Your SD card is not recognized by your mobile phone or PC? We’ll show you what you can do about it.
If your smartphone or PC does not recognize your memory card, there may be various reasons. Usually, a restart is enough, and the card is recognized again. If there is still an error and the end device cannot remember the SD card, we offer you some solutions in our tips + tricks.
Test the SD card with another device
Remove the SD card from your Android cell phone or the SD card reader and try another device first, e.g. a friend’s cell phone. If the SD card works here, you can assume that the problem is with your device. However, if the SD card is not recognized here either, continue reading in the following section.
Check whether the SD card is compatible with the mobile phone
With older Android smartphones, the SD card may simply no longer be supported. Some models only support cards up to 32 GB; others only support up to 16 GB. The best way to obtain information on this is from the smartphone manufacturer or the user manual supplied.
Clean the SD card and SD slot
As simple as this step suggests, its impact on the cause of the problem can be as significant. Sometimes the contacts are covered by minimal dirt. It is best to clean the contacts with a microfiber cloth and a suitable cleaning agent.
Update the driver on the PC
If the SD card is not recognized on the PC via the SD card reader, we have prepared step-by-step instructions for you on how to update drivers under Windows 10.
Format SD card
If our previous tips do not help and the card is only recognized on your PC and not on your mobile phone, you can reformat the SD card to a different file system. Here it would help if you chose FAT32. You can find out how to format an SD card here.