MicroSD will NOT mount!!

[jpinsl]

What does "mount" and "unmount" do please?

Analogous to "turn on"/"turn off" or "use"/"don't use" or "active"/"inactive"
Just another obscure and obtuse compterese term.

 

[ArmyofMike]

Hey all, I've been lurking for a while since I got my A500, but I'm having this exact problem on mine: I have formated my Sandisk 4gb 4c rated SD card and it still is not "mount"able on my settings. I have formatted it to FAT32 on the default settings (Didn't work to mount), used EASEUS Partition Manager to change it to single partition (Didn't work to mount), I've tried two other SD Cards, both Sandisk, 16gb 2c and 8gb 2c (Didn't work to mount). I've tried to install the SD Card (have attempted with all three cards) with the Tablet's power on/off (Didn't work to mount). I've tried just about everything that I can and done more searches on the the forums than I wish to claim (A LOT) and I can't find a solution for my Acer Iconia A500.

Specs on my A500
16GB
Is a refurbish to "specs"
everything else appears to be working fine.

Any help/suggestions/support would be greatly appreciated. I love the tablet and suppose not having an external SD isn't a deal breaker, but it's such an inconvenience and blemish on the Acer Tab and the Android OS....Unless it's something else <----In that case, I will insert foot+mouth=ArmyofMike.

Thanks!

 

[BDiddy]

Forgive me if this is obvious and has already been tried, but make sure that the microSD card clicks into place in the slot. It should then be securely in place, and then there will be a notification at the bottom bar that an SD card has been inserted. You should not be able to pull it out without pressing it in again and hearing another click.

 

[ArmyofMike]

Thanks for the response Bdiddy. I make sure each time I load the sd card it does click into place, and it ejects correctly when I push it down again to remove.

any other ideas?

 

[BDiddy]

Does your tablet even realize an SD card has been inserted? Does anything register on the notification bar, or under the Settings->Storage menu? If it doesn't even register, I would suspect that there is a hardware problem with your SD card slot.

 

[ArmyofMike]

that's also the weird thing: when I insert the card, the settings>storage goes from saying "insert sd card for mounting" to "mount sd card," but when i touch mount sd card after the card is installed, it has always done nothing, or sometimes the internal storage will say "calculating" but then just goes back to it's previous state. The external sd card doesn't mount or say "mounted."

Does this mean the hardware is bad if it recognizes an sd card, but won't mount it?

 

[Icebike]

that's also the weird thing: when I insert the card, the settings>storage goes from saying "insert sd card for mounting" to "mount sd card," but when i touch mount sd card after the card is installed, it has always done nothing, or sometimes the internal storage will say "calculating" but then just goes back to it's previous state. The external sd card doesn't mount or say "mounted."

Does this mean the hardware is bad if it recognizes an sd card, but won't mount it?

If you have access to a Windows 7 machine and a MicroSD card carrier or MicroSD->USB, eject the card from your tablet and plug it into
your Windows 7 machine. It will detect data directory problems almost instantly, and offer to fix them.

I recently had a problem of crashing apps, camera complaining of no MicroSD card, etc. Simply putting the card in a Windows 7 machine
and letting Win7 repair the directory structure fixed it.

 

[ArmyofMike]

I think I have windows XP. I put a new sd card in my computer and formatted it to FAT32. It didn't give me any errors...do I need to change the partitions from the default settings? or modify the sharing on the sd card?

thanks!

 

[Icebike]

There sure seems to be a lot of MicroSD problems lately. I had to reformat my microsd card this evening as well scubaboy.

I just used the standard Fat32 format, then reinserted it in the tablet. After a while the camera couldn't write to the card. So I rebooted and all is fine, for now at least.

 

[onykage]

this is going to sound really technical and I appologise in advance.

It sounds like the sector count of the partition and the last sector of the sd card data stream is the same number. Which will give you an active partition but will not let you use it because it is infact corrupted. A super fast way to find out if this is indeed the case is to access the sdcard with some low level program like fdisk. As soon as you access the partition table with fdisk it will warn you about the sector count.

If this is indeed the case, an easy fix for this is you just drop all partitions on the volume and recreate them. Then reformat with fat16 orso and see if your problem continues.

Win7 may or may not fix an issue like this because it deals with more then just editing the volume journal. The partition itself has to be shrunk or recreated.

Dont know if that is your issue or not but it may be worth a try.

Sent from my Acer Android One Netbook using Tapatalk

 

[ArmyofMike]

hmmmmmm, I understand about 13.67% of that. is this something I can do with EASUS (sic.) to rewrite the partitions. and how should I set them?

It seems some of this may be getting in over my head.

 

[onykage]

hmmmmmm, I understand about 13.67% of that. is this something I can do with EASUS (sic.) to rewrite the partitions. and how should I set them?

It seems some of this may be getting in over my head.

well, im not much of a windows user anymore, specially when it comes to low level stuff like this. But i believe you can do this with the windows xp local drive manager.

right click my computer > Manage > Local Volume Manager

It will display all of the disks mounted in windows currently when it comes up. Just pay attention to the device name and volume size when messing around in this app. You drop the wrong partition and oopsie.. The volume size will be a dead ringer unless you have a hard disk smaller then 32gb installed in the computer. When you find the correct volume just right click it and delete the partition. Then right click the emtpy volume and create a partition. Use the defaults and click ok. Then right click one last time and format the volume with fat(fat/8/16/32). Again use the defaults just click ok. Then open the sd card to verify it works and is an empty volume.

and you know what to do from there.

Again, please be careful in the volume manager or any kind of low level volume display tool. One little oopsie in there and you might as well just open the command prompt and type 'del tree'. (ps dont even try it).

Sent from my Acer Android One Netbook using Tapatalk

 

[ArmyofMike]

thanks Onykage, I tried what you said to the best of my abilities and everything looks legit...no luck.

out of a bit of frustration last night, I started lightly tapping the "mount sd card" button in rapid succession and in the lower right screen every now and then, a pop up would show saying "preparing sd card for mounting" but it wouldn't actually mount. Thisnleads me to believe it's a software issue and not hardware. It's like the permissions to the sd card are being denied.

Also, when I try to copy to Sd card in Astro file manager I get this error:

 

[onykage]

I would tell you to chmod that sdcard but that will be fun to explain. Im just curious.. does the sd card have a data lockout tab on it? Some of them do, its tiny and locks the sd card so that everything is read only.
other then that.. im with you, has to be something with the software or the sdcard slot reader.

For giggles have you tried inserting a USB stick or attaching the sdcard to a usb cable and see if it mounts that way? Also id get a can of air and blow out the sdcard slot. could be as simple as a hair in there.

 

[ArmyofMike]

no lockout on sdcard. I just don't know. I also blew out the sdcard slot but didn't see anything out of the norm. I'm pretty fed up with it at this point. As it's a refurb, I sent in some emails to Secondipity where I bought the tablet and will wait for their reponse. I hope it's quick. I really feel like something is up with the software...Perhaps it was rooted/attempted rooted before it was "sent back for repairs," and they messed up the permissions.

At this point, I'll just go with it. I'm gonna try and load my daughters Snow White DVD on a USB and call it a day. I don't have a MicroSD to USB reader so I'm stuck using USB.

FML. Otherwise, i love this contraption.