If your SD card is not detected on Windows 10, this problem may be due to a lack of power on the flash drive. You must find the cause. The cause can be both hardware and software related. Consider step by step what you can do if you don’t see the SD or MicroSD on your computer.
Most of the data is kept on flash cards. Photos or movies, documents or other microSD card information can easily be viewed on the laptop SD card adapter.
When problems emerge with the reader, it becomes hard to share information, which produces a lot of user problems.
Why Windows does not detect the SD card?
Why doesn’t my SD card appear on my Windows 10 or Mac computer? Hardware or software difficulties could be the cause. It can be due to the outdated device driver, faulty or unsupported SD card file system, incorrect SD card ejection, unsuitable SD card reader, bad USB port, write protection for SD card, malware/virus infection, logical and physical injury to the SD card, etc.
Based on the potential causes, below we present 8 remedies with full guidelines to help you cope with SD error that is not recognised on Windows 10.
Fix SD Card not detected on Windows 10
Fix 1. Restart Your Laptop
Sometimes restarting a laptop can always do the trick if your laptop has troubles.
To reboot your PC, you can select Start -> Power -> Restart. After that, confirm that your Windows 10 computer detects the SD card.
Fix 2. Hardware Connections Check
Since we utilise an SD card reader to connect the SD card to your laptop to retrieve your info. First, you can check whether the problem is due to hardware problems.
- To see if the SD card reader is fine, change to another USB port on your computer.
- Change the SD card adapter to verify if the adapter is responsible for the SD card problem.
- Plug in another SD card into the SD card reader to see whether data can be accessed.
- Connect the SD card reader to a different laptop to see whether it works.
- You can also try cleaning the SD card and SD card reader for dusts.
- Check if the memory card lock switch is unlocked.
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Fix 3. Troubleshoot Your Hardware
Windows offers a built-in troubleshooter for hardware. You can run it to fix hardware issues.
Step 1. To open Settings, you can press Windows + I. Click Update & Security -> Troubleshoot
Step 2. Click Hardware and Devices found in the right window. And then click Run on the troubleshoot menu.
Windows finds and resolves device and hardware problems automatically.
After successfully troubleshooting and restarting the laptop, if no error is shown for the SD card reader or USB port, you could consider it to be the software issue. Check the following solutions to fix them one at a time.
Fix 4. Reinstall or update SD Card Reader Driver
Most SD card readers update drivers automatically when you initially plug them into the computer. If the corrupted or outdated SD card reader driver does not recognise the SD card for Windows 10, you may follow the procedure below to update or reinstall the SD card reader driver.
Step 1. Press Windows + X to launch the Device Manager.
Step 2. Expand your disc drives and right-click on your device SD card and pick Update driver. You may alternatively select Uninstall the device and then click Action->Scan for hardware changes to reinstall the SD card reader driver.
Fix 5. Scan for viruses
Malware or virus infection may potentially lead to the failure of the SD card in Windows 10. It is advisable that you run Windows Defender or install antivirus software from third parties to conduct a full virus scan.
Some virus can hide your files from the SD card.
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Fix 6. Assigning a Drive Letter to the SD card May work
If the SD card does not appear in the Windows 10 File Explorer or is not recognised, this can be caused by a missing SD card drive letter problem. Use Disk Management to easily assign a drive letter for the SD card.
Follow the steps below to set SD card drive letter.
Step 1. To open Windows Disk Management, enter Windows + R, type diskmgmt.msc in the Run box and hit Enter.
Step 2. Find and right-click the removable SD card drive. Then you may click Add button to assign a new drive letter for the SD card in the pop-up box.
MiniTool Partition Wizard can also be used to change drive letters effortlessly.
You may then reopen the File Explorer to check whether the SD card displays on Windows 10.
Fix 7. Open Device Manager and disable and enable SD Card Reader
- To open Device Manager, press Windows + R, type devmgmt.msc in Run box, then click Enter.
- Next expand your Memory devices and right-click on the Properties to select your SD card reader.
- Then click on the Driver tab and on the Disable Device button then OK.
- Click the Enable Device button to re-activate the device. Then check whether the SD card is detected on your laptop.
Fix 8. Remove SD Card Write Protection
A write-protected SD card may not display in Windows 10. You can take the following procedures to remove the SD card’s write protection.
#1. Run Diskpart to remove write protection
- Click the start button, right click CMD and choose ‘run as administrator.’
- Type the diskpart in CMD to open the Diskpart window by pressing Enter.
- Type listdisk and hit Enter
- Type *, replace “*” with the correct SD card drive letter. Press Enter.
- Type attributes disc clear readonly and Enter.
#2. Use Registry Editor to fix SD Card write protection
The SD card write protection can also be removed via the Registry Editor . Check how to do this.
- Press Windows + R, type regedit to start Windows 10 Registry Editor.
- Navigate to the following path: HKEY LOCAL MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies.
- If in the right window you see a WriteProtect key, double-click the key and set the values from 1 to 0.
Fix 9. Repair CHKDSK Corrupted SD Card File System
To fix a corrupted SD card file system that could cause a micro SD card not to appear on Windows 10. You can use another free disc checking programme built-in by Windows – CHKDSK.
Step 1. Open CMD as administrator
Step 2: Type chkdsk <letter drive:> /f /r, e.g. chkdsk d: /f /r, and click Enter.
Then the Windows CHKDSK utility checks and repairs hard disc faults automatically, fixes the corrupted SD card file system and repairs logical malfunctions of the drive.
Fix 10. SD Card Data Recovery and FAT32 Reformat
You can use the aforementioned ways to fix an SD card that does not appear or is not recognised in Windows 10. If there are some corruptions in the SD card and you’re losing some data, you can use data recovery software to retrieve data from the SD card and reformat the SD card to check if it can operate correctly again.
Conclusion
You can save yourself the hassle by bringing the SD card and your laptop to StarLabs Services for a quick repair. SD failures on laptops are common and our professional technicians can easily fix it. We also provide services for other laptop defects including screen cracks, fan replacement, battery replacement etc.
