Unable to format SD Card - Lumia 640XL. What are my options?

[Windows Central Question]

Unable to format SD Card - Lumia 640XL

On my lumia640 XL I was experiencing unexpected behavior. I thought of formatting SD card, but option in Storage Sense->Format SD Card is not at all formatting my SD card. I tried to delete content on SD card, but that is also not working.

What other options I have to format/clean my SD card.

 

[rahulpah]

Re: Unable to format SD Card - Lumia 640XL

well the only other option left is eject it from your phone..... use a card reader and connect it to pc and try to format it... if that doesn't works means your sd card is damaged

 

[ErJaspreetSingh]

Re: Unable to format SD Card - Lumia 640XL

this is happening with me too.

even deleted data come back automatically and working fine. but cant add more data or format it.

Lumia 640XL. Sony 32gb class10

 

[milindB]

Re: Unable to format SD Card - Lumia 640XL

yes , similar behavior I was observing so thought of formatting but that is also not working.

I don't think SD card could be damaged in multiple phones.

I contacted MS support, will update their reply.

 

[milindB]

Re: Unable to format SD Card - Lumia 640XL

this is happening with me too.

even deleted data come back automatically and working fine. but cant add more data or format it.

Lumia 640XL. Sony 32gb class10

yes , similar behavior I was observing so thought of formatting but that is also not working.

I don't think SD card could be damaged in multiple phones.

I contacted MS support, will update their reply.

 

[ErJaspreetSingh]

Re: Unable to format SD Card - Lumia 640XL

yes , similar behavior I was observing so thought of formatting but that is also not working.

I don't think SD card could be damaged in multiple phones.

I contacted MS support, will update their reply.

Okay.. I'll wait.. I'm tying to contact Sony customer care.
And also try to format on different machine.
Once months ago I was unable to format thn itried I on windows 7 and formatted in seconds

 

[Derausgewanderte]

i don't know what needs to be further speculated. as rahulpah already wrote, pull the sdcard out of the phone and scan it on the PC and possibly format it. I had this happen to me twice on two different 640XLs that the sdcard stopped working after a couple months (32GB sandisk and 64Gb lexar). One card simply wouldn't open, the other showed content but always came back as write protected on both my PC and laptop. Both of these were replaced under limited lifetime warranty through the manufacturer via RMA. It takes a few weeks to get the replacement.

To the original poster, your card seems to be write protected, which can happen. You can try the low level format tool to see if you can recover the sdcard. if that doesn't work, get a replacement from manufacturer.

 

[pankaj981]

Re: Unable to format SD Card - Lumia 640XL

Connect the card to a PC and format using diskpart commands. If you're still unable to format then your card is damaged.

 

[milindB]

Re: Unable to format SD Card - Lumia 640XL

I will check if SD card can be formatted as per the ways suggested. Strangely I looked on forum and found there are multiple peoples facing similar issue, one common among all is data comes back after delete.

Is it really to do with SD card? Phone has no role in it?

There is no reply from MS community forum as of now.

 

[Derausgewanderte]

Re: Unable to format SD Card - Lumia 640XL

micro SDCards are finicky. In my case it was definitely the card and not the phone. These things have a certain failure rate. I would not infer from "multiple" reports here that the phone is at fault yet. The one I have now is rock solid.

Just read the 1 star ratings on Amazon for any of these. For example this Lexar. Lots of defective and "read-only".
That is 6% out of ~2000 reviews. I'd consider that as multiple and within the range...

 

[vellai durai]

Re: Unable to format SD Card - Lumia 640XL

Is there any option found i am also facing the issue?
I cant able to format .if i delete,the data comes back and sd card work without any issue

 

[Derausgewanderte]

Re: Unable to format SD Card - Lumia 640XL

get it replaced as long as you can get your data back.

 

[ErJaspreetSingh]

Re: Unable to format SD Card - Lumia 640XL

Is there any option found i am also facing the issue?
I cant able to format .if i delete,the data comes back and sd card work without any issue

Same problem with my card. i just bought a new one.
its under waranttay but I cant replace it because there is personal data.

 

[Derausgewanderte]

Re: Unable to format SD Card - Lumia 640XL

Same problem with my card. i just bought a new one.
its under waranttay but I cant replace it because there is personal data.

hmm, you could try to physically damage it without actually damaging the card itself. However, you'd need a really strong magnetic field (more than a rare earth magnet, which is ~ 1 Tesla at surface). If you have access to, or know somebody with NMR equipment (nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy), the magnetic field can be >10Tesla, which should erase the card. That's what I'd try in our lab....

 

[milindB]

Re: Unable to format SD Card - Lumia 640XL

Connected SD card with PC and tried to format, got error saying "Media is write protected". Tried lot of option to remove write protection and format, but non of them helped. I did wrote to Transcend regarding this, hopefully will not receive any inputs from them :unhappy:

Should look for new SD card now

 

[Derausgewanderte]

Re: Unable to format SD Card - Lumia 640XL

Connected SD card with PC and tried to format, got error saying "Media is write protected". Tried lot of option to remove write protection and format, but non of them helped. I did wrote to Transcend regarding this, hopefully will not receive any inputs from them :unhappy:

Should look for new SD card now

that's exactly what happened to my last one from lexar. A low level format would throw errors on each sector.
good luck with the replacement. they will take their time of course.

 

[ivan_m]

I had exactly the same problem.

I tried old SD card, which is working fine. So I concluded it's the SD card (Transcend).

However, now I wonder if it is the phone after all, after seeing so many people had a same problem.

 

[bluefirestarter]

I'm having the same issue as well.. I did a hard reset on my phone with the current build of win 10 mobile and I can't format the card and neither can the phone. I tried moving some of the apps from the phone over anyways and it's all wonky now with half of them moving over and some not. Windows says it's write protected and I wasn't able to override it in Ubuntu either. This is the second time I had this happen after a hard reset it's def something with Windows and not the memory card