My SD card unmounted unexpectedly and will no longer mount properly.

[pakman3590]

I have a Verizon LG G3 running the latest release of Marshmallow. I had just updated my OS to Marshmallow from Lollipop (not by choice, the update decided to install itself after a few months of manually putting it off) and had my phone plugged in to my computer via USB. I was transferring some video files to the phone averaging about 400mb each when the phone threw an error saying that the sd card had unexpectedly unmounted mid-transfer. A few seconds later, there would be a message that an sd card had been mounted, but I wouldn't be able to transfer any files to/from the phone to the computer and could not properly eject the phone from my computer. I reconnected the phone usb to the computer and tried again, but the same error occurred. I tried rebooting the phone and when the phone turned back on, it started an endless loop of error messages saying "Reading Samsung SD card". The message sticks around for about 10-15s before it switches to a message with the option to try to fix the drive for a split second before reopening the previous error message.

I tried plugging the SD card directly into my computer's card reader and it will show up in my computer about half the time, but I am unable to open the drive and it unmounts itself within about 30-45s and will not be detected again until I remove and then reinsert the sd card. I confirmed that it shows up as a disk drive in Device Manager, but am unable to see it in Disk Management as it causes Disk Management to hang while it is attempting to scan it before it unmounts itself. I have tried chkdsk, but that too hangs until the card unmounts itself and then throws the error "Cannot open volume for direct access".

I already have a replacement SD card, but am trying my best to recover the data off of this one. I have some pictures and videos that I never got a chance to back up and would hate to lose.
Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[KeepItReal]

I have had great success with PhotoRec. You can Google search. It is buried within another app called TestDisk (which can recover a corrupt hard drive). After the download, right click on 'photorec_win.exe' and select 'Run as Administrator'. It runs in a command window. It's not for the faint of heart. You can select which type files to recover (I pick all picture, video, music and document only, instead of searching for everything). Good luck!

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[the Core]

You can also try to push the copper connectors against the connectors of the card drive of your PC. Maybe there's just a bad connection.

 

[KeepItReal]

Excellent suggestion. I usually clean with alcohol and let evaporate and then try it in a USB reader card. But maybe try putting a something to press the connectors closer is a great idea, if at least to save the data. Maybe using post it note size something to create the pressure. But...I would still have to test the phone's SD card slot versus the actual SD card. If the SD Card worked in another phone or instantly in the USB card reader...then it's the phone SD slot; if not then the SD card is suspect. If creating pressure for a better connection and it works I would say copy all data to a PC and replace this SD card that needs pressure to connect. Still have a backup strategy for all your data both internal memory, and external SD card.

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[the Core]

Thanks and I do fully agree with you. In my case, I broke the SD slot of my Raspberry Pi and used duct tape to fix it. Yeah I know, I shouldn't, but please don't tell me.