"SD card unexpectedly removed" on San Fran - what's the deal?

[Guest glossywhite]

Hi guys :)

My friend bought a San Fran on my recommendation - typical that something *would* go wrong, so I now look like a plank! :)

His San Fran says "SD card unexpectedly removed" @ random intervals. I have Googled this, and I see it happens on many different Android handsets, now and again.

Does anyone have any advice? Can you suggest whether this would be easy to remedy? Swapping it out it not an option due to circumstance, so it *has* to be self-fixed.

Thanks guys & gurlz :)

[Guest LorianNod]

Make sure the sd card metal bracket is properly in the lock position. it has tiny arrows to tell you which way.

[Guest glossywhite]

Make sure the sd card metal bracket is properly in the lock position. it has tiny arrows to tell you which way.

I am not meaning to be rude here, but are you basing this diagnosis upon mere guesswork, or is the microSD holder being loose, a known cause? I need a fast and accurate reply, by people who know what causes it - I am intelligent enough to deduce what *could* cause it, myself.

Thank you anyhow :)

[Guest RottenFoxBreath]

I am not meaning to be rude here, but are you basing this diagnosis upon mere guesswork, or is the microSD holder being loose, a known cause? I need a fast and accurate reply, by people who know what causes it - I am intelligent enough to deduce what *could* cause it, myself.

Thank you anyhow :)

Could be loose pins, or a loose bracket, a faulty memory card, something you have done/installed, or indeed a fault inside the phone, away from the memory card pocket.

Roll a dice, and pick a fault.

Try another card, or see if you can re-seat the one in it now, and check if it goes away.

I got this 3 times on other phones, 1 was a faulty phone board, 1 was app2sd and the size of the Ext2 partition, which was solved making it smaller, and the other was a faulty set of pins on the card pocket itself.(a pin actually broke off.)

Edited October 15, 2010 by RottenFoxBreath

[Guest glossywhite]

Could be loose pins, or a loose bracket, a faulty memory card, something you have done/installed, or indeed a fault inside the phone, away from the memory card pocket.

Roll a dice, and pick a fault.

Try another card, or see if you can re-seat the one in it now, and check if it goes away.

I got this 3 times on other phones, 1 was a faulty phone board, 1 was app2sd and the size of the Ext2 partition, which was solved making it smaller, and the other was a faulty set of pins on the card pocket itself.(a pin actually broke off.)

Being an electronic engineer, I would check for all these symptoms anyhow, and thank you for mentioning those to me. I have emailed the guy who has the handset, with photos & detailed instructions on how to lock/unlock microSD card holder, clean the card contacts, re-seat and lock.

The reason I am here, asking, is for software causes of this issue.

Thanks again :)

[Guest DaveMac]

Might have been worth explaining your existing level of technical knowledge, experience & intelligence in the original post tbh.

Without being rude, it just sounds like you have dismissed people who thought they might be able to offer some advice :)

[Guest Len Ash]

Yes, it might have been more fruitful if you had explained from the outset what had and had not been tried or considered already, rather than decide to omit salient info and then deride those trying to assist you.

But now this thread is about as dead as your "friend's" phone I suspect... since you didn't bother to reply one way or another in manner that may have helped others here similarly affected.

Edited December 30, 2010 by Len Ash

[Guest speedfrog]

There is no need to abuse other members here, try to keep the language in a friendly tone :(

[Guest ZTE]

I had this problem on my new SF and being an electronics engineer myself, I did the obvious thing; I took the SDcard out, wiped the contacts and put it back in! It's been fine ever since.

This is a hardware problem, not software.

Cheers. :(

[Guest cecanor]

I had this problem on my new SF and being an electronics engineer myself, I did the obvious thing; I took the SDcard out, wiped the contacts and put it back in! It's been fine ever since.

This is a hardware problem, not software.

Cheers. :(

I am not using Google Navigator and works now. When I install Navigator, it starts to warn" SD Card Unexpectedly Removed", "Preparing SD Card" And at the end it its starting not to work with the handset any more (although returning factıry settings).

[Guest netdudeuk]

I had this problem on my new SF and being an electronics engineer myself, I did the obvious thing; I took the SDcard out, wiped the contacts and put it back in! It's been fine ever since.

This is a hardware problem, not software.

Cheers. :(

I disagree. It could be either. My new (cleaned) card does this on two SF handsets. It does it when files are either copied over via the USB cable or when a file is copied from one folder on the card to another. As some apps write to the SD card, there's the chance that something is being written to the card with the resultant apparent random error messages.

[Guest nightdrive]

Looking through these posts it seems there is a pattern.

cecanor, netdudeuk, glossywhite and myself seem to be experiencing a software, or SDcard formatting issue.

My symptoms are

Original 2Gb card works fine

New 16Gb card works while freshly formatted, but if I copy anything to it, either through mounting it via USB, or removing it from the phone, copying files to it, and reinserting it into the phone, I very soon get a series of notifications, which end in the card not being visible anymore in the "SD Card, USB Mass Storage & phone storage" settings page.

Any suggestions?

[Guest Steveharr]

I am not using Google Navigator and works now. When I install Navigator, it starts to warn" SD Card Unexpectedly Removed", "Preparing SD Card" And at the end it its starting not to work with the handset any more (although returning factıry settings).

I too get this message, but only when using Google Navigator with TTS in use. TTS reads from the sd card and for me it seems to be this that is causing the problem. My Orange SF came with the 2Gb sd card formatted FAT16. I had to format it to FAT32 to stop an error when trying to install new ROM. I then started to get the error when the card was formatted FAT32. I have since reformatted the card FAT16 and have not had the error when I used Google Navigator only once, so I can't say that this has fixed it for sure.

I'm using Sebastians 2.1 ROM. Latest Google Nav and Maps, and have 2GB sd card as supplied with phone.

There may be a pattern that 'nightdrive' suggests but it does not match my case at all.

[Guest netdudeuk]

I too get this message, but only when using Google Navigator with TTS in use. TTS reads from the sd card and for me it seems to be this that is causing the problem. My Orange SF came with the 2Gb sd card formatted FAT16. I had to format it to FAT32 to stop an error when trying to install new ROM. I then started to get the error when the card was formatted FAT32. I have since reformatted the card FAT16 and have not had the error when I used Google Navigator only once, so I can't say that this has fixed it for sure.

I'm using Sebastians 2.1 ROM. Latest Google Nav and Maps, and have 2GB sd card as supplied with phone.

There may be a pattern that 'nightdrive' suggests but it does not match my case at all.

FAT16 supports up to 2GB. My 16GB card's been sent off but maybe someone else wants to try a 'faulty' card, creating a 2GB partition on it and then formatting it to FAT16 to see if it works ? My 4GB FAT32 card is 100% ok though ???

[Guest DafMon]

FAT16 supports up to 2GB. My 16GB card's been sent off but maybe someone else wants to try a 'faulty' card, creating a 2GB partition on it and then formatting it to FAT16 to see if it works ? My 4GB FAT32 card is 100% ok though ???

I created a 2GB partition on my Kingston 16GB class 4 card, formated to FAT16, unfortunatelly the problem with unmounting continues...

[Guest Bobblewort]

I created a 2GB partition on my Kingston 16GB class 4 card, formated to FAT16, unfortunatelly the problem with unmounting continues...

Got this problem on my phone too. Using the £15.99 Class 4 16Gb card from Play with de-orangeated Rom r7 on TFT.

Noticed that if the SF is connected to the PC, and the SD mounted, anything that involves a large amount of I/O to the card,

e.g. copying / deleting large numbers of files, results in failure under Windows. The sd card becomes temp dismounted,

and I have to remount, and try again with a smaller number of files.

No EXT2/EXT3 on SD card, using a short length USB cable, and the USB port on the PC I'm using, works fine with other USB devices.

Edited January 8, 2011 by Bobblewort

[Guest NoxyD]

Got this problem on my phone too. Using the £15.99 Class 4 16Gb card from Play with de-orangeated Rom r7 on TFT.

Noticed that if the SF is connected to the PC, and the SD mounted, anything that involves a large amount of I/O to the card,

e.g. copying / deleting large numbers of files, results in failure under Windows. The sd card becomes temp dismounted,

and I have to remount, and try again with a smaller number of files.

No EXT2/EXT3 on SD card, using a short length USB cable, and the USB port on the PC I'm using, works fine with other USB devices.

This is exactly what i get (i have had) now it wont even recognise the card) I have tried the card in my gf's SF and it works fine, i think its a phone problem, and if i can, reflash to stock rom, and take it back for an exchange. (will i get away with that ? )