Arch Linux

ProfessorJeebus

Member

Registered: 2025-03-23

Posts: 6

[SOLVED]SD Card not mounting despite being inserted

Im trying to recover files from a corrupted SD card i had in my phone but upon plugging it in to my laptop neither lsblk nor hwinfo lists the device. I tested it out using another SD card and the device showed up normally, ruling out the usb mount itself being the problem. Interestingly, by plugging the faulty SD card back into my phone it offers to reformat the card, which I do not want to do. My question is how is android able to detect and format the card while my laptop isnt?

Last edited by ProfessorJeebus (2025-06-05 08:34:06)

mpan

Member

Registered: 2012-08-01

Posts: 1,419

Website

Re: [SOLVED]SD Card not mounting despite being inserted

What is the reader you use with your laptop? Is this an actual card reader (one that shows as “/dev/mmcblkX”) or is this USB attached reader (one that shows as “/dev/sdX”)? Note that “USB attached” does not mean it has to be external: many internal devices are attached over USB.

If it’s the latter, it’s the reader that does the reading and translates that to a virtual USB Mass Storage device. If its interaction with the card fails in some way, it will not expose it as an USB Mass Storage. On the other hand, smartphones are likely to have true readers that expose cards directly.

If it’s the former and your laptop can access it over the MMC driver, check the journal for relevant messages. Perhaps some error is reported.

What is the nature of the SD card failure? That the smartphone offers formatting it, indicates it also encounters an error while reading. Perhaps it’s a hardware malfunction, which renders the card completely useless.

---

Sometimes I seem a bit harsh — don’t get offended too easily!

cryptearth

Member

Registered: 2024-02-03

Posts: 1,524

Re: [SOLVED]SD Card not mounting despite being inserted

IIRC there was a topic where OP had the issue that tbier SD card wiuld only be recognized if its inserted when the laptop was shutdown and booted with the card already inserted
as far as I remember and followed that topic it was resolved to either the reader not properly generating a hotplug event or the driver not correctly processing it
TLDR: have you tried to cold boot with the card already inserted?

ProfessorJeebus

Member

Registered: 2025-03-23

Posts: 6

Re: [SOLVED]SD Card not mounting despite being inserted

Apologies for the late reply.

To mpan: Its an external card reader since the built in one has failed. Inserting a SD card does indeed show the device listed under sde however inserting the corrupted card does not show anything up at all.

To cryptearth: Yea i recall stumbling across that topic and tried it out myself however interestingly BIOS would not boot into Arch until the card was removed. Inserting the card while in BIOS would also lead to the BIOS freezing until the card is removed.

I am now trying to reformat the sd card by placing it in my phone and accepting whatever prompt comes out and now the progress is stuck at 20%. I think its safe to assume that the drive is toast.

Last edited by ProfessorJeebus (2025-05-29 10:21:18)

mpan

Member

Registered: 2012-08-01

Posts: 1,419

Website

Re: [SOLVED]SD Card not mounting despite being inserted

If it’s shown as “/dev/sdX”, the card reader doesn’t expose the card directly. Instead it presents a virtual USB Mass Storage device, while doing SD card I/O itself. If that I/O fails, there is nothing to show. But if it fails at that level, it’s very high probability the card itself is not usable.

You might try in a proper MMC reader (one natively sitting on PCI-E bus, presented as “/dev/mmcblkN”). While not all, many laptops do come with those. But the chances of this working are slim.

Either way: if your goal was to recover anything, writing anything to the device was a bad choice. Never do any writing to storage, from which you wish to rescue data.

---

Sometimes I seem a bit harsh — don’t get offended too easily!

ProfessorJeebus

Member

Registered: 2025-03-23

Posts: 6

Re: [SOLVED]SD Card not mounting despite being inserted

Tried running recovery software on windows but to no avail, windows doesnt even show the drive as mounted. I think its clear now the drive is simply busted