N900 doesn't recognise MicroSD card
 

Hi there,

I've seen folks with similar problems, but didn't want to resurrect a long-dead thread. I'm having real difficulty and would be very grateful for any help anyone can provide.

My N900 doesn't seem to be recognising MicroSD cards properly. The card does not appear in the file manager or in any application save/open dialogues.

In X Terminal I can see a directory called /media/mmc1 - am I right in thinking that this is the Micro SD card? I experimented by cp-ing a random file from the phone to this directory and it seemed to work just fine.

Any advice is appreciated!

Re: N900 doesn't recognise MicroSD card
 

have you been connecting your phone to a pc recently?
if that so, that might be the cause, and i still have no solution till now except rebooting. any idea would be helpful :p

(i for once, can successfully disconnect my n900 properly from mass storage mode using either mad developer or pc connectivity, but failed to remember how did i do it :D)

or if someone can show how to mount sd card (or internal memory) manually in file manager, that'd be great too

Re: N900 doesn't recognise MicroSD card
 

/media/mmc1 is a directory that is used as a mount point.
When your phone recognises that an SD card has been plugged in, it sets everything up so that you can access the card using /media/mmc1.
Since your phone isn't recognising that you're plugging in a card, /media/mmc1 is just another directory, so copying to it will work (provided you have the right permissions).

As they've said above, chkdisk / fsck your memory card and try again - you'll probably need to do this outside of the n900.
If that fails, reformat the card.

Re: N900 doesn't recognise MicroSD card
 

Thanks for this, folks.

Sorry to ask a stupid question, but I don't have an SD card reader for my computer. Can I connect my phone to my Xubuntu box and access the memory card from there?

The phone is automatically mounted at /media/Nokia N900 but all I seem to have access to is the MyDocs directory.

Thanks!

Re: N900 doesn't recognise MicroSD card
 

To format mmc on device:

Then reinsert SD.

This WILL delete all data on your card!

Re: N900 doesn't recognise MicroSD card
 

Thanks vi_, but when I try that I get:

umount: cannot unmount /dev/mmcblk1p1: No such file or directory

Re: N900 doesn't recognise MicroSD card
 

I suspect you have a bad sd card. Was it working at all? I had similar issue and in the end card was defective. Try using it in another device.

p.s. Cards on N900 usually die from copying/cutting large files from memory card to phone and vice versa

Re: N900 doesn't recognise MicroSD card
 

I don't have anything else to try the card in, I'm afraid. Will pick up a replacement and see whether it works.

Re: N900 doesn't recognise MicroSD card
 

Check that the tiny magnet hasn't come off the inside of the back cover, this is what normaly happens.

If you don't know where to look, does the camera work? or in XTerm typeand open the back cover without pressing to many buttons, you should see some mmc stuff appear on the screen.

or

Try entering these commands in XTerm, you might have to be root

Make the card appear in the file manager:

Code:

---

gconftool-2 -s -t bool /system/osso/af/internal-mmc-device-present true
gconftool-2 -s -t bool /system/osso/af/mmc-cover-open false
gconftool-2 -s -t bool /system/osso/af/internal-mmc-cover-open false
gconftool-2 -s -t bool /system/osso/af/mmc-device-present true

---

and disappear:

Code:

---

gconftool-2 -s -t bool /system/osso/af/internal-mmc-device-present false
gconftool-2 -s -t bool /system/osso/af/mmc-cover-open true
gconftool-2 -s -t bool /system/osso/af/internal-mmc-cover-open true
gconftool-2 -s -t bool /system/osso/af/mmc-device-present false

---

If that doesn't work something else is wrong!

Re: N900 doesn't recognise MicroSD card
 

@JonWW: Great call.. You can also load the hardware tester app in the devel repository to check that.

@owenglasgow: The error from the umount command is ok, it just means the file system wasn't already mounted. You can ignore it. Use the second command to try formatting the card.