What can we do if the SD card is not recognized by the PC? There could be multiple reasons that cause your SD card not to show up, such as the missing drive letter, outdated device driver, and a lot more. But don’t worry. There are 5 top tips in this guide to resolve this issue. Try them out and see which one works for you.

  1. Check for connection issues
  2. Update your SD card driver
  3. Assign a new drive letter to your SD Card
  4. Run the CHKDSK command
  5. Contact the SD card manufacturer

Before we jump into any conclusions, please restart your computer first to see if it helps. But if you’ve already done so, then skip to the steps below.

1. Check for hardware issues

When your PC fails to detect your SD card, you should check if there is a hardware issue, which is likely to be the computer interface or the SD card reader. To determine which one is causing the problem, you can:

  1. Try a new SD card reader (or a new SD card USB adapter). If it works, then the previous card reader is malfunctioning.
  2. Connect the SD card to another computer. If your SD card works well with the new computer, then the previous computer is probably having trouble connecting or detecting the SD card. You should contact the computer manufacturer or a repair store for further troubleshooting.

If neither of the steps above fixes the issue, try the next tip before we consider that the SD card is faulty.

2. Update your SD card driver

If your SD card still doesn’t show up in File Explorer, you should consider updating your SD card driver, since an up-to-date SD card driver always fixes the problematic disk drivers.

To update your SD card driver, here’s what you can do (please note that the following screenshots are taken on Windows 11, but the instructions work on Windows 10 as well):

  1. On your keyboard, press the Windows key and X at the same time, select Device Manager.
  2. Double-click to expand the category Disk Drives. Then right-click your SD card driver and click Update driver (the name of the device can be different on your computer).
  3. Then click Search automatically for updated driver software.
  4. Wait for Windows to find the latest driver available for you.
  5. When the driver update is done, restart your computer for the change to take effect.
  6. Then check and see if the problem is fixed.

If Windows says that it’s already found the latest driver for you, so no newer drivers are found, then you should consider updating your SD card driver in a different way with the help of Driver Techie.

Its ever-growing driver database allows you to always have access to the latest device drivers that you need. More importantly, Driver Techie simplifies the driver update process, so all it takes is just 3 clicks (for Pro users), and all your drivers are updated.

To use Driver Techie to find you the latest drivers:

  1. Download and install Driver Techie, then launch it.
  2. Click Scan Now.
  3. After the scan, select all the drivers you need to update and click Update All. Then all your drivers will be updated automatically without you having to do anything else.

Please note that Update All is available for Pro subscribers only, otherwise, you can only manually update the driver one at a time. To see how to manually update the drivers one by one, please check this post.

If you’re a Pro user of Driver Techie, and need our technical support to help with the SD card not recognized problem, please feel free to contact <support@drivertechie.com>.

3. Allocate a new drive letter to your SD Card

In some cases, updating the SD card driver doesn’t resolve the issue, as the SD card doesn’t have a driver letter disk, or a drive letter conflict is causing your PC unable to recognize your SD card, even though it is connected. To determine whether you should allocate a new drive letter to your SD card, kindly do the following:

  1. Right-click the Windows Start button, and choose Disk Management.
  2. Located the SD card, right-click PARTITION, and select Change Drive Letter and Path….
  3. In the pop-up window, click Add to allocate the drive letter to your SD card.

Check if your SD card shows up in File Explorer. If so, then you’ve got the final solution. If not, please proceed with the next tip.

4. Run the CHKDSK command

If your SD card is still not showing up or not detected, then we should consider the possibility of corrupted system files. If this is the case, you can run the CHKDSK command to detect and fix those corrupted files in your system.

To do so:

  1. On your keyboard, press the Windows logo key and E together to open File Explorer, right-click This PC from the left menu bar and select Manage.
  2. On the pop-up window, click Disk Management from the left panel, find your SD card device in the drive viewer, and check if the computer can detect your SD card or not.

    If it is not detectable, kindly proceed with the following steps.
  3. On your keyboard, press the Windows logo key and R together to invoke the Run prompt. Then, type cmd and press Shift, Ctrl, and Enter together to launch the command prompt as an administrator.
  4. Type: chkdsk g:/ f and hit Enter. (Please note that “g” refers to the drive letter of your memory card).Or you can type: chkdsk D:/f /offlinescanandfix and hit Enter. This will scan and fix the errors in your SD card automatically and make the card detectable again.

Check if the problem is resolved. If not, please move on to the next fix.

5. Contact the SD card manufacturer

If the basic troubleshooting tips above fail to fix your SD card not showing up issue, then it’s very likely that your SD memory card is faulty. If there are important but not backed-up files on the card, it’s highly recommended NOT to format your card and instead, seek help from the card manufacturer for hardware repair or maybe some data recovery.

Hopefully, your SD card will be working normally again without any data loss. If you have any other questions, please let us know in the comment section below.