PUNCHLINE: If you have experienced it, please go
, and click the star to register as a user with this problem.-----------------------------------------
Trust me, I know this is not a new issue but since I didn't see a thread on this forum specifically dedicated to this particular problem yet, I figured I'd create one to support the cause of getting Google to fix it, by pointing people with this problem to the defect issue case in Google's system (
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In case you're unfamiliar with it, or if you're wondering if it's what you've experienced,
here's my story...
When I had a Bionic (had it for over a year, and after 5 'replacements', it was finally replaced for real this January with a Droid Razr Maxx HD), I had problems with the SD card auto-unmounting all the time. So, I was happy to finally have a good working phone when I got my first Maxx HD.
Then, that shiny, new Maxx HD was also replaced (with another shiny, new Maxx HD), partially because of problems with the SD card auto-unmounting (and a faulty USB/charging port).
So now, I have a new Maxx HD, and I also bought a brand new PNY, Class 10, 32GB MicroSD card, just in case the problems were coming from a faulty 16GB SanDisk card that I had.
It seemed to be working just fine since the replacement (last weekend), and then, this weekend, I got the dreaded set of notifications....
Then, when I went into the system settings to check on what it had to say in 'Storage', this is what I saw...
27.07KB 18 downloads
Then, when I went into 'Files' to see what it looked like in the file browser, the item that listed the SD card gave a reading of "0.00 GB available"
37.94KB 18 downloads
^^^^ Of course, all the while, the card is actually still plugged in, and hasn't been changed or anything.
In fact, contrary to some of the anecdotal evidence (an oxymoron anyway), there doesn't seem to be any trigger event that we can see, and in my case this weekend, it just happened out of the blue when I wasn't even doing anything on the phone at all.
I then went through the long, drawn-out cycle of trying this and that to attempt to get it back in operation...
* restarted
-nothing
* physically removed the SD card, and restarted, and then put it back in and restarted
-nothing
* tried same as above with power on, and power off, multiple times, in different order, etc
-nothing
Finally, I decided to remove the card and plug it into my Windows computer, and on there, it came up immediately, and I was able to easily copy everything from it (just to make sure I had it backed up).
Then, this morning, I went to Best Buy (where I got the phone). The first guy (Best Buy Mobile tech) said he hadn't ever heard of such a thing, and it seemed odd when it's such a common problem out there. I suggested that he Google "SD card unexpectedly removed". He did, and was intrigued with the mass of results.
When I asked one of the other guys that I recognized from before, he immediately knew what I was talking about, and echoed the presence of all kinds of threads about it all over the place. When I asked his opinion (i.e. is it a carrier problem, or a hardware manufacturer problem, or something deeper, caused by Google back in the 'Android OS factory'?), he suggested it goes back to Google and a basic OS issue.
The fact that I see threads about this problem from all kinds of people that own many different phones from various manufacturers, connected to various mobile service provider networks, his general inclination seems to go along with what appears to be going on out there (....and....right freakin here, unfortunately).
I've tried a few of the suggested 'fixes' out there, but I'm not sure yet if any of them actually work, because some of the stories I've read suggest that it could be working just fine for a long time, and then (sometimes a week, or even 6 months later) bam! the problem comes back again.
This is really annoying!!
Worse yet, people are losing data to this problem, because, for some of us, when it happens, it doesn't simply make the SD card become unavailable, it actually blows away a big chunk of the data sitting on it. :/
After reading through most of the main threads out there on the forums and blogs, etc, it really does seem to me now like it's a problem at the OS layer, and that the responsibility for this problem lies with Google.
I'm not sure if there has been any sort of official acknowledgement of this problem yet, but I did find an entry for it here...
If you have experienced the 'SD card unexpectedly removed' problem,
please go to
and click the star (the easy way to +1 the defect issue).