Level 1

12 points

SD Card Slot Disappears After Sleep (Gone Until Reboot)

I love my new Macbook Air 2013. Its speedy Core i7 and lightening-fast 256GB SSD make for quite a wonderful experience in Windows 7, too. But I have a problem that is proving to be quite the frustrating little niggle, and I just can't sort it out. So I've turned to you guys for help.

Here's the thing: the SD Card (the slot, the device, the card, the folder, the drive, everything) just vanishes after the MBA wakes up from sleep. I've tried it with various cards with different filesystems (FAT32, NTFS, EXFAT) and capacities (32GB, 64GB, 128GB) -- always the same. I've reinstalled Windows 7 Pro x64 multiple times using up-to-date boot camp assistant and Apple Support Drivers.

The card works fine. Until, of course, the computer goes to sleep. When it awakens, the card is gone -- even from the device manager -- until the computer is rebooted. That's right, plugging the card (or any other card) into and out of the slot doens't fix it. Neither does resetting the NVRAM or SMC. Neither does adding an event to the Task Scheduler to disable the device prior to sleep and re-enable it on wake (it doesn't re-enable, the entire device vanishes).

Here are some more details:

- Putting the card in for the first time while the computer is asleep is okay -- the card appears when the computer is awakened. But putting it back to sleep afterwards causes the same behavior -- the card and reader disappear until reboot.

- The computer can go to sleep and wake up many times without a card inserted without the device disappearing. I can put a card in and have it recognized propertly after any number of card-free sleep-wake cycles. But the moment the computer sleeps with card inside, the reader disappears until next reboot, no matter what.

- This behavior does not occur in OSX to my knowledge (although OSX handles both mounting AND sleep states VERY differently than Windows, so I can't directly compare).

I have tried everything short of scripting a reset of the root USB hub (a highly unrecommended procedure that can disable the keyboard/mouse/etc). I've even tried new USB hub drivers (intel 8.10) to no avail.

Anyone have the same issue? Does this work for you? Does anyone have a copy of older SD card drivers (maybe the latest ones are screwy?). Thanks

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2013), Windows 7, OSX 10.8.5 too.

Posted on Oct 3, 2013 8:08 PM

Top-ranking reply

Hawk521

Level 1

18 points

Posted on Oct 1, 2017 6:52 AM

There is no solution. Only work-arounds.

To the best of my knowledge, if you only use the Mac OS you will not see this disappearing SD Slot problem. BUT - if you utilize Bootcamp to run Windows (any version) and you allow your computer to go into "SLEEP MODE" while using Windows (when you close the lid or just let it time out) - then you WILL encounter this problem.

When s Mac running Windows in Bootcamp goes into sleep mode, the Bootcamp SD Slot goes dormant and cannot be waked up without a power off/on of the machine - which will restore the SD Slot. And for most folks a simple restart of Windows will restore the SD Slot, probably because it goes through the full boot-up process.

Workarounds;

You can utilize the Hybernate mode (instead of SLEEP mode) and never see the problem. The difference involves the fact that Hybernate involves a full power off of the computer whereas the SLEEP mode leaves the power on (albeit in a low power state.) Or you can use a full SHUTDOWN in lieu of SLEEP mode. In this case the SD Slot is fully functional upon reboot of the WIndows OS.

In my case I had always preferred to use the SLEEP mode because it is quicker to wake up. But once I started using the SD Card slot extensively while in Windows, I had to change to either SHUTDOWN or HYBERNATE to ensure that the SD card would be functional when I needed it.

This problem has existed for over 3 years. Apple has seemingly acknowledged it as a problem on occassion, but has yet to ever bother with a fix. I suspect it relates to the fact that this problem only affects users who run Windows on their Macs. And why would Apple bother to fix something that they disapprove of in the first place. <sarcasm detected!>

View in context

148 replies

Oct 21, 2016 11:57 AM in response to Gabe-A

Thank you so much czuchnicki for your work around !
this really helped me!

Oct 23, 2016 10:55 AM in response to Gabe-A

Same issue here. Brand new MacBook Air running Windows 10.

Qiuyi21

Level 1

4 points

Nov 30, 2016 10:04 PM in response to WinwinLau

I'm using Transcend Jetdrive Lite too. And this issue sometime happen. Turn off auto-wake up option can't save power.

ahsirg

Level 1

34 points

Apr 2, 2017 12:56 PM in response to Gabe-A

I was having this issue for a year on my MBP retina 13 (2015)

and update sierra 10.12.4 finally fixes both:

- slow boot

- bootcamp not seeing sd card (and showing USB Device Not Recognized)

Very happy

Apr 2, 2017 2:34 PM in response to ahsirg

SD card still disappears after sleep, even with the latest update...

do2mino

Level 1

4 points

May 9, 2017 1:38 PM in response to WinwinLau

Thanks! It works for me

Jun 17, 2017 7:25 AM in response to WinwinLau

I installed the Transcend Jetdrive Toolbok, however my Jetdrive Lite 130 doesn't show up in the toolbox when I run it in windows. It only showed Jetdrive Go option. Any suggestions?

Jul 7, 2017 12:18 AM in response to Gabe-A

Have the same problem.I use the hibernate and wake up option,instead of reboot.

Goody64

Level 1

28 points

Jul 9, 2017 4:59 AM in response to Hawfinch

I'd like to try that. How do you disable background activity on the SD card?

Goody64

Level 1

28 points

Jul 9, 2017 5:21 AM in response to Hawfinch

Since the SD card has disappeared, I can't exclude it. I'll have to reboot and hope it reappears to then exclude it from TM backups. I'll report back on what happens.

towoode

Level 1

4 points

Jul 10, 2017 5:12 AM in response to Hawfinch

Good thought! But my use case is such that I can be pretty confident that i'm not doing any writing or reading each and every time I sleep. Fraid it makes no difference for me....

TKayser

Level 1

8 points

Oct 29, 2017 10:09 AM in response to Gabe-A

Same Problem on MacBook Pro (Retina, 13', Mid 2014) using mac os 10.13 high sierra, but not on every sleep wakeup just randomly. And when it happens only a (N)Pram Resets fixes the Problem!

cyongsak

Level 1

4 points

Nov 2, 2017 3:39 AM in response to Gabe-A

I format the SD Card used "SDFormatter" app on Mac OS, it working fine in Windows 10 and fixed my problem. The card is still working after sleep.

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SD Card Slot Disappears After Sleep (Gone Until Reboot)