Micro SD card write protected

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EviLClouD

266 posts

Ultimate Geek

#311305 4-Jan-2024 17:54

Hi there, i have a couple of Samsung Evo Plus Micro SD cards that are now 'write protected'.

Both probably about 2-3 years old but have been sitting for the past year or so. One of these cards has had minimal use.

Both cards will let me read but nothing else.

Is there anything i can do to fix these? It wont let me reformat. I have tried diskpart etc but they all come up with the error saying it's 'write protected'.

Thanks in advance

Behodar

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#3177780 4-Jan-2024 18:05

Are you plugging them into a Micro SD slot, or a full-sized slot via adapter? Has the write protect switch on the adapter become flipped?

EviLClouD

266 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3177782 4-Jan-2024 18:13

Into a usb card reader via an SD card adapter. I have 3 micro SD's and 3 adaptors. One card (Apacer) doesnt appear in windows explorer at all so i assume it's dead? and the other 2 (samsung's) appear in windows explorer but only let's me read what's on there as they're write protected. I've checked the switch and tried it both ways but no luck.

SomeoneSomewhere

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#3177783 4-Jan-2024 18:14

A different physical reader and PC is a good thing to try, especially when multiple cards are involved.

That said, often failing cards will go into read-only mode before they fail, especially if it's due to high wear. Unless you find a specific cause, replace them rather than trusting them in future.

EviLClouD

266 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3177785 4-Jan-2024 18:28

Good point. Would you know of a way to reformat them without using windows/diskpart?

SomeoneSomewhere

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#3177800 4-Jan-2024 18:35

You can do it from Linux, but the main issue is that reformatting requires writing to the drive - as far as the drive is concerned, the partition table and the structure of the partition is all just more data. If it's the drive that has declared itself read-only, nothing any OS can do will help.

EviLClouD

266 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3177801 4-Jan-2024 18:41

Thanks. I'm wondering if its worth reformatting to try claim warranty?

michaelmurfy

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#3177812 4-Jan-2024 18:45

What was their use before they went "read only"?

I say this as I've had some in Raspberry Pi's over the years that will go read only because they've failed. No point claiming warranty, SD cards are cheap so snapped in half and to the bin it goes.

A bit of a tip - you can often save a whole lot of money by ordering from Amazon AU.

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EviLClouD

266 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3177816 4-Jan-2024 18:53

Thanks for the tip!

One was used for a dash cam for maybe a year or so before i swapped it out for an endurance SD card.

The other was used for a drone which probably had less than 2 hours worth of usage before it was stored away.

SomeoneSomewhere

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#3177817 4-Jan-2024 18:57

Reformatting won't do anything for the warranty - if you can reformat it, it's clearly still 'serviceable' and therefore not needing warranty replacement.

Dashcam duty is very intensive on cards and it's not too surprising it failed, and probably not covered by warranty. The other one is a maybe.

Oblivian

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#3177826 4-Jan-2024 19:34

Theres always the official SD tool. Which is more or less a port of many others (and poss uses the windows ones)

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/

But as said, if it's legit dead, not going to help.