Cant delete files or format my SD card. (Not set on LOCK, either)

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goodenough

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Apr 25, 2011
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Cant delete files from my SD card.
4GB Sandisk.
I tried to format.
Card is write protected.
Card switch is not set to LOCK position.
But, I toggled the switch a few times on the card to unlocked, in case it was stuck.

Anyone know what's wrong?
Just a fried card?
Just buy another one for $6?
 
Solution

Ya, sometimes they just screw up, and its not worth the 3 hours of fixing, running to the store is most of the time easier with these SD. Make sure you pick the best answer to close the thread. Users will appreciate it.
I'll teach you how to format you SD card when your card is unlock and can't be remove from your phone

Erases all date that not your in Internal storage first for Ex: desktop(it the hack tool that make more storage but it make you can't format or anything to SD card) if you done it and it don't work "YES YES" it mean I'm not the only one if so it soooooooooooooooo sad for me and you LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL :'( for if it work good for you but not me because that hack tool that protect SD card it in the SD card that why it don't work that make only three solution left it.....(1) HECK THE HACK TOOL!!!! With eye to eye (2) buy a new phone(3)tell the police to let them case all those hacker. NOTED: the hacker are the only one who know the ways and they can fix your phone by use solution (1) it HACK VS HACK!!!!! ,but you should beware them that may not fix it they may only make it worse and stolen your money.
 
I got another solution it buy a hack tool pro for about 0.3£ it name is DroidEdit Pro(code editor) or ElectroDroidPro for about 0.5£ all there app from play store are the bast hack tool you can use it to hack the hack tool that make your SD card can't be format tune it in to the best back tool that only make you have more storage Ex:you have1GB it tune in to2GB for free but you need to be sure that you done it right or it may be more worse so you should talk to the hack professional that from the global not from the hack service they usually stolen your money for free for the global like the police they always help you only if they not to many trouble so you should meet them on time to find the solutions if you late it your problem now they don't have all day or send them a reported to them Notice: if it take to long don't said that it don't work or est became they also too busy they got about 1,000,000 message and more for a day that why it take too long
 
THANK YOU, Milton, but that's not the answer. You are WAY off the trail here.
Let me explain this one more time...
I can no longer delete pictures from any of my SD cardS using my Windows 7 computer.
This problem started after Microsoft sent a bunch of automatic updates. Prior to that,
I had no problem for several years (this computer). Please note that this problem
exists with ALL of my cards and they are NOT set on lock. The software simply has
removed the DELETE option... it's not just grey... it's gone! When I right click on the
file, Delete does not appear in the options like it used to. I can delete the pictures
one at a time with my camera, OR and I can delete the entire file of pictures with
my Windows XP computer or my XP Netbook. The cards do not need to be re-formatted !!!
The problem appears to be with the Windows update.
I do not have a recovery date old enough to get back before the Windows update
that I suspect started the problem. Any suggestions would be appreciated. IT has nothing to do
with "Hacking" nor does it have anything to do with my phone. Are you selling the hack tool pro?
How is that going to solve my problem? Sounds to me like you're just using this forum for advertising
some crap that I don't want or need.
 


I had this EXACT same problem. Bought a 16GB card and a 32GB card. New camera. Plugged in cards ... took photos and the only way I could delete pictures was if the card was in the camera. I could not even format the card in my computer (card reader). It kept saying that my card was write protected.

So ... My father put the cards in his camera. Took photos. Still unable to delete photos when card was installed in computer card reader.

So ... I had him format the card with his camera. He took photos. Problem resolved. I took photos with my camera. Able to delete pictures from Computer

The problem appears to have occurred when my new camera formatted the SD card.

My new camera is a Sony Cybershot. So I consider this to be a problem with Sony. There is NO mention of this in their manual for my camera.


 
I had the same problem, an inability to be able to delete images from a Sandisk micro SD in my action camera. I found that another Windows 7 computer was able to delete the files, for reasons unknown.
 
was having this problem with my SD card and my Canon T3i DSLR camera. Went in to menu -> protect images -> protect all images on this card -> unprotect all images on this card.

That seemed to solve the problem for me
 


This solution worked for me. Thank you very much for sharing.
 


Thanks I did this and it worked!!
 
Dollars to donuts it was , in fact, errors on the card, as touched upon by bob1033 and Seto Prasetyo, even though the OP said he checked it for errors and it came back clean.

Regarding that little switch on the side : problems can and do occur with this of course, but it's worthy to note that people have had the exact same problem as the OP occur with card readers that have a little slot for plugging microSD cards in directly, no adapter needed ( like the one from SIIG®, Inc.   for example ).

As for "fcuk it"  - type suggestions like chucking the card, buying a new one, etc… what can I say, they're not solutions unless you absolutely cannot be bothered to deal with little problems yourself no matter how simple the cure.

Seriously, BY FAR, the most likely reason is errors on the card, and these are correctable. I deal with this all the time, have for years. The problem is consistency, or lack thereof rather. Take two different computers, with two different versions of Windows, and with two different kinds of card readers—that's 8 possible combinations that can be setup—you might get 3 of those 8 setup combinations asking you right off the bat, when you plug the card in, whether you would like to scan the card for errors and fix them, meaning those 3 setups detected something was off about the card, and the other 5 setups will say nothing, just read the card contents and show them to you ( then when you try to do anything you find out you can't rename, can't delete, etc.).

But this issue of (correctable) errors on cards is definitely the most common reason for this problem. Because it is, my suggestion is to remove the card, and reboot the computer. Give it 5 minutes for it to finish booting completely and for everything to finish loading. Then plug the card in… chances pretty good it will detect the issue at that point and ask you if you want to scan/fix, like I said above.

Other workarounds that were suggested, like sharing permissions, do have their place, because they can help in certain circumstances, but logic should tell you that if it worked many times in the past without requiring special advanced settings, it should now as well, and it should tell you that there's a new factor that presented itself. That new factor could be that for some reason, those share permissions were corrupted, changed in some way… but there is WAY more chance that's it's some logical and easily correctable OS-related problems on the card. Bad master file tables, indexes, security descriptors, what have you… the card will isolate itself from further damage until they're fixed. That's why, until they are, you won't be able to delete, or rename, etc.—you're attempting to write to the very areas that have become corrupted. The OS won't let you, but the OS can easily deal with these issues… as long as it can be made to see  them, lol. :sarcastic:
 



My Micro SD card is currently having a melt down and I'm unsure if it is my Samsung Galaxy Note 4 or my Micro SD card.

The problem occurred recently. I've had my Micro SD card for more than 6 months with no issue, until I took my 906th photo to which my phone said that it couldn't be saved to the external SD card storage.

I tried deleting pictures on the SD card and it would only have s further melt down, making some of the other photos unviewable with a !. I unmounted and mounted, and the pictures were all there again, able to view them. But when I tried deleting the most recent pics, the issue would repeat itself- Some of the photos become unviewable with a !. Sometimes my photo Gallery would stop working.

I tried formatting on the phone but nothing happens, still 22GB of 64GB. I inserted using the adapter in my laptop, and couldn't delete. It is write locked but I don't know how to unwrite it as even the adapter switch doesn't allow me to unwrite it. I tried formatting in the laptop and it doesn't work too.

Is this an issue of my phone or has my SanDisk Micro SD card just gone mental? Is there a solution to this or should I throw in the towel and buy a new one? I dislike the idea of just buying a new one as these things cost $$$ and don't compe cheap... What if the next one I buy has a melt down in three months...

Anyway, any help is most appreciated!!!!
 


Hi, I just found a possible problem/answer. Upon reading some of the answers here, I decided to try a different card reader. It's an older Kingston multi card reader. I shoved the card in there, and Voila!!! It worked, and I could copy and delete images from the stick, on the computer, and there was no error window, and no padlocks. Yea! Try a different card reader.
 


 
Thanks, Lee -
For me, it's NOT THE CARD ! I can delete pictures or the entire file with a different computer.
A Windows 7 update has "STOLEN" the Delete option from the software... i.e. right click produces a drop-down with a bunch of options, but DELETE is no longer there, and I can't get it back.
 


I have the exact same issue running Windows 8.1 64-bit. Everything worked fine since I bought the computer in Dec 2014, then in August 2015 a Windows Update blew it all to you-know-where. The delete option disappeared from the context menu, dragging to the Recycle Bin gives me a red circle with a bar through it (like a Do Not Enter sign), Format pretends that it works (even saying it was successful) but the files are still there. No files were Locked, the SD card was unlocked.

First, I read the message above about using an external card reader - and voila! It worked... Temporarily. I was able to delete files perfectly with the external reader, but not in my desktop's internal reader.

Then, another batch of Windows Updates, and now not only can I still not delete files from the card with the internal reader, the Update caused the external reader to rapidly mount/unmount/mount/unmount about three times faster than Windows could play the appropriate sounds. Absolutely intolerable. I haven't been able to find a workaround, even deleting the drivers and reinstalling had the same result.

My alternative is that I boot my Win7 laptop to delete the files, or boot off a USB drive to a Linux distribution to delete files - both the internal reader in the laptop and the external reader that no longer works on 8.1 works perfectly fine on the Win7 laptop and on Ubuntu/Xubuntu/LinuxMint. I have a feeling that something in Windows Updates botched a small number of people up, small enough that they are either unknowing or unconcerned. :kaola:
 
How many times can I say it ? ...
How many ways can I say it ? ...
IT'S NOT THE CARD !!!
The problem occurs with ALL SD Cards in THIS computer.
The cards are NOT set on "lock."
I can delete pictures from these cards on other computers and in the camera.
It previously worked fine on this computer.
I still believe Microsoft screwed it up with some automatic update...
...seems like every time they send updates these days, it messes
something up ! (Is this deliberate?)
The DELETE option on the drop-down is simply GONE !
Any applicable help would be appreciated.
Thanks !
:)
TH
 
i had same problem on my mac. so what i did was insert back the SD card into my camera. formatted it and took couple of pictures and let it save in the card.
took the card out and insert back into the mac and now i have full access and able to erase everything using disk utility.
 


This didn't work for me at first, but then I did following and it worked:
- Click on advanced sharing again
- Click on caching
- Select All files and programs that users open ... offline.
 
had the same issue.... was NOT the write protection on the card.
tried all of the tricks updating the properties.... even looked into a registry hack.
bought a cheap sdcard reader and no problems.
.
windows 7
lenovo thinkpad
.
read that maybe the reader is just that. not a reader/writer?
dont know about that. but somehow the reader was indeed the issue.
 


I have same problem cannot delete from pc but can delete from camera. I can also delete from my sons pc. It has to be something to do with card reader in my pc
 
I've only seen this happen on Sandisk sd cards or micro sd cards in a sandisk adapter. I bought a USB SD card reader and because it counts as a whole nother device [for me it's G:], and it lets me delete the files from there.
 


I had the same issue with my sandisk 4GB SD card that I use in my DSLR. When I try to erase the files in my mac after copying them, I couldn't. So, I put the SD card back in my DSLR and used "delete all files" option in the menu, the files are all deleted.

It is weird!

May be you could try that.
 
The issue I found was not with the SD card but with the SD card adapter. The LOCK switch was too loose on the adapter. Luckily I had another adapter and it allowed me to delete the files.
 


 
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