Generally I prefer using Micro SD cards as I can move them fast between my various devices (notebook, smartphone, digicam). When I inserted a cell phone storage card in my laptop this morning, nothing happened...*re-insert*...nothing. No file system, no further notifications...what had happened - had I fried the SD card by accident? I found a first hint on what was going on when I opened a terminal and checked the output from the »dmesg« command:
[81222.641728] Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 0
[81222.641750] Dev sdb: unable to read RDB block 0
[81223.065678] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Unhandled sense code
[81223.065682] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
[81223.065687] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Sense Key : Medium Error [current]
[81223.065691] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Add. Sense: Data phase CRC error detected
[81223.065697] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] CDB: Read(10): 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00
[81223.065707] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 0
Okay - seems like a dead card?! No - not this time. As the card was still fully functional in another device, I assumed that the somewhat fragile feeling SD card adapter had developed a problem. I gently opened it up by inserting my thumbnail at one side of the case and worked my way through the adhesives which kept the thing together.
As you can see there is not much happening inside. No further active circuitry, just some contact pins and a holding clamp for the card.
Did I mention that the fine card contact pins were all irregularly bent? In the next picture you can see the completely disassembled adapter (the misaligned pins are better visible here, too).
To repair the adapter all contact pins had to be re-aligned by bending them slightly upwards, i. e. towards the card contacts (I used fine tweezers for this). To seal the adapter case again I used some very fine droplets of superglue (just enough to keep it closed until the next time I have to open it). After the procedure the adapter was working again and it also felt a lot more stable than before. Here the final »dmesg«-output:
[81813.741765] scsi5 : usb-storage 1-7.4:1.0
[81814.741628] scsi 5:0:0:0: Direct-Access Generic STORAGE DEVICE 9451 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
[81814.742618] sd 5:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[81814.994989] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] 15661056 512-byte logical blocks: (8.01 GB/7.46 GiB)
[81814.996233] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is on
[81814.996240] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 03 00 80 00
[81814.997353] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
[81814.997359] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[81815.002478] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
[81815.002486] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
greetings noq2
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