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I have a relatively new SD card that was in use for about a year in my camera, then suddenly the camera complained that it couldn't write to it anymore.

When I put it in my PC it shows up as a drive, but cannot be opened as the explorer process hangs until I either kill it or remove the card. I can't even right-click it to get to the format menu as the process will hang there as well. Diskpart won't start either with the card in.

The card was not locked, however when I locked it it was immediately recognized and I could view the pictures still on it. Removed, unlocked, inserted again and the explorer hangs.

I downloaded SD Card Formatter after reading about it, but apparently it doesn't work on Windows 10 – when I launch it the process runs but no window appears (tried admin & compatibility mode, no success).

Any ideas what's going on? I'd like to try and format it to see if that solves anything, but I'm out of ideas on how I'll get that done.

Update about the card being readonly or write protected:
is a card that crashes the explorer read-only? Cause that is the problem. I cannot use the card at all unless I lock it with the hardware switch, only then can I read the files on it.
If that is the expected behavior of a read-only card, please write an answer and I'll accept it. I don't believe that's the case though.

enzi
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    SD cards are cheap, buy a new one... one year of use, especially if daily use, is not "relatively new", SD cards fail on regular basis. – acejavelin Jan 02 '17 at 17:10
  • I second that, @acejavelin. That card is toast. Copy off what you need and get a new one that works correctly. – SDsolar Jan 02 '17 at 18:24
  • @acejavelin It was hardly in use. I don't want to disclose the organization to which it belongs, but that camera is only used infrequently. Buying a new one is not the problem, but cards breaking randomly after just a year is kind of not acceptable in this case. Won't buy another Transcend card – enzi Jan 02 '17 at 19:34
  • When you lock the switch, are you able to write to the card or just read from it? It sounds like just a customization of the read-only feature associated with a failed card. – fixer1234 Jan 02 '17 at 19:52
  • Only read. Windows also immediately detects it as write protected. That's why I thought I might be able to fix it, but I guess it's over. – enzi Jan 02 '17 at 20:04

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When SD cards fail, they write protect themselves. You can still read from them, but they do not allow writing so that the data is not corrupted. It looks like that is what you are experiencing.

Get the data off, and get a new card. That happened to me when I had it in my phone (950 XL) ... strange behavior until I found out that it write protects itself when it fails.

RJH30518
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  • Where did you find that out? – SDsolar Jan 02 '17 at 18:26
  • If that were the problem, shouldn't I be able to read from the card without having to lock it first? When it is not locked I can't open or even right-click it. – enzi Jan 02 '17 at 19:28