SD card not working any more.

I have had exactly the same problem. After reading these posts, I tried the same solution and held the SD card while booting...it worked but on further investigation, I discovered a hairline crack on the SD card, just next to the lock slider.  My fix was to carefully glue a thin, plastic shim to the broken corner and sand it down so that it fits snuggly into the Pi.  I don't know how long it will last and I probably wouldn't have bothered if it had been one of my lower capacity cards.

Now I have the card working and put my Pi back into it's case, it appears that the slot for the SD card is slightly too narrow causing the SD card to be slightly raised, I am left wondering if it is this that has caused my card to break?

Hope this helps.

pet 22 wrote:

 

I have had exactly the same problem. After reading these posts, I tried the same solution and held the SD card while booting...it worked but on further investigation, I discovered a hairline crack on the SD card, just next to the lock slider.  My fix was to carefully glue a thin, plastic shim to the broken corner and sand it down so that it fits snuggly into the Pi.  I don't know how long it will last and I probably wouldn't have bothered if it had been one of my lower capacity cards.

 

Now I have the card working and put my Pi back into it's case, it appears that the slot for the SD card is slightly too narrow causing the SD card to be slightly raised, I am left wondering if it is this that has caused my card to break?

 

Hope this helps.

My SD card was cracked as well.

I think the end of this post should say:

An SD card not being recognised means that it has a break somewhere on the top.  Due to the design of the raspberry pi, that means that it will no-longer work with the RPi but may still work in other devices.

Is it worth fixing it?

I guess it depends how badly damaged the card is and if it still 'functions' correctly.  Also, if you know how to fix it.

Marking as assumed answered.

Hello,

Any improvement here ?

I have the exact same problem. SDcard are not working on Rpi (just the red LED and no boot at all) while it perfectly works anywhere else (music, photos...).

The trouble is that I already bought 3 new cards of different brands to solve this trouble and it is always the same story. It works fine for the first image burn and if unluckilly, the install process or the update at whatever level goes wrong, then start the troubles. I precise that I have 5 Rpi, with 2 different power supplies and this happens whatever the Rpi I use. And if I change the working SDcards (I still have some... for how long ?) to other Pi, they still work... That is how I conclude that the trouble really comes from the SDCard, not from the Pi or power supplies.

So I'm a bit fed up with buying new cards every time an updating process goes wrong (which appened last saturday with XBMC while it was OK before. I should have blocked the automated update process).

Any new idea ?

Hello,

Any improvement here ?

I have the exact same problem. SDcard are not working on Rpi (just the red LED and no boot at all) while it perfectly works anywhere else (music, photos...).

The trouble is that I already bought 3 new cards of different brands to solve this trouble and it is always the same story. It works fine for the first image burn and if unluckilly, the install process or the update at whatever level goes wrong, then start the troubles. I precise that I have 5 Rpi, with 2 different power supplies and this happens whatever the Rpi I use. And if I change the working SDcards (I still have some... for how long ?) to other Pi, they still work... That is how I conclude that the trouble really comes from the SDCard, not from the Pi or power supplies.

So I'm a bit fed up with buying new cards every time an updating process goes wrong (which appened last saturday with XBMC while it was OK before. I should have blocked the automated update process).

Any new idea ?

PA CHAPELLE wrote:

 

Hello,

 

Any improvement here ?

 

I have the exact same problem. SDcard are not working on Rpi (just the red LED and no boot at all) while it perfectly works anywhere else (music, photos...).

 

The trouble is that I already bought 3 new cards of different brands to solve this trouble and it is always the same story. It works fine for the first image burn and if unluckilly, the install process or the update at whatever level goes wrong, then start the troubles. I precise that I have 5 Rpi, with 2 different power supplies and this happens whatever the Rpi I use. And if I change the working SDcards (I still have some... for how long ?) to other Pi, they still work... That is how I conclude that the trouble really comes from the SDCard, not from the Pi or power supplies.

 

So I'm a bit fed up with buying new cards every time an updating process goes wrong (which 'appened last saturday with XBMC while it was OK before. I should have blocked the automated update process).

 

Any new idea ?

How are you shutting down your RasPi?  If you just turn off power RasPi may have pending SD card updates that aren't performed, resulting in a corrupted file system.  A GUI-based OS generally has a shutdown command somewhere in the menu system.  From the GNU command line you enter a command like "sudo shutdown -h now".

There are other SD card suggestions at the RasPi Troubleshooting Wiki.  You should be able to do a full erase of the SD card and get it working again.  This works best with GNU/Linux using "dd".  I have read about Windows SD card tools misbehaving, depending on the version.

Hope this helps.

I found that my problem was that the SD card was cracked, meaning the SD card did not sit properly in the RPi but sat fine in my computer.  The way I tested this was:

1.  Power on RPi

2.  Press SD card upwards in the SD card slot (gently)

3.  The Card will boot.

There is no way to fix this... but if you get a new card, be VERY careful with how you handle it!!  Make sure you do not force it into any slot (including on your PC).

If this doesn't work then you have a different problem to what I had.  What I suggest:  Buy and external USB SD card reader because most Computer internal SD card readers don't work after the initial image.

Let me know how you get on.  Hope this helps!

I have a similar problem. I have a Kingston SD Adapter with a MicroSD card inside it.

After 3 weeks running without disruption I noticed I lost contact with the server (no ping, no ssh), So I decided to disconnect it and power on again, but it isn' t boot any more.

I had another MicroSD card and a microSD Card adapter from the same provider. I installed Raspbian again then boot and it starts up smoothly. After this, I exchange the microSD between adapters resulting in booting without problems with the brand new adapter and the two microSD cards. Looking closely to the adapter I noticed a crack on the back of the contacts side,

https://www.dropbox.com/s/it3859rvtupfwpk/SD-Adpater-Broken.jpg

I suppose the problem is related to the lack of back support of the SD card reader in conjunction with the pressure pins make to touch the contacts of the SD Card. Maybe this problem is not noticed when we use a full sized SD Card (without adapter) due to the fact that the full sized is more robust that the microSD adapter, that seems to be very weak, at least with the kingston trademark for 8GB microSD cards.

I had to glue a piece of ultra-thin playwood with epoxy (a very non orthodox solution) to have the enough support to not have a bend adapter that over time tends to break.

I hope Raspberry PI engineers evaluates the possibility of changing the SD Card reader or migrate to a microSD card reader instead. I think it is a more robust solution, as beaglebone has (I have one without any issue so far related to the microSD).

I hope this help people with similar issues.