Big problem with RAW micro SD card

barryman · 03 Jul 2023

I have Windows 10 Home edition

Can anyone advise me on this problem: - I have a 32gb SD card which has gone faulty. Windows 10 disk management and also Diskpart tell me it is RAW and nothing I do allows me to reformat it. (I don't care about any data on it - I just need to get the card working). I have tried reformatting via Disk management but at the end it just says formatting was not successful. Same with using Diskpart . When I try to create a partition primary it gives me the error message "there is not enough usable space for this operation"
One thing I have noticed (see screenshot) is that when in Diskpart I get to select volume it is showing me drive X (my SD CARD) but is also showing something named as Volume 4 which is RAW. Could that be what is stopping anything from formatting ??
I just have to "beat the system" and get this sorted. Please advise any other methods.
I have also tried using the Hard Disk low level formatting tool. It completes to 100% but when I then try to format using Windows I get the same "unsuccessful"messages.

Big problem with RAW micro SD card-sd-card-error.jpg

Megahertz · 03 Jul 2023

Try to clean the drive and then format
Open a CMD window as administrator and type:

diskpart
list disk (it will list all drives. Identify the SD drive number)
select disk n (replace n by the SD drive number obtained with list disk)
clean
convert mbr
create part primary
select part 1
format fs=fat32 quick
assign
exit (to exit diskpart)

Ghot · 03 Jul 2023

@barryman

It looks like vol 0 is the DVD
vol 1-4 is the 1TB drive
vol 5 (only), is the SD card.

Whenever you get weirdness when handling disks... get Minitool Partition Wizard (free), and use that instead...

Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Wizard Free

barryman · 03 Jul 2023

Ghot - I've tried Minitool Partition Wizard and that does not format it.
Megahertz - Tried to do what you suggested but it will not let me convert MBR. Get a message saying this drive cannot be converted.

Updated screenshot shows both Disk Management and Diskpart pages

Megahertz · 03 Jul 2023

I would say your drive is dead.

barryman · 03 Jul 2023

Looks like you are right - card might well be dead.

To close this thread can anyone tell me why I now see "Local Disk Z" listed on my File Explorer. It was previously listed as Volume 4 without a drive letter but in order to try to format it I assigned it a drive letter Z. I don't know what it actually is and don't want it showing, so what do I do with it ?? You'll see it's properties on my screenshot.
Any idea how to revert back to normal ?

Paul Black · 03 Jul 2023

Hello @barryman,

barryman said:

It was previously listed as Volume 4 without a drive letter but in order to try to format it I assigned it a drive letter Z.

That drive shows as Hidden !

Megahertz · 03 Jul 2023

When you did
diskpart
list disk (it will list all drives. Identify the SD drive number)
select disk n (replace n by the SD drive number obtained with list disk)
clean

Did it succeed on the clean cmd?

Try3 · 03 Jul 2023

I think you reformatted your Recovery partition, Disk 0 Partition 3 [Volume 4].

Take that SD card out and return to that subject later.

Sort out the Recovery partition issue first.
See recreating partitions [SIW2 #7 onwards] - TenForums

Denis

barryman · 04 Jul 2023

Firstly, thank you all for your advice - much appreciated.

Having wrongly reformatted my Recovery Partition in my attempts to repair my SD card can you tell me whether a System Restore taken a few days ago (before I started trying to repair the MicroSD card) would reinstate my partitions back to their previous configurations. The instructions that you sent to me for recreating recovery partition seemed a bit hard for me to undertake so I'm hoping a system restore might do it !!!