Verizon S4 not detecting SD Card

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Jmick363

Member
Apr 14, 2012
17
4
tl;dr rooted S4 not detecting SD card after trying different cards, formatting them all differently, restarting, and cards work in another phone.

I just got this Verizon S4 (SCH-1545), current build MK2 Android 4.3, less than a week ago, and I came from an HTC sensation. Firs tthing I did was put my sd card from the sensation into the S4 just so my photos and music and everything else would be right there. If I remember correctly, Play Music might have saw a few songs at first, but I didn't pay much attention to it. The SD card is an Adata 32 GB class 10. The S4 is now not detecting the Sd card at all. My HTC sensation is detecting it just fine, and my computer is also detecting it just fine via usb to sd card reader. Another strange thing is that using a usb OTG adapter, the SD card is still detected. Meaning I plug in a cable to the micro usb port on my phone which has a female usb 2.0 port, which I then plug the sd card reader into. The S4 detected the sd card then, but not when it is plugged directly into the SD card slot. Other people have suggested other SD cards, I used a SAMSUNG 16GB SD card that came with a Samsung Epic 4G I had from a while ago. This SD card was detected by my HTC Sensation, and my computer, and neither have been detected by my S4. To format both of these SD cards, I have been right clicking them in windows explorer and clicking format. I have tried formatting both SD cards in format exFat, FAT32, and NTFS, and nothing has worked. I have the phone rooted and SafeStrap is installed, booting to Safestrap recovery also doesn't detect either SD card. There are other things that I have tried that I probably forgot to mention, but those were the primary fixes that I found and nothing has worked so far. If anyone can give any suggestions or link me somewhere where my exact problem has been resolved, I would very much appreciate it.
 

Jmick363

Member
Apr 14, 2012
17
4
Bump... Update, the other day the phone randomly detected my SD card, soon later it simply stopped. Not sure what it was that made it work though...
 

k1mu

Senior Member
Apr 11, 2011
1,945
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Bump... Update, the other day the phone randomly detected my SD card, soon later it simply stopped. Not sure what it was that made it work though...

The SDcard slot on your phone is broken. What I'd do is to open it up, remove the SDcard, and try compressed air into the slot to see if something got stuck in there (like lint, etc) that's keeping the card from making contact. Other than that, it's warranty time.
 

Jmick363

Member
Apr 14, 2012
17
4
The SDcard slot on your phone is broken. What I'd do is to open it up, remove the SDcard, and try compressed air into the slot to see if something got stuck in there (like lint, etc) that's keeping the card from making contact. Other than that, it's warranty time.

Okay and obviously rooting it would void the warranty, I have safestrap installed. Is there a way to return to stock? I actually bought the phone less than 2 weeks ago, and the verizon store is right down the street. If you bring it back within 14 days you can get a refund/swap it for something else, maybe I'll just see if they can throw me another one for a restocking fee or whatever, I don't know... Suggestions?
 

k1mu

Senior Member
Apr 11, 2011
1,945
1,620
Virginia
Okay and obviously rooting it would void the warranty, I have safestrap installed. Is there a way to return to stock? I actually bought the phone less than 2 weeks ago, and the verizon store is right down the street. If you bring it back within 14 days you can get a refund/swap it for something else, maybe I'll just see if they can throw me another one for a restocking fee or whatever, I don't know... Suggestions?

You can uninstall Safestrap pretty easily. I recommend uninstalling the recovery, rebooting, then uninstalling Safestrap, which will delete your ROM slots. Then, use the Terminal Emulator app to unroot using the info in the Saferoot thread. That should get you back to stock.