9 Best Ways To Fix SD Card, Memory Card, Pen Drive Not Detected In Any Device

There are times when we face issues where our external memory device is not recognized by the device be it the PC, mobile, TV, or any music system.

The error Memory Card Not Detected or in any other devices mostly happens because of driver issues which can be solved within a few steps.

Fix SD Card, Memory Card, Pen Drive Not Detected In Any Device

1. Cleaning SD Card with an Eraser to

Things get dirty and so does a small sized device like SD card also gets dirty when not taken care of properly.

So, when dust particles stick to the SD card or in the golden part of the SD card then you might face issues to access the SD card. All you have to do is take a soft cloth or an eraser and gently rub the golden part of the SD card until you feel it is tidy. Make sure to rub the SD card gently or it might be broken when force applied.

2. Use Scan & Repair Tool

This step is totally a basic one, but at times this can also do the job which will save you a lot of time and effort so head on!

Steps:

1. Open “This PC”
2. Look for the corrupted or the damaged drive
3. Right click on it
4. Click on “properties”
5. Go on to “tools”
6. Click on “check” button
7. Click on “scan and repair drives”
8. After the scanning is done 
9. You are done

If this step didn’t work for you then head on to the next one.

3. Remove Bad Sectors From SD Card

Basically, at times the SD card has some bad sectors issues for which the phone can’t detect the SD card and eventually it can be fixed in the computer system through CMD.

Steps:

1. Insert the SD card in the system and make sure it detects
2. Click on windows search bar
3. Search for “Command Prompt or CMD”
4. Right click on it and Run it as administrator
5. Type “CHKDSK (allocated–drive-letter):/f”  OR  “CHKDSK (allocated–drive-letter):/r” and enter
6. Then it will start repairing the device
7. And done

Or You Can Follow These Steps:     

MiniTool Partition Wizard has the highest probability to fix all the issues regarding the external devices so do try this method for better results and also you can easily carry out the processes without any hassle.

Steps: 

1. Open the tool
2. Look for the disk
3. Right click on the particular disk
4. Click on “check file system”
5. Click “check and fix detected errors”
6. Click on “start”
7. Now it will take few minutes
8. And done

 Or You Can Follow These Steps:

Disk Genius is another 3^rd party app that is used to repair drives and to solve many more issues regarding external devices with ease and to be exact with no commands to be entered manually.

Steps:

1. Download the tool
2. Open it
3. Now, select the disk you want to repair
4. At the top section, click on “Disk” option
5. Click on “Verify or Repair Bad Sectors”
6. Now, from the Drop box menu change the “Cylinder range” to “Sector range”
7. Now, click on “Start verify”
8. Now, the scanning will begin
9. After scanning is done click on “Repair” and you are done.

if this method couldn’t fix the error then head on for the next one.

4. Change SD Card Drive Letter

Changing the drive letter can also fix the error to change the drive letter following the below-mentioned steps.

Steps:

1. Click on windows search bar
2. Search for “Disk management” or open directly from control panel
3. Open “Hard disk partition”
4. Look for the external disk 
5. Right click on it
6. Click on “Drive letter and paths”
7. Now change the drive letter if visible 
8. Or add a new drive letter if any drive letter is not shown
9. And done

If the issue is not fixed then go for the next mentioned method below.

5. Wipe Cache Partition

In this method you will have to go on to the recovery mode of the smartphone in which you are willing to use the memory card. If you are unable to go on to the recovery mode of the smartphone then just Google it by searching for your smartphone model.

Make sure that you have back-up of all the data in your device because one wrong move can just wipe-out all the data in your device. With help of this method you can definitely cure memory card not detected problem.

Steps:

1. Switch your smartphone off.
2. Press the power button and volume down button at a time (this is the command for most of the devices)
3. Now you will enter in to the recovery mode 
4. Then look for option “Wipe Cache Partition”
5. Navigate through the options using volume buttons
6. And select the option through power button
7. Make sure to not select any other options, you might lose all the data.

6. Update Driver

So, in this method also you will have to use Driver Booster, which will surely do the job because it is one of the most useful and effective tools when it comes to managing and updating drivers in the computer system.

Steps:

1. Once you have downloaded and installed the tool
2. Run it
3. Now click on the “Scan” button
4. Now it will begin the scanning process and will scan for all the outdated drivers in the system.
5. Once scanning is done, in the next window there will be a list which shows the number of drivers to be or has been updated.
6. Now select the “Universal Serial Bus Controller” and update the driver
7. Or just click on update all.
8. And once the updating process is done

Or You Can Follow These Steps:

You can directly update drivers manually from the device manager which will not take much time of yours.

Steps:

1. Click on windows search bar
2. Search for “Device manager” or open directly from control panel
3. Open Device manager
4. Look for USBC (Universal Serial Bus Controller)
5. Expand by clicking on it
6. Look for “USB Mass Storage Device”
7. Right click on it
8. Click on “Update driver software”
9. Click on “Search automatically for Updated driver software”
10. Or you can also click on “Browse my computer for driver software”
11. Then select “Let me pick from a list of device drivers”
12. Click on next and done
13. Now restart the system

Or You Can Follow These Steps:

There is also an alternative way of manually updating drivers within the device manager.

Steps:

1. Click on windows search bar
2. Search for “Device manager” or open directly from control panel
3. Open Device manager
4. Look for “Disk Drives”
5. Expand by clicking on it
6. Look for the inserted external device
7. Right click on it
8. Click on “Search automatically for Updated driver software”
9. After it is done
10. Look for “Action” at the top side
11. Then click on “Scan for hardware changes”
12. Then click on “Disk Drivers”
13. Select the inserted external device
14. Then right click and Select properties & Populate the storage device
15. And done

If these methods didn’t work for you or couldn’t solve the issue then it might be because of the NTFS file system, so to change the file system of the SD card or external device, look for further methods. But, first make sure to take the back-up of the data in the external drive.

Recover Data Using Recuva 

Using RECUVA you can take back-up of all the data in the SD card and format the SD card to use it further. You can also use RECOVERIT which is an advanced and paid tool to recover data with more accuracy but RECUVA also does the job decently.

Steps:

1. Insert the SD card in the system and make sure it detects
2. Now, after installing the tool open it & Press “Next”
3. Select “All files” in the “file types” & Click “Next”
4. Select the drive or the SD card
5. Check box on the “Deep Scan”
6. Click on “Start”
7. Now it will start scanning
8. Then, select all files or the files which you want to recover
9. Click on “Recover”
10. Now allocate where the back-up file you want to store
11. Once you have selected the location click “Ok”
12. And you are done

So, make sure to recover all of your data before heading to the next method which is all about cleaning and formatting.

7. Convert FileSystem

MiniTool Partition Wizard has the highest probability to fix all the issues regarding the external device also, you can easily change the file system of the memory device within the few steps mentioned below.

Steps:

1. Open the tool
2. Look for the disk
3. Right click on the particular disk
4. Click on “Format”
5. Click on “File system”
6. Change it to FAT32 or exFAT (Select FAT32 if the memory device is less than 32GB and if it is higher then select exFAT file system)
7. Click “ok” 
8. Click on “Apply” and confirm 
9. Now the formatting will begin and done within a few seconds.

If this method didn’t work for you then head on for the next one.

8. Clean SD Card using CMD

To clean the SD card through CMD, follow the below-mentioned steps carefully.

Steps:

1. Click on the windows search bar
2. Search for “Command Prompt or CMD”
3. Right-click on it and Run it as administrator
4. Type “diskpart” and enter
5. After entering DISKPART type “list disk” and enter
6. Then type “select disk (disk number) ” and enter
7. Type “clean” and enter
8. Type “create partition primary” and enter
9. To format type “format fs=ntfs” and enter (if you face size issue error then there will be no volume selected shown in the CMD)
   Note: FAT32 does not allow to copy files of a size more than 4GB. Also for storage more than 32GB use exFAT and for rest FAT32. 

10. And Finished.

If this also didn’t work then head for the last method.

9. Format SD Card using MalvaStyle

Last but not the least, format the SD card using MalvaStyle which surely has the decent probability to solve the issue regarding the SD card.

Steps:

1. Open the tool
2. Click on “USB only” box
3. Click on the dropdown menu and select the device
4. Once you have selected the device
5. There are two options to begin the format i.e. CHKDSK and DiskPart
6. Click on “disk part” then click “ok”
7. Now the formatting process will begin
8. And you are done

FAQs