Problems seemed to start when it crashed while moving an app. (Which may be a symptom rather than a problem.) My suspicion is that it's finding some issue and silently marking the filesystem read-only. But it's an issue that Windows doesn't have with it apparently.
 
Ok, so it looks like it was a faulty card. I still don't know why the PC was able to write to it - maybe it's more forgiving of bad blocks or something, but when I copied everything off and tried to reformat the card, the format failed (leaving the data on the card, even after a 1.5 hour low-level format). Bought a new card and everything seems to be working. Thanks again for all the comments and help!
 
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