Has the worst happened and do you think that now you should have a card reader repaired because it does not want to access your SD card? Don’t worry, don’t panic, you have several options at hand.
Although digital storage technology has come a long way, this is an incredibly common problem. With this in mind, there are a few things you can do yourself from the comfort of your home.
What is happening?
SD cards (acronym for Solid Disk) are very common storage devices today. Their high efficiency is, in part, thanks to the delicate synergy between all of their electronic components, which also makes them vulnerable to certain situations. With them it is possible to transfer a music CD to an SD card and even USB drives and SD cards can be formatted and formatted in Linux.
In this way, unexpected voltage variations can easily be affected. Likewise, when saving information, an error can alter the data structure and make it unreadable.
If this happens, you should get used to the idea that the data has been lost, although with certain third-party programs you can try to recover it. However, with the following tips you can repair a card reader and avoid buying a new one.
First things elementary
Before getting into the matter and resorting to more complicated solutions, the correct thing to do is to do certain checks. The first thing is to check that your card or the reader of your pc have no obstructions or are dirty, that is, make sure they are making contact.
Also try other cards in the reader of your pc and the card in question in other devices. With this you will identify where the problem really is to repair the card reader, if in the card or in your component. Also verify that you have not moved the tab to the side of the card that prevents its writing.
You can also resort to the Windows troubleshooter, which is much more effective than it seems at first glance. If none of this works, it’s time to get into deeper waters.
Repair card reader from Windows 10
In many cases it is not possible to read the card due to software problems, with these measures it is very likely that you can recover your card yourself.
Disk Management
This is a function that you can access in some versions of Windows 10 by pressing the “Windows” keys at the same time as the letter ” X “. This will display a list from which you must choose “Disk Management”. In this way, you will open a window where you can view all the devices connected to your PC.
Your card should appear here, with its name and letter, if it does not have a letter assigned, or it matches another device, you can change the letter and path . To do this you just have to right click on the card and choose the respective option. Once the new letter is assigned, try to access the card again.
If the problem persists, you can try to repair the card reader by reformatting the card, although this will make data recovery more difficult. In this case, when you right-click on the device, you must choose “Format”. When formatting, it is best to choose FAT32 as it is the most common and readable data structure for any device.
Diskpart
Another option to fix the problem is to force the computer to “mount” any connected drives. You will achieve this by pressing the “Windows” key together with “X” and the option “Command Prompt” in the displayed list.
In the displayed window, place diskpart, then “automount enable” and finally press “enter”, so you will force the computer to “see” all connected devices.
Device administrator
You can enter this section by selecting it from the list by pressing the “Windows” and “X” keys . In this new window you must locate the option “universal serial bus controllers”.
Once there, right click select “update the drivers”. If this does not work, try to disable and enable the device again, between the same options.
With this the problem should already be resolved. But if you have reached this point and you still cannot access your card, unfortunately it is time to go to a specialist. Luck!