Score:3

SD Card Reader Not working - Ubuntu 20.04

cn flag

I have Ubuntu 20.04, freshly installed. It is not able to access any SD Cards if used with the SD Card Adapter. I tried multiple adapters, and tested the same with other computers as well. The SD Card or the adapter is working perfectly on other systems, but on mine it doesn't recognise it.

I can access the SD Card if I use a USB adapter for it.

It is definetly not a hardware problem as I am able to access it if I open on the Windows partition on my computer.

This is the screenshot of the list of available disks, with the SD Card plugged in with the SD Card Adapter:

enter image description here

It's a simple storage device, which opens easily if I open it on my windows partition, but on Ubuntu.

Some forums suggested I reinstall udisks2, which I did, but it hasn't solved the issue.

sudo apt-get install --reinstall udisks2

How do I fix this ?

Hardware Information:

HP-15 Pavillion Gaming Processor Intel i5 9th Gen 8 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD

Edit: As suggested in the comments, I used GParted to get more elaborate information, and this was the result upon starting GParted:

enter image description here

Edit2: I ran the commands lspci and then lspci -v | grep -iA15 sd and this is the output:

lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 8th Gen Core 4-core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers [Coffee Lake H] (rev 07)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor PCIe Controller (x16) (rev 07)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation UHD Graphics 630 (Mobile)
00:04.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor Thermal Subsystem (rev 07)
00:08.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/v6 / E3-1500 v5 / 6th/7th/8th Gen Core Processor Gaussian Mixture Model
00:12.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH Thermal Controller (rev 10)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH USB 3.1 xHCI Host Controller (rev 10)
00:14.2 RAM memory: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH Shared SRAM (rev 10)
00:14.3 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless-AC 9560 [Jefferson Peak] (rev 10)
00:15.0 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH Serial IO I2C Controller #0 (rev 10)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH HECI Controller (rev 10)
00:17.0 RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile SATA Controller [RAID mode] (rev 10)
00:1d.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH PCI Express Root Port #9 (rev f0)
00:1d.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH PCI Express Root Port #14 (rev f0)
00:1d.6 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH PCI Express Root Port #15 (rev f0)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation HM470 Chipset LPC/eSPI Controller (rev 10)
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH cAVS (rev 10)
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH SMBus Controller (rev 10)
00:1f.5 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH SPI Controller (rev 10)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation TU117M [GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile / Max-Q] (rev a1)
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation Device 10fa (rev a1)
02:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd NVMe SSD Controller SM981/PM981/PM983
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 16)
04:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Alcor Micro AU6625 PCI-E Flash card reader controller

And for lspci -v | grep -iA15 sd:

02:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd NVMe SSD Controller SM981/PM981/PM983 (prog-if 02 [NVM Express])
    Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd NVMe SSD Controller SM981/PM981/PM983
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16, NUMA node 0
    Memory at b4400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
    Capabilities: <access denied>
    Kernel driver in use: nvme
    Kernel modules: nvme

03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 16)
    DeviceName: Realtek Gaming GBE Family Controller
    Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
    I/O ports at 3000 [size=256]
    Memory at b4304000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
    Memory at b4300000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
    Capabilities: <access denied>
    Kernel driver in use: r8169

Edit 3: Ran lspci -v | grep -iA15 'card reader' and this was the output:

04:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Alcor Micro AU6625 PCI-E Flash card reader controller
    Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company AU6625 PCI-E Flash card reader controller
    Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 18
    Memory at b4200000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [virtual] [size=4K]
    Capabilities: <access denied>
    Kernel driver in use: alcor_pci
    Kernel modules: alcor_pci
cn flag
Ray
Just a random idea... Can you run `gparted`, perhaps using `sudo`? If you can see the disk, highlight it and then go to Partition | Information. Update your question with the type of "file system" it is. I *guess* it might be FAT32 or something... Then go to View | File system support, and see if that file system has a green check mark or a red X...
in flag
This would be a heck of a lot easier to provide suggestions for if the actual hardware make and model was known. Just because "everything" works in Windows does not mean there are decent drivers available everywhere else
RishiC avatar
cn flag
@matigo added hardware information to the question.
RishiC avatar
cn flag
@Ray I used GParted, and it failed to read the media completely. I have updated the question with a screenshot
sudodus avatar
jp flag
Please tell us not only general information about the computer, but particular information about the card reader. Somebody may know a work-around for it. - Unfortunately some hardware lacks good drivers for linux, and your card reader may be suffering from that problem. - I'm glad that you can use a USB adapter to read your SD cards.
cn flag
Ray
"I tried multiple adapters" -- what does this mean? Is this a microSD card and the adapter is a microSD to SD adapter? "I can access the SD card ... USB adapter" -- I presume you meant under Ubuntu. If so, that's good. Indeed, as others have said, it sounds like the card reader needs a driver...
RishiC avatar
cn flag
I tried various SD Card Adapters to make sure that it's a Linux problem and nothing is wrong with the SD Card or the adapter itself. I have 3 of them specifically, Sony, Samsung and Strontium
sudodus avatar
jp flag
@RishiC, Please run the commands `lspci` and then `lspci -v | grep -iA15 sd` (or something similar to get a better look at the specification of your SD card reader). You can copy and paste the output of those commands from the terminal window to edit your original question and indent 4 spaces to render it as `code`.
Level9 avatar
cn flag
Some reader are a bit sensitive when used on Linux. Connect the reader without the card inserted and wait for it to be recognized, then insert the memory card. If this doesn't help, could you tell us about the memory-card, what filesystem has it been formatted with? Exfat, a popular format for sharing between mac and Windows for instance, requires installation of the exfat utils to be readable on Ubuntu.
RishiC avatar
cn flag
@sudodus I ran the commands, and I've pasted the output in the question, please check.
RishiC avatar
cn flag
@Level9 the format of the filesystem in the memory card is FAT32, but I've also tried using SD Cards which weren't formatted to anything, as well as SD Cards with a NTFS files system. Also, the utils shouldn't be a problem as I've already mentioned in the question that I can access the SD Cards if I use a USB Adapter
sudodus avatar
jp flag
@RishiC, Thanks for the feedback :-) There was no `SD` string in the spec of the card reader. But we can find `card reader`. So please run the command `lspci -v | grep -iA15 'card reader'` so that we can find more details about it. There may be somebody, who knows how to make that reader work with Ubuntu: **Alcor Micro AU6625 PCI-E Flash card reader**
RishiC avatar
cn flag
@sudodus I have added the output of that command to the question. Please check
sudodus avatar
jp flag
@RishiC, *Let us hope that there is enough information now* about the card reader, so that somebody can help you solve your problem :-)
sudodus avatar
jp flag
@RishiC, According to [this link](https://linux-hardware.org/index.php?id=pci:1aea-6625-103c-8478), there is a driver for your card reader, if your linux kernel is new enough (5.6 or newer). Please check the kernel with `uname -a` and Ubuntu point release version with `lsb_release -a`; If you upgrade to Ubuntu 20.04.2, the kernel should be new enough.
sudodus avatar
jp flag
Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/126213/discussion-between-sudodus-and-rishic).
Score:0
al flag

Newbie to Unix, but I used the commands listed above (lsusb, lsblk,DISKS), and these confirmed that the FLASH CARD was in fact SEEN by the laptop. The only problem is that FILES doesn't see it, even though it IS FORMATTED. DISKS noted that there was no PARTITION on the Flash Card, so I had it create one (establishing that the entire (16 GB) would be one Partition. THAT FIXED IT, and FILES can now access it. It acts like any drive or USB stick.

David avatar
cn flag
The OP clearly said the SD card had a partition and other OS could see it.
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