Sd card unexpectedly removed.. Anyone else?

The Transcend 16gb SD card in my AT&T S3 finally died a couple of days ago. Today I put it in a card reader and it wasn't recognized. Lost all of my pictures. Maybe they were backed up when I updated to Jelly Bean via Kies recently. Think it's toast.

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Just a little background info: I've had my Galaxy SIII since the US release (summer 2012) and bought the SD card within days of purchasing the phone.

Never had issues with the SD card until the new year. There's the constant "SD Card Unexpectedly Removed", Preparing the card, error with the card, then not being able to mount the card. The phone now just doesn't recognize the card at all.

Seeing that there are a good number of others who have had this issue, I'm having a hard time believing this is an isolated issue or an issue with the SD cards.
 
my sd card when inserted in android mobile it says that blank sd card is inserted or it is unsupported bt b4 it was working properly and moreover the problem is wen i connect it to my pc it says sd card needs formatting and my computer doesnt show the remove drive icon..i dont want to format my sd card it has some important data please suggest a solution...and even if i format it can i get it recovered
:'(
 
I am using SG Note 2 with Sandisk 32G class 10, this is a major problem. Both items are expensive and who will take responsibility? both have warranties but no one take the resposibility,
 
Contact SanDisk. I got a replacement 32g SDHC, but am using a 64g SDXC card in the phone now.
 
Exact same problem here. I didn't have this problem at the beginning. I am going to try 'turn off, take the battery out, reinserted the SD card, insert the battery and turn on' method, see if it works. By the way, SD card problem is also draining my battery, about 50% of my battery life is squeezed by what is called 'Media' which includes SD cards.. My gf's galaxy s3 is having the exact same problem. I am pretty when we connect our sd cards to laptops we don't see this problem.
 
I use to hate it when people told me it was my fault for not backing up. The major reason was because I knew it was true. I suggest you start doing that with this incident. Now that I have a HDD that is actually bigger than 250GB (1TB) I have been doing better at it. I knew a person in their 5th year as an architect major as a freshman. One day his laptop was stolen, and 5 years of work and $2000 worth of hardware was gone in an instant. Use whatever you can, dropbox, box, skydrive, school server, flash drives, disks, and computers.

I have never had this issue on the S3 because I don't need a microsd on my phone, but it has happened to my cheap archos tablet. I have a usb and micro sd directly plugin to the tablet, and it happens so often, but mine never get's to the corrupt point. Just the point where it says it was removed unexpectantly.
 
My gf's galaxy s3 is having the exact same problem. I am pretty when we connect our sd cards to laptops we don't see this problem.

Not yet ... do yourself (and your gf) a favor and backup the contents of your SD cards to your PCs. At least that way, when you do have the problem, you won't lose irreplaceable stuff (as I did).
 
This happened to my wife's S3 last week. I chocked it up to a bad SD and moved on with restoring the data. Then, this morning it happened to mine. Different SD cards, different brands. This seems like too much of a coincidence. I've never had this happen on another phone and twice in 2 weeks on different phones? Maybe there's a bigger issue.
 
had same issue last week with my 32gb sandisk micro sd card...it would also get hot and waste my battery. I live chatted with sandisk help and they said it was a faulty sd card and they would replace it...free shipping to them and back...I took all my pics and put them on another card.
 
My memory card was working fine then suddenly i read that the card should not be removed before it is dismounted. I have switched off my s3 taken out the 64Gb sdcard removed the battery put the card back and my s3 still keeps asking me to insert my card. I have even pressed on it in case of contact issues but it still does not recognise it is in the mobile. I have only had the card for a few days so it should not have a problem. Any other suggestions would be helpful
 
UPDATE:
If you have experienced this 'SD card unexpectedly removed' problem,
please go to the following defect issue, and click the star to register yourself as another user with the problem...
Issue 9736 - android - SD card unexpectedly removed error LG Ally - Android - An Open Handset Alliance Project - Google Project Hosting

Also, please add this note and link to the OP to hopefully catch people when they first see this thread, and encourage them to go there and register before getting lost in this rabbit hole (i.e. a real solution might not exist outside of fixing some code somewhere within the OS itself).
 
Im having the same problem..sd card unexpectedly removed..it was working just fine before the jb update..i went to play store to download an app ...sd card moniter..and found it was unmounting and re mounting quit a bit..so i removed the sd card all together..as it chews through my battery..Please make samsung update ther jb to fix rhis problem..my card is a 32 gb sandisk card ...i have heard the buying a samsung sd card solves this problem..but stuff that i paid $100 dollars for this one..and i should still be able to use it!!! Im not spending more money..samsung needs to adress the problem.
 
I've had the same problem over the last few months with my S3 as well. To me, it seems like it's a mechanical issue.

Turn on the phone, open the back, insert the SD card, but HOLD it in place. It's like a push button, if you hold it as tight as it goes in, it detects and installs just fine. Release tension on the SD card slowly, (locking it in place), and it goes to "removed".

For whatever reason, the pins are fully touching the contacts when you release tension on the SD card. It may be touching initially, but it may start to slip as the phone gets used, causing more frequent issues.

No way I could tape it place, too much force pushing back on the SD card.
 
The fix i found... put it in you PC card reader. Browse it, quickly check that everything is there and it's the right card; put it back in the phone; power up and it's back. This has worked every single time for me. Restarting the phone, or re-seating the card never done a thing for me. The 8 gig card I had before this new one worked fine and never had an issue. The new card that is randomly unmounting is an ADATA brand class 10 32 gig. Nice large and fast. I too think it's a hardware issue... the sd card reader in the phone might become unstable with the larger cards or the faster class cards.

f you have experienced this 'SD card unexpectedly removed' problem,
please go to the following defect issue, and click the star to register yourself as another user with the problem...
Issue 9736 - android - SD card unexpectedly removed error LG Ally - Android - An Open Handset Alliance Project - Google Project Hosting
 
I was having the same issue with my GS3 so I went to Samsung's website and did a live chat. After chatting with them the problem seems fixed (knock on wood). They told me to do 2 things: First: Remove the Battery for 30 seconds and then put it back in and start the phone. Second: Follow theses steps:
1 Power the device off (remove and re-insert the battery).
2 Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
3 When the first boot screen displays; release only the Power key.
4 When the Android system recovery menu displays; release the Volume Up and the Home key.
5 Navigate with the Volume keys to the wipe cache partition and press the Power key to select

I'm not sure which part was the one that worked however so try both.

EDIT: Right after I posted this it came back... Chatting with them again we'll see if it helps any.
 
Last edited:
Hi all,
Similar problem here. I've got the Galaxy Media player 4.2. Worked fine for a month or two, then started seeing SD card problems. I get 'SD card unexpectedly removed' 'preparing SD card' 'unable to read SD card' 'damaged SD card' all at various times....restarting my player, after quick-swipe starting my player, even during playing music on the default player sometimes I'll get "media file is not supported" and the music stops. Doesn't matter if its switching songs or in the middle of the song. I know they are correct formats cause I can restart and get the songs to play no problem. I've restarted the player, reformated the player (both in my computer and in the player), taken the card out and back in. The only thing I haven't yet tried is to try the SD card in another device, only because I have no other device. I'm hesitant to believe its the SD card since so many others are having problems, and cause I spent some cash and bought a nice SanDisk ultra micro SDHC 32gb.
To boot, I've never dropped the player, and have always kept it in a protective case (Ringke SLIM). The push-click holder for the card seems to be fine.

I'm was converted from ipod hardware for the convenience of drag-and-drop, and accessability to other programs like adobe, word, etc. etc. However, this problem nearly makes the whole player useless since 4gb internal storage is a joke.

Has anyone found any reliable solution to this problem??
 
Bump!

I've got a new S4 with a new SanDisk 64gb card. Constant 'SD card removed' messages. Has anyone found Samsung SD cards to work better?
 
First scandisk card died after 2 day's. I did some research and scandisk stated they had a batch of bad cards. I replaced my cats and no issues so far. 64 gb

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
 
I have smae Problem with my S3 and it makes me angry because non stope my phone restarting even sometimes middle of typing in fb or skype or any other application
please if anyone who have knowladge about fixing of this problem kindly share your information
thank you
 

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