MicroSD Memory Card Recovery
 

For some reason my phone stopped reading my 32GB Sandisk Micro SDHC memory card. When I plug it into my LMDE laptop, the device is listed as "/dev/sdb" but there's no "/dev/sdb1" on it.

What are some sensible steps to take to get this working again, or is it likely that the memory card is dead. I think 'most' things are backed up so I'm not too worried if files are lost, but there is 1 weeks worth of stuff that isn't backed up that I'd love to recover.

gparted doesn't seem to list the device at all.

Thanks

Do these things come with some kind of proprietary formatting?

You could always try dd (with great care) to attempt to copy the card to a hard disk file for further investigation.
I think it's probably dead though...

It looks like it somehow got un-formatted. Have you tried formatting the card? You probably know this, but formatting will erase all data, but it looks like it's gone already. If you want to try something like file carving, do it before you format it.

Hope this helps!

In addition you can try photorec and testdisk. As stated the card could be dead or just corrupted.

I tried dd.
Photorec doesn't seem to see it as a drive either. Nothing much other than the file directory shows it as such.

I think it's dead. I always backup on a weekend. Sods law this occurs on a Friday.

Confession time: I was reluctant to write this, but I would like others searching for this to think before throwing a card away like I nearly just did.

Literally about to bin the SD card, when my wife said "You sure it's not the reader?"... Of course, it was the reader. :(

Problem solved. SD Card recovered.

Never mind!

I've seen a problem where the reader is fine, but the USB cable connecting it was bad. I've run across several USB cables that work fine otherwise, but won't give a proper connection to a multi-card reader. No idea why, but I keep seeing it. I recently bought a CF card, and it seemed DOA. I ordered a new reader, still a dead card. I tried a different USB cable, and everything worked. The cable that came with the new reader was flaky, and only worked maybe half the time. Short cables seem to be the worst, and longer ones seem to work better. It's all counter-intuitive, but that's what I've experienced.

Don't be, we all make mistakes, and it wasn't your fault to begin with.

...and that is exactly why you shouldn't be reluctant to post the solution, no matter how simple or obvious. Another person will come along with the same question, and Google might point him to this thread. A simple "I fixed it, thanks" won't tell him what the problem was or how to fix it, especially since the solution wasn't suggested by the other members above. That's why the forum has a search function, so people can see if their problem has already been solved before.

Sorry if I sound like I'm ranting...