SD card suddenly failed / adding a new SD card

[frederic.moulis]

Hi all,
I have a Fairphone 4 with /e/OS for one year now, the OS is up-to-date (v1.13). I had a 128 GB SD-card on it, that was used to store photos, videos, and used by some other app as well.
The SD card has suddenly been unreadable from the phone, making the apps quoted above unusable, and I am not able anymore to take any photo or video.

I removed the SD card, I am not able right now to read it from my laptop. I bought a new one because I still hope I’ll be able to retrieve my photos and videos…

I put the new SD card in the phone, rebooted it, and it still says that I do not have any SD card. So I still have the same problem with the same apps. If I try to go to Settings/Storage, the Settings app crashes.

What can I do please to be able to reuse my phone as I used to 2 days ago ?

Thank you
Fred

Regain your privacy! Adopt /e/ the unGoogled mobile OS and online services

[urs_lesse]

I assume that your old 128 GB was formatted as “phone storage”, allowing you to install/move whole apps on it, but also known to be highly hazardous on some Fairphones (the problem mainly arose with the FP3 with Android 10, so far there have been fewer such reports for the FP4). The issues with this formatting are exactly the ones you describe – not being able to take or save photos or videos anymore. That’s why at least temporarily /e/OS presented the choice like this:

Unfortunately right now your only chance to salvage the photos and videos on the old card is that the old card works again in your FP4 (by definition, “phone storage” is meant to exclusively work in the device it was set up in – not in any other phone, computer, laptop, tablet …).

I don’t know if there is a way to format the new SD card in your FP4’s current state or if it takes a factory reset, but either way – bear in mind once you are able to format the new SD card, there is no chance anymore that the old one will get recognized again.

Sorry, but can’t give any more uplifting advice.

[frederic.moulis]

ok, so… I’m f…ck.d up and should factory reset my phone.
that’s not good news.
Thank you though

[frederic.moulis]

Now I’ve factory reset my phone (without being able to save anything, like my messages, because I did not have access to my storage…) with a new SD card
I’ve not been asked how to use the SD card…
How do I check the way it is used so that I do not encounter the same issue in a few months ?

[urs_lesse]

In the “Files” app, the side bar should list the SD card separately from the phone itself, with an EJECT symbol next to it, like here:

This is my own SD card (“SDXC1000”) set up as “portable storage”. If it were phone storage, I think the SD card would not be listed here at all (or only without the EJECT symbol).