Why is my SD card suddenly readonly?

For some reason, when I inserted my SD card into my linux(ubuntu, incase that helps) machine, I opened my SD card to find the "lock" symbol on evey folder and file. I tried to delete a folder, but the option didn't appear when I right-clicked it. I checked out the properties and it said the filesystem was "MSDOS". When I tried to change the permissions to "read and write", it said that it was a "read only file system". Now I can't do ANYTHING with it. Not even Super User could do anything! Help?

Have you knocked the little switch on the side of the SD card (physically)?

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LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL if you are right.

yes, yes I have. It was never locked in the first place

@DanielHueho: It wasn't that funny

@strongfan: Is that "Yes, I did knock it, all sorted" or "No, it's never been 'locked' and I still have problems"?

@whodares: Well, when a solution for a problem is really, really short, it can be funny or tragic. Anyway, sorry.

@strongfan: If is read-only, I guess you can make a backup of your card content. Do it and try reformating.

EDIT: [backports.ubuntuforums.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/2008 09:37PM by DanielHueho.

no, it's never been locked and it's still has problems.
Also, I just stuck it in the Wii, and the Wii is still able to edit it. As a matter of fact, I just updated the Homebrew Browser. However, it's still read-only in my linux machine.
EDIT: Simultanious post.
DanielHueho: How would I go about reformatting it? I can't find a tool anywhere that runs on linux. Also, how am I supposed to reformat if it's read only?

EDITEDIT: Now I can't backup my SD card! It says there's an input/output error!



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/2008 09:42PM by strongfan.

Is the cardreader part of your machine? or is it like a USB adaptor? It might be that the connection is bad (loose cable, not plugged in properly). Also, doublecheck that you entered the card fully, maybe give the socket a quick blow, incase any dust as accumlated over a pin.

Been a long time since I used linux, but if you have Gnome or KDE, I think you can right-click on the device, and select a format option.

It's part of my machine. And now I can't back up my files because it won't copy due to an input/output error(see previous post)

@strongfan

Are you using a normal SD card or a mini/micro card with an adapter?
Also, are you using pure Linux? You don't have Windows installed to check if the card is working right? (I know Wii have normal access to the card, but at least to check it/backup it.)

My SD card is a 2gb micro SD card in an adapter. As a matter of fact, I am dual booting Linux and Vista. I was just booting into vista to do that before I read your post, but then GRUB said it "wasn't a bootable disk". I returned to linux to find that my Vista partition was replaced with "188.6 GB media" and it was completely empty! In other words, vista was somehow wiped out! Completely deleted! Gone! It looks like my SD card is the least of my problems, now! Does anyone have a LiveCD of Vista or something that I can download? And don't give me a torrent, because every torrent I have ever downloaded was corrupted in addition to torrents being painfully slow!

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strongfan
Does anyone have a LiveCD of Vista or something that I can download?

Did you seriously just ask for a copy of Windows? :-( You could look for Knoppix. It's linux based, but it boots off the CD

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strongfan
And don't give me a torrent, because every torrent I have ever downloaded was corrupted in addition to torrents being painfully slow!

lol, torrents download in packets, randomly sent by whichever sources are available, and thus can arrive in any order. Most clients will dump all the contents in received order until the entire download (or sometimes per-file) has been completed, then the segments will be re-ordered into their correct order



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/2008 10:06PM by whodares.

Well, 188.6 Gigabytes just mysteriously disappeared off my computer, and if linux mysteriously disappears too, my computer will be essentially bricked(and to think I constantly worry about my Wii getting bricked), so yes I am asking for a copy of Windows! In the mean time, I'm trying a system recovery. Wish me luck!

The SD card probably has a corrupt filesystem or simply "burned out". This happened to me on the DS all the time, enough that I just stopped using DS homebrew because of the expense of replacing them. The same libFAT as was used on the DS was ported to Wii for SD support, as I've heard. I haven't used Wii homebrew enough to see if it has the same problems.

To recover it, the best idea is to use 'dd' to make an image of the card, then you can freely do whatever you want to that image.

Your Vista partition is actually a partition, not a separate disk? Did you have the SD card in while booting, and if so did you try booting without it? I think it's very unlikely the entire filesystem disappeared; more likely something just got confused and unable to read it, or it got wiped out. Possibly you formatted the wrong disk. In either case, the damage is probably minimal, because NTFS keeps a backup copy of the filesystem to recover from. Just don't do anything else to that partition.
If it's a separate disk, that disk may have failed. Some sort of hardware issue, such as a faulty power supply, could have destroyed both. I'd be reluctant to blame a virus if the SD card has actually burned out (certain bytes/sectors become unwritable), but it's possible.