Question Why might MicroSD to USB adapters fail?

[Airlane1979]

I use various MicroSD cards in my desktop PC and audio devices, mostly to store music files. I use adapters to connect them to USB ports. Lately, several of these adapters have stopped working: mostly, the audio device sees there's a drive connected but fails to read it. I'm surprised by this, as I assumed such adapters are simple dumb connectors with no active electronics. Is this a common problem?

 

[Lutfij]

They can stop working for a multitude of reasons. One such reason could be an update from the OS(assuming you're on Windows 10/11) where it conked out the device's drivers, after all that's what is used to aid in the platform communicate with the device/adapter.

Might want to mention your motherboard's make and model, BIOS version for your motherboard and adapters/card reader's make and model.

 

[NedSmelly]

I’ve found MicroSD card readers to be notoriously unreliable, regardless of brand. Had both expensive Lexar and SanDisk readers fail, even when their SD and CF slots continued to work.

Never had any trouble using a MicroSD-to-SD adapter then putting that into a regular SD card reader.

This method stopped a lot of corruption with my DJI drone and GoPro MicroSDs.

 

[Airlane1979]

They can stop working for a multitude of reasons. One such reason could be an update from the OS(assuming you're on Windows 10/11) where it conked out the device's drivers, after all that's what is used to aid in the platform communicate with the device/adapter.

Might want to mention your motherboard's make and model, BIOS version for your motherboard and adapters/card reader's make and model.

I wasn't aware that simple adapters use drivers. The MicroSD cards are still working perfectly in other adapters.