Rogue:- Format this drive message

[12harry]

This is a common-enough situation... you plug-in an external drive ( Memory card in my example) and Win refuses access to it, ...putting up a message that suggest you need to Format the drive to use it.
Search on-line and there are many examples of this, some in different degrees, but all appear to have no solution. Even microsoft's own forum appears to be deathly silent on a fix,

I have had an almost trouble-free experience with Win7, 32-bit until one drive kept disappearing, eventually I replaced the drive, having copied it wholesale when it was present. Now it has gone "forever" - everything else was working correctly.
- Recently I bought a SSD for the C-drive which my Dealer fitted and copied-over the OS. Unfortunately, some of the drive letters moved and in trying to get them back, I upset the Boot-sequence.... but that is largely sorted: As I write this Msg today, Booting appears to be OK and PC works with existing Programs from the C-drive SSD. ( Can't say I'm massively impressed by any speed-gain. )
BUT
The external drive-letters for Memory Card slots have largely gone - the one that shows won't accept an SD card, (which I know worked last year, as the Data is on the PC ).... but now the PC puts up the message that the drive needs to be Formatted. Obviously this is highly destructive so should only be a last resort.
Oddly - if I put another card in[ 4Gb], "recorded audio" - that shows as I-drive and will play old files, as expected. The rogue card is 128G and it's SDXC, so maybe the USB card-reader isn't new enough to handle this. The PC's internal reader worked in the past: SD, SDHC, SDXC.

+I'm going to try re-assigning the drive-letters to the Card-reader unit... in the hope this could be mis-reading errors??? . . . . Will report if successful.
+ Any thoughts?
With an external USB "card-reader" the same card still gets the "Format" message,.
Tried this SD card in my Camcorder ( where it was used, 2 years ago ), and it works as it should, ). . Camcorder conforms last file is 4-7-2018 and Audio and video play as expected.
What this "Format" msg means is I'm unable to Copy-save/Edit any new Camcorder footage with this SDXC Card. IMHO Bit of an issue...
Yet another 128GSDXC card, reads OK - could it be the 1st adaptor..... just doesn't like the PC's Reader? Surely not if it works in the camcorder?

I have searched this Forum, but it reports no match... which is surprising as it's not uncommon... I guess folks find it's repaired itself =OK and that's a Fix.

Cheers.

 

[noiseboy72]

You don't normally need to assign a drive letter to a memory card reader. Mine doesn't even show up until I put a valid card in. Once I throw in an SD card, it will pop up, normally as G: but if I also have a phone or USB plugged in, it might be H: or J:

From the sounds of it, you have a faulty card reader or faulty cards. If you can read them in a camera, it would suggest the issue is with the card reader - or any software required to support it. The "Format" message is common when the PC fails to correctly read the memory card or device and in many cases it's a failing or failed card, but if the driver for the card reader is not working properly, this can give the same error.

I would try a new card reader. They are not expensive and at least you will have ruled out one potential failure.

 

[12harry]

Thanks for the reply.
My PC reader worked with other cards of the same capacity, so I focussed on the connections and "now" it reads OK.
It would seem that PC's not only output meaningless Msg - ( for if the issue is that not all pins are making contact,), formatting isn't going to help.

My Dealer suggested swapping the micro-SD adaptors,
but before I ended up with two rogue cards, I cleaned the contacts (very lightly), and this appears to have restored the data....​

You might think that checking all the required connections are good would be the first thing the reader "Port" would do.... Somewhat odd then, that the only Win-Option is to tell me the card needs Formatting... Oh well.

Cheers + MX and HNY to all.