SD card is not identified in Linux Mint 10

[Tanishka]

I've installed Mint 10 operating system about a week ago on my Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop. When I frequently plug in my SD card then I face problems. Anyways, the SD-card reader on my laptop is internal, and always works. Yet, with mint 10, it seems to have trouble sometimes when I plug an SD-card in. A green indicator light will pop on if an SD-card is inserted, but now the light seems to stay on even if the SD is unplugged. I've tried restarting the laptop, but the light persists. I need a solution so that I can easily troubleshoot this problem.

[Enriqueta]

SD card are a form of storage device just as we use flash drives. SD card are used in digital cameras, digital camcorders, handheld computers, netbook computers, PDAs, media players, mobile etc. Many a times SD card is not recognized after inserting it into the computer system. Sometimes due to the dust that are build on SD card makes it unrecognizable. If there are dusts then in that case you may need to clean those dust so that the computer system can identify it. To clean the SD card you can make use of alcohol. After cleaning the SD card you need to insert it into the computer system and check if the problem has was solved. Sometimes if the driver is not updated then it may also prevent the SD card from not recognizing. You must then update all the drivers and check if the laptop has recognized the SD card that was plugged into it.

[windows_user]

If the SD card is not identified then there might be driver problems. Such as driver may be interfering with one another and due to which the SD card is not identified. You can troubleshoot this problem by following the steps given below:

1. You need to start the system and then go to the device manager.
2. In the device manager you may need to click on the “+” sign next to the "Storage Controllers" to expand it.
3. Right-click the SD card from the list, it will be named as Integrated MMC/SD Controller.
4. Click on uninstall driver and do not put the checkmark beside “Delete the Driver Software for this Device".
5. Click on ok button and restart the system. Now the SC card problem will be solved easily.

[Tanishka]

Whenever I plugged in SD card into my laptop then the green light glows but as soon as I unplug the SD card from my system still the green light keeps on glowing. Thanks for providing me the solution. From the above given solution I have cleaned my SD card with the alcohol and also I have updated my drivers. Thus the SD card problem was resolved. I want to format the SD card thus I am having Linux platform and therefore I am unaware of the steps to format it. I need a solution which will help me in formatting the SD card.

[Luis234]

To format the SD card in mint 10 platform you may need to follow the steps given below:

1. You need to plug in the SD card into the card reader of your system.
2. You need to open the terminal window by going to the Applications/ Accessories and select terminal window. You need to find the device node of your SD card into the system. To find the device node you may need to use the command given below:
   

   dmesg | tail

3. Now you may need to start the fdisk by typing the command given below:
   

   fdisk /dev/sdX

4. To format the SD card you may use the steps given below:
   

   mkdosfs -F 16 /dev/sdX

5. The above command will format the SD card with FAT-16 file system.