SD Card Not Showing Up in Windows 10? Fix It with This Guide

In some cases, you may need to insert a micro SD card into your Windows 10 so that you can access and read it on your PC. However, unexpected issues may randomly happen and you may find the SD card not showing up Windows 10.

To figure out the reasons and corresponding solutions to the “SD card not detected Windows 10” issue, you can keep an eye on the following content.

What Causes the SD Card Not Showing Up Windows 10

Why is your SD card not showing up Windows 10? Various factors may lead to the consequence. Below this post summarizes some of the most common reasons.

• You connect the SD card to the PC improperly.
• The SD card reader doesn’t work.
• The SD card driver is outdated or corrupted.
• Your SD card is write-protected.
• Certain viruses or malware infect your SD card.
• Your SD card doesn’t have a drive letter or the drive letter is incorrect.
• The SD card gets corrupted or damaged.

Recover Data on the Problematic SD Card

You are likely to suffer from data loss due to the “SD card not showing up Windows 10” issue. Therefore, before the repair, we highly recommend you recover lost data on the SD card and save it in another place with a piece of third-party data recovery software. As for this, MiniTool Partition Wizard is a great choice.

It’s a powerful data recovery tool that enables you to restore documents, photos, videos, music, and other files from various storage locations, such as partitions, unallocated space, hard disks, Desktop, Recycle Bin, and so on.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to recover data with MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Step 1: Click the button below to download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard on your PC. Then.

MiniTool Partition Wizard DemoClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Step 2: Launch this program to get into the main interface. Then select Data Recovery at the top toolbar.

Step 3: In the next window, move your cursor to the SD card and then click Scan.

Step 4: After the scanning process ends, all the data on the SD card will show up. 

Step 5: Find and check the needed files. Then click Save and choose a different directory to recover them.

How to Fix SD Card Not Showing Up in Windows 10

In this section, several methods are available for fixing the “Windows 10 SD card not showing up” issue. Simply follow them to troubleshoot your problem.

Solution 1: Check the Connection

When facing the “Windows 10 SD card not showing up” issue, the first thing you should do is check if there is a connection problem. You can switch to a different USB port or use a new card reader. Besides, you can also try plugging the SD card into another PC to see if it shows up.

If the error is still here after you do the above attempts, it may indicate that there is something wrong with the SD card itself. Then you should go on with the next methods.

Solution 2: Remove the Write Protection of Your SD Card

The “SD card not showing up Windows 10” issue may also occur if the SD card is write-protected. Hence, to get rid of this annoying issue, you can turn off the write protection for a try. You can follow this guide to perform this operation: How to Remove Write Protection on Micro SD Card – 8 Ways.

Solution 3: Change the Drive Letter of the SD Card

Sometimes, the SD card may be not showing up in Windows 10 File Explorer but in Disk Management. That’s because the SD card doesn’t have a drive letter or is assigned with the wrong drive letter. In this case, you just need to fix this issue by changing the SD card’s drive letter. To do this, follow the steps below.

Step 1: Right-click the Start icon and then select Disk Management from the menu.

Step 2: Right-click the partition on the problematic SD card and select Change Drive Letter and Paths.

Step 3: In the prompted window, click Change and then select a preferred drive letter from the drop-down menu of the next window. After that, click OK to save the change. If prompted, click Yes to confirm.

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Solution 4: Update the SD Card Driver

The outdated driver on your PC may result in the “micro SD card not detected Windows 10” issue too. To sort it out, you should try updating your SD card driver with the following steps.

Step 1: Right-click the Start icon and select Device Manager.

Step 2: Double-click the Disk drives category to expand it. Then right-click the SD card driver and select Update driver.

Step 3: In the pop-up window, select Search automatically for drivers to continue.

Step 4: After that, Windows will search for the latest available driver update and install it automatically.

Solution 5: Run the Hardware and Devices Troubleshooter

The Hardware and Devices troubleshooter is a Windows in-built utility that can help deal with lots of hardware issues. Therefore, when you run into the “Windows 10 SD card not showing up” issue, you can try to fix it by using this helpful tool. Here’s how to do that.

Step 1: Press Windows + R to open the Run dialog.

Step 2: Type cmd in the text box and click OK to open Command Prompt.

Step 3: In Command Prompt, type msdt.exe -id DeviceDiagnostic and press Enter. This command will help open the Hardware and Devices troubleshooter.

Step 4: After the troubleshooter opens, click Next to begin detecting and repairing possible problems related to devices and hardware.

Step 5: Once done, restart your PC to see if the issue disappears.

Solution 6: Re-enable SD Card Reader

When experiencing the “micro SD card not detected Windows 10” issue, another way you can try to fix it is to disable and then re-enable the SD card reader. If you have no clue how to do this, you can follow the steps below.

Step 1: Open Device Manager and then expand the Memory technology devices category.

Step 2: Find and right-click the SD card reader you are using. Then select Properties.

Step 3: In the Properties window, go to the Driver tab. Then click the Disable Device button.

Step 4: When a message box pops up, click Yes to confirm this operation.

Step 5: Finally, restart Device Manager and go to the Driver tab of the SD card reader’s Properties window. Click Enable Device to re-enable it.

Solution 7: Check the SD Card for Errors

File system corruption or bad sectors on the SD card may bring about the “micro SD card not detected Windows 10” issue as well. On this occasion, you’d better do disk checking. It’s simple and you just need to run the chkdsk *: /r command in the elevated Command Prompt. Replace * with the drive letter of your SD card.

The above command can effectively help you not only check and fix the corrupted file system but also locate the detected bad sectors on the SD card and recover the readable information from the bad sectors.

In addition to CHKDSK, it’s also recommended that you use MiniTool Partition Wizard. It can be used as a disk checker as well because of its Check File System and Surface Test features. If needed, simply install and launch this program on your PC to have a try. Here’s a detailed guide for you: Fix Corrupted SD Card with Professional SD Card Repair Tools.

MiniTool Partition Wizard FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Solution 8: Format the SD Card

If the current file system of this SD card is not compatible with Windows, you won’t see it appear on your PC, either. To handle this issue, it’s better to re-format the SD card to a Windows-supported file system. Since the SD card is not detected in Windows 10, you may fail to format it with Windows built-in utilities including Disk Management, Diskpart, and File Explorer.

To make sure you can complete the format successfully, you should take advantage of a third-party partition manager like MiniTool Partition Wizard. Here’re detailed steps for formatting the SD card with this program.

1. Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard to enter its main interface.
2. Highlight the target partition on the SD card and select Format Partition from the left action panel.
3. Select a desired file system and then click OK.
4. Click Apply to execute this operation.

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Bottom Line

This post tells what causes the “SD card not showing up Windows 10” issue and how to fix it in detail. When you are stuck in this issue, you can try to fix it with the help of this post. If you have any problems with this issue, you can leave a message in the comment part below.

If you run into certain issues while using MiniTool Partition Wizard, you can contact us via [email protected]. We’ll make a reply to solve your problems as soon as possible.