SD Card Is Blank or Has Unsupported File System? Fix Guide Here

Notification: Blank SD Card

Q:

"Samsung Galaxy Android mobile failed to display the micro SD card. Instead, it displaying the 'Blank SD card' notification message and asked to format the SD card. But when I try to format the micro SD card nothing happens.
I am unable to access the files stored on the SD card. Please help me to resolve this issue." –YouTube

In recent years, SD cards have gained great popularity in all areas, people use them to transfer working paper, save photos on camera, expand the internal storage of Android, create boot media, etc. Nevertheless, during the usage of an SD card, we may encounter all kinds of SD card issues, such as a dead SD card, photos saved in the SD card gone, SD card won’t mount…

And the one we are covering today is probably the one you are searching for (image attached):
“Blank SD card SD card is blank or has unsupported file system.“

From what we have found on the network, this problem is very irritating, nothing stops it from happening repeatedly. Thus, we are going through the main causes as well as the solutions for you as a reference.

Why SD Card Is Blank or Has Unsupported File System

Why SD card is blank or has unsupported system in Android phones like Samsung Galaxy S5? Generally speaking, a mobile phone memory card can become blank or has an unsupported file system due to many reasons: virus infection, rude extraction, logical damages, RAW file system, and more. And when you suffer from this issue, you may need to think over these points:

• Did you remove the SD card without turning off your cell phone last time?
• Did you use this phone’s SD card on a strange or unsafe computer?
• Did you use this phone’s SD card on another operating system (say from BlackBerry and back to Samsung)?
• Did you extract this SD card off from your computer or laptop without using the “Safely remove hardware” tool?

If so, that’s perhaps why you get this blank SD card error. In the course of future use, to avoid such a memory card error, please properly use it on your phone, computer, or other devices, and be sure to safely remove your phone SD card. Of course, in case of unexpected data loss issues, important SD card data backups are also supposed to be made in safe locations all the time.

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7 Solutions to Remove the Blank SD Card Error

In this part, we will go through 7 solutions to this irritating issue. Before you carry out any rescue, please make sure that the SD card itself is in sound condition and can be detected by your computer. (There were users who thought the card was simply undetected by the phone. Well, that’s totally wrong because if that’s the case, the phone won’t return this error at all.) Only in this way, there is necessity and possibility to fix this micro SD card.

Solution 1: Try rebooting the phone

Although the operating system requires you to format the blank SD card, DON’T format it at once, try other solutions instead. And first of all, a reboot should always be the first try.

Step 1: Turn off the phone.

Step 2: Reboot the phone to see if the SD card starts working again.

Solution 2: Repeatedly insert and pull out the SD card

Take your chance to try inserting and taking out the blank SD card many times, by these attempts your phone may finally read the SD card.

Solution 3: Run Chkdsk to fix errors

A user from Androidcentral declares that he had fixed this error by using CHKDSK, maybe this way is also helpful to you. Please follow the steps below:

Step 1: Connect the blank SD card with the PC via a card reader and make sure it is detected by the machine.

Step 2: Run CMD as administrator, and input chkdsk n: /f(n is the drive letter of the blank SD card) to fix errors.

Step 3: Put the SD card back to phone and check whether the card works fine after that.

Solution 4: Check hidden files on an SD card

Check the blank SD card on your computer and see if it contains some hidden files. Sometimes SD card is carried with some “specialty files” that need to be deleted. And this is easy to do:

Step 1: Connect the blank SD card with the PC via a card reader and make sure it is detected by the machine.

Step 2: Run control folders to bring out the File Explorer Options.

Step 3: Turn to the View tab.

Step 4: Check Show hidden files, folders, and drives and save the changes.

Step 5: Delete the “specialty files” in the blank SD card if there are any.

Solution 5<The Key Point>: Format SD card AFTER data rescue

Watch the video to learn how I solved the blank SD card error.

If all solutions in the former part fail, unfortunately, you might need to format it as you are asked to. In addition, when going from one manufacturer to another, you generally need to reformat the SD card. Still, there are users who encounter this kind of situation: even the computer was asking to format the card to be able to use it – really shocking.

Needless to say, you know what you will get after formatting – a blank SD card in a real sense, you cannot find anything original without the help of some professional SD card data recovery software. Therefore, in order to take your photos, videos, messages, files, and the like out with ease, you’d better not rush to format this SD card with an unsupported file system error. Merely wait till you have rescued everything back.

>> Part 1. Recover Data from the SD Card Before Formatting

If files on an SD card show on a computer, then you can simply copy these files to a safe location first, and then carry out SD card formatting. However, if an SD card has unsupported file system, you should give priority to recover blank SD card before carrying out formatting. At this time, MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free Edition is of great help, which is able to run on all Windows personal operating systems. (Scan & recover in Windows PC, and only scan in Windows Server.)

Recommended: How To Recover Deleted Photos From SD Card Quickly?

Before you do:

• Download this data recovery software and install it on your computer.
• Connect the blank SD card to the computer successfully.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Step 1: Launch MiniTool Power Data Recovery and select the partition of the SD card to scan. You can also change to the Devices tab to choose the SD card directly.

Step 2: Wait for the scan process to complete itself. You can browse the file list to find your wanted files. Other four features assist in finding and verifying files:

• Type: Files under the Type tab are classified by their types and file formats. This feature helps to find a certain type of file in a short time.
• Filter: If you remember the specific information of the required files, such as their file size, file type, file last modified date, and file category, use the Filter feature to set those conditions to filter out unmatched items.
• Search: To find one specific file, you can input its file name into the search box and hit Enter to perform a preliminary filter.
• Preview: Double-click on the chosen file to preview its file content; thus, you can ensure that it is the one you need before saving.

Step 3: Add checkmarks before the wanted files and click Save. In the prompt window, you need to choose a new destination for those recovered files, otherwise, data overwriting will cause file recovery to fail.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free provides only 1GB of free data recovery capacity. If you need to recover more data, you can upgrade to an advanced edition to obtain a larger data recovery capacity.

>> Part 2. Format the SD Card

As long as the SD card is not seriously damaged by some really complicated issues, you can immediately go on using it to store or transfer your data after that formatting. Instead of finding the location to unmount the SD card and then carrying out formatting on an Android phone, the easiest way to do formatting is by using a computer. The only thing you need is still an SD card reader. You can format the SD card to the FAT32 file system under Windows Explorer, Windows Disk Management, and Partition Wizard Free.

The most significant difference among using these three utilities is that the former two prevent users to format SD card larger than 32 GB to FAT32 while the third one is able to. After the formatting, insert the SD card and power on the phone. The device should then pick it up.

#1. Use Windows Explorer

Step 1: Connect the blank SD card with the PC via the card reader and make sure it is detected by the machine.

Step 2: Press Win + E to open File Explorer and expand This PC to find the SD card.

Step 3: Right-click on it to choose Format. You need to set the File system and tick Quick Format. Click Start to format the SD card.

#2. Use Disk Management

Step 1: Connect the blank SD card with the PC via the card reader and make sure it is detected by the machine.

Step 2: Right-click on the Windows icon and choose Disk Management.

Step 3: Find the disk that represents your SD card. Right-click on the partition and choose Format.

Step 4. Set the File system and click OK to format the SD card.

#3. Use MiniTool Partition Wizard

MiniTool Partition Wizard is an all-in-one tool that supports formatting, merging, and splitting partitions and doing other operations on the disk. This tool will not immediately change your disk status. Therefore, you have one more chance to revoke the wrong change. You can get this tool by clicking the download button below.

MiniTool Partition Wizard FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

 Step 1: Connect the blank SD card with the PC via the card reader and make sure it is detected by the machine.

Step 2: Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard and locate the target partition.

Step 3: Right-click on the partition and choose Format. You need to set the file system and click OK.

Step 4: Click Apply to complete the suspending process.

Solution 6: Replace the SD card with another one

Sometimes when you format the card it shows “SD card unsupported try new one”. In this case, replacing the SD card deserves a try. You may try this procedure with one of your small storage cards and see if the phone can detect or read it. See the following example:

Q:

"I have a new 32 GB SD card. My Hisense tablet recognizes it when I put it there, but when I put it in my Alcatel One Touch Mega it says blank card. When I format it says erasing card and then does nothing but say blank or unsupported files. My 4GB SD card works fine in the phone, mounts, and stores, but the new 32 GB will not work in the phone, but computer and tablet read it fine. I have formatted it multiple times and even downloaded SD formatter and used that as well. Nothing. Has anyone figured out this problem? Any help is appreciated." --from Tomsguide

If NOT, try the other cards and if it keeps bearing the same result, then it’s the phone that has an issue, probably the firmware. Why? Since the phone can detect that there’s a card mounted on it but can’t read it, it’s not a hardware issue but firmware. Check if there’s an available update, if YES, go for it.

Solution 7: Contact the manufacture

If formatting or changing the SD card is not helping at all, call the manufacturer of your phone to get help. Maybe Android phones need to fix this issue by making an update for their OS to support all kinds of micro SD types, or maybe all they want is to force users to buy their own branded micro SD card. It’s hard to tell.

Summary

In a nutshell, the Android blank SD card issue has been a great concern for these years, and a similar problem is all over the net. In this post, we have gone through the possible reasons and 7 solutions to this issue. Now, before we put an end to this post, we would like to invite you to visit our SD card recovery page if you have other concerns with your SD card. We’ve listed a number of solutions to problems we already addressed. Please find problems related to yours and try the solutions we provided. If they won’t work for you, then leave us comments at the bottom of the page. Make sure to add more details of your issue in the description field so we can accurately assess your problem. Thanks for helping us go further.