Fix SD Card Not Showing Up Windows 10

Are you having problems with SD Card Not Showing Up on Windows 10? SD card is widely used in many kinds of portable devices, such as mobile phone, digital camera, MP3 player and so on. To transfer data from SD card to computer or other storage devices, you need to connect it to a computer.

However, issues happen frequently. You may find a SD card not showing up on Windows 10. Actually, it is not rare, especially after upgrading the computer to Windows 10. How does this issue take place?

 

 

The reasons for SD card not showing up on Windows 10 can be divided into two categories: hardware and software errors, like improper ejection, bad computer USB port, failed SD card reader, outdated device driver, virus infection, SD card damage, etc.

If you are suffering this issue, you may troubleshoot the cases one by one to get rid of it. First of all, restart your computer, and this is feasible to solve most of the computer problems. If it doesn’t work, please try the solutions provided in the section below.

 

Solutions to SD Card Not Showing Up Windows 10

Here are several solutions you might use in case of having problems with SD Card Not Showing Up on Windows 10:

 

1. Connect SD Card to Another Computer

When the computer USB port is faulty, the connecting SD card can’t be detected or showing up on this computer. To exclude this cause, you may connect to the SD card to another healthy computer to see if the SD card can be recognized on it. Or try another SD card to the original computer to check the interface.

 

2. Enable SD Card Reader

The SD card won’t be detected if it is connecting to the computer via a disabled SD card reader. Just check it in this way.

Step 1. Right click Start and hit Device Manager.

Step 2. Find the target SD card and right-click it. If Disable option is available, it means the SD card reader has been enabled. If not, click Enable option. After that, it can be detected on Windows 10 normally.

 

3. Check SD Card in Disk Management

Go to Disk Management to see whether the SD card is visible. If you can find it, just check whether it has a drive letter. Follow the steps to assign a drive letter to the SD card.

Step 1. When a SD card appears as a removable disk in Disk Management, you may check whether it has a drive letter.

Step 2. If there’s no, just right-click the SD card and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths.

Step 3. Click Add and assign a drive letter. Click OK to confirm.

After that, your SD card would appear in File Explorer along with local disks.

 

4. Run Hardware Troubleshooter

You can run Windows built-in hardware troubleshooter to troubleshoot hardware issues.

Step 1. Press Windows + I to open Settings. Click Update & Security > Troubleshoot.

Step 2. Find and click Hardware and Devices in the right window. Click Run the troubleshooter. Then, Windows will detect and fix problems related to devices and hardware automatically.

 

5. Update or Reinstall SD Card Driver

Sometimes, the SD card not showing up on Windows 10 is caused by an outdated device driver. Try updating or reinstalling the driver to resolve the SD card not working.

Step 1. Enter Device Manager.

Step 2. Locate the SD card and right-click it. Select Update Driver.

Step 3. Click Search automatically for updated drive software to look for a new driver. If no new drive can be found, go to the manufacturer’s website and install one following the instruction.

Step 4. You can just choose Uninstall If there’s no available update. Then restart the computer, and Windows will reinstall this driver by itself.

 

6. Check Hardware Connections

As it is common to use a card reader to connect the SD card to the computer, you may check whether hardware errors cause the problem.

① Change another SD card reader to connect it with the computer to see if it will display.

② Connect the SD card reader to another healthy computer to see if it will show up.

③ Clean the SD card, SD card reader, and computer USB port to remove the dust.

④ Change to insert the SD card reader to another USB port on your computer to see if it displays.

 

7. Run an Antivirus Scan

Virus and malware may also cause SD card not showing up as well as many other issues on Windows 10. So, it is necessary to perform an antivirus scan regularly to detect and get rid of viruses and malware to protect your computer better.

 

8. Remove Write Protection on the SD Card

As we know if the SD card is write-protected, it will not appear on other devices. So, when your SD card is not showing up on Windows 10, you can check if it is locked. And then, follow these steps to remove the write protection.

Step 1. Press Windows + R and type cmd to run Command Prompt as administrator.

Step 2. Input disk part and press Enter.

Step 3. Type list disk and press Enter.

Step 4. Then, type select disk n and press Enter. Remember to replace n with the number representing the SD card.

Step 5. Finally, input attributes disk clear read only and press Enter.

 

9. Recover SD Card and Reformat It

After trying the methods above, if your SD card is still not recognized, or it can be detected but some important files are lost, you may need to recover data from the SD card and then format it to make it usable again.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery is a piece of wonderful data recovery software for Windows. With the help of it, you are able to recover data from the local disk drive, external hard drive, USB drive as well as SD card. Just follow this tutorial to begin the SD card recovery.

Step 1. Connect the SD card to the Windows computer via a card reader. Then run the MiniTool data recovery program.

Step 2. On the main interface, choose the Removable Disk Drive module. Select the target SD card and click Scan to begin the scanning process.

Step 3. Just wait for the scanning completion. Then, you can check the scan results to find what you need to recover. After checking all the needed files, click Save to choose a storage path to store the restored files.

After finishing these steps, you have succeeded in recovering data from the SD card. Then, go to Disk Management to format it (to FAT32) for reuse. If the SD card is not showing in Disk Management, you have to use a third-party partition manager to do this work. MiniTool Partition Wizard is a nice choice.

 

Conclusion

Reading here, with acquiring multiple solutions to SD card not showing up on Windows 10, you are sure to solve this problem on your own. These methods apply to Windows 8 and Windows 7 as well.

That’s it. Hope this post can be helpful to troubleshoot SD card not working issue on Windows. If you still have problems, please comment below for more help.