Solved Micro SD card unreadable unless locked (in adapter)

I use a micro SD card in an Android Phone as storage that suddenly no longer works.

Suddenly Android will no recognize the card, says "no SD card" in the Folder-app and all pictures are missing. On Win10 Windows File Explorer freezes when trying to view the SD-card (even when just trying to view "My Computer"). Rebooting windows is not possible unless the card is removed from the computer.

However, I found out the card is readable if I use an micro-SD -> normal SD-card adapter, and only(!) if the psychical switch on the adapter is set to "lock". If the switch it "unlocked" the the card cannot be read. When "locked" I can then read the files on the card and I have made backup. But I cannot get access to the micro SD-card in any other way, and cannot write to/format it. I have never experienced this error before, but the error and described "work around" works on two separate Win10 computers, and two separate Android phone refuse to read the card, so the error is for sure the micro SD card.

I need to fix the micro SD card, and formatting is ok. However I have not found any way to do this. WIN10 will only recognize and read it when the adapter switch is set to "lock". I have tried to run Win10 Anti Virus, and follow the online guides using CMD command CHKDSK and DISKPART also Registry Editor without luck.

Running CHKDSK F:
7127 files
1031 indexes
0 KB bad sectors
256 KB in use by system
and says "An error occurred while examining files and directories." also "Corruption was found while examining files in directory \Android\data\com.reshopper.reshopper\
(Reshopper is an local app I installed recently. Please notice, the Reshopper app still works on the Android Phone, even without the SD-card inserted.)

Running CHKDSK F: /f
says "Windows cannot run disk checking on the volume because it is write protected."

Running DISKPART
says "Disk attributes cleared successfully." but the command "clean" says "DiskPart has uncounted an error, I/O-unit error. See the System Event Log for more information."

Do any of you have any ideas of how to solve the error? Or ideas for an work-around that will allow a format so I can use the card again?
Many thanks!

Bruce said:

g'day Troels and welcome to the Forum,

while not an everyday occurrence, NAND memory (SSD's, USB sticks, SD cards etc) fail enough that it's not unknown, like any medium.
why would you still want to use a storage device you now to be unreliable, especially considering they are so cheap to buy.

as to the issue, I also have never come across that sort of problem, but then, if I ever tried to access a SD card and it said it was corrupted, or write-protected when it wasn't, would have simply been enough of a prompt for me to bin it and get a new one!

Click to expand...

Hi Bruce

Thank you for the answer, and thanks for the welcome
I only though of fixing the problem, but you are right, I have to bin it.