My Galaxy S5 says my SD card is corrupted, but it doesn't appear to be

I have a Galaxy S5 phone, and one day a bunch of my apps stopped responding. I then started seeing lots of icons turning blank to the SD icon, indicative of apps that I moved to my SD card since I have the 16GB phone (a mistake on my part as I should have bought the 32 GB). When I restarted the phone, I saw all those apps remain with that icon, so something was amiss. When I went to my Storage Settings, I saw it say "Corrupted" under the SD card.

I have recently plugged the SD card into a USB card reader, then plugged that into a PC. I was able to read everything on there and even pull off copies of the files (I had a number of photos on there, so I was thankful for that). It seems to me the SD card can't be in that bad a state.

Anyone have a sense of what is going on here? Before I merely reformat my SD card (which I actually tried to do, unsuccessfully, a couple of times on the phone), I want to know that the problem isn't with my phone or the system software and thus will merely repeat itself. My phone is currently running Android version 6.0.1, awaiting an update that I have no space for thanks in part to this issue.

Accepted answers

pkasieck

Well, for better or worse, there has been a resolution. After attempts to format the SD card failed, I backed up the phone (largely using Verizon Cloud) and then restored it to factory mode. I have since reinstalled most of the apps (funny how you come to realize you don't really need an app or three when this happens!) and, as last attempts to format the card continue to fail, I bought another one - this time, a SanDisk - that was on a big sale.

So life goes on. Thank you to those who responded.

All comments

Verizon_Support

pkasieck,

It disappoints me to hear about your experience. I rely on my storage for all of my data and I would be sad if it's not functioning correctly. Great troubleshooting so far on your end by the way. Not to worry, I'll be happy to help. It's great to hear that it works on your PC, have you tried the SD Card on a different phone? What is the name brand of your SD Card?

RyanC_VZW

If my response answered your question please click the 'Correct Answer' button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!

kathy65793

Do you have Smart Switch or some other type of backup for the phone to the computer? If you do try and see if it sees the sd card in smart switch and back it up to the computer and then try to format the card. I had

the same problem with my S5 with the sd card and now with the S7 edge. I have a 128 gb card for that and sometimes it doesn't read it

bearone21

the card may be dying & cheap to replace...formatting won't help.

pkasieck

RyanC_VZW,

I tried it yesterday on my old Samsung Galaxy S3, which I had before the S5, and the phone recognized the SD Card, mentioned how much memory it had available, and I was able to go into the Gallery app and see the photos I had on it.

With that, I then tried putting it back in my S5, and the problem remains - the card, which is a Samsung EVO+ 128GB card not even a year and a half old (younger than my Galaxy S5, which I bought about two months earlier), is still not recognized and listed by the Storage Settings as "Corrupted".

Verizon_Support

Thanks so much for getting back to us, pkasieck. I'm sorry to hear this issue is persisting on the S5. Is the S5 damaged in anyway? Have you attempted to place the SD card in and power on in Safe Mode? If not, use this link to power on in Safe Mode: https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/knowledge-base-111483/

Please let us know if it works correctly in Safe mode.

JoeL_VZW

If my response answered your question please click the �Correct Answer� button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

pkasieck

I re-started in Safe Mode to no avail - it took a little longer, but eventually said "SD Card Corrupted" in the Storage settings screen.

I don't have any reason to believe the phone is otherwise damaged - I haven't even dropped this nearly as frequently as I have dropped other phones and it has an Otter Box protecting it. This is the only functional issue of any sort I have right now with it.