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My Rpi 4 doesn't see the SD-card. I have switched SD-cards, formatted them all correctly. Also used both Raspian and Noobs. Nothing helps because it does not see the cards.

Every 'solution' on the internet says to reboot, using the SD-card. Is it possible to reboot, without a SD-card in the process.

Sometimes the green light is not on. Other times it is constantly on. But it never flashes or react to anything...

I have been trying different codes, programs and fora. But everything includes an SD card in the process. Please help.

Note: The Pi worked fine and ran RetroPie for a few days. One morning it just doesn't read the SD anymore ...

Thanks in advance!

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  • Is your Pi plugged into a screen via the mini hdmi next to the power socket? How did you get Raspbian onto the sd card? The green light means it is reading/writing to the sd card.
    – CoderMike
    Commented May 1, 2020 at 14:32
  • @CoderMike Thanks for your reaction. Raspian was flashed to the SD using Etcher. And yes, the mini hdmi is plugged into a computer monitor. If I turn on the Pi4 now, it only shows the red LED.
    – Maurice L
    Commented May 1, 2020 at 14:35
  • It's possible that your EEPROM is corrupted. Check raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/… to find out how to fix it.
    – SkyPlayX
    Commented May 1, 2020 at 15:08
  • Thanks Pradhyumna Narain. I have tried all of it again. Use Imager and followed all the steps. Used multiple SD-cards again. None of them are read. When I put the newly written SD-cards in the Pi 4, only the red light burns. No Reboot, EEPROM etc. seems to work. What else can I do. It just doesn't seem to read any SD-card anymore.
    – Maurice L
    Commented May 1, 2020 at 16:08
  • 2
    perhaps the SD card slot is damaged
    – Jaromanda X
    Commented May 2, 2020 at 10:11

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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To troubleshoot your boot problems I would do the following steps in that order:

  1. If possible check if your SD Cards boot in another Raspberry Pi 4B.
  2. Work through the The Boot Problems Sticky.
  3. It may be possible that the SPI EEPROM has become corrupted. But it is possible to recover it. How to do it you will find a step by step guidance at Downloads in section Recovery.
  4. You can enable the serial debug console to get messages from the bootloader. For this you need an USB to TTL serial adapter. For further information about this you can look at What is the correct way to connect serial console on RPi4 Model B?.
  5. If you have the serial console running, then you can enable the debug messages from the bootloader with Serial output in case of no OS. As noted there you will find a step by step guidance how to enable the serial debug output of the bootloader on the UART. Have a look at Pi4 Bootloader Configuration just at the beginning.
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  • Thank you for you answer. I have bought an USB tot TTL serial adapter, but I have trouble finding out exactly what to do and how to use it within the 'Serial output in case of no OS.' (I have no experience at all). This is my first RPI, and it 'broke' within the first week. How do I debug/clean/reset it so it reads an SD-card normally again? Is there a step-by-step way of going through the process? Thank you in advance.
    – Maurice L
    Commented May 7, 2020 at 13:05
  • @MauriceL I have updated the answer with ordering procedure and better focus to the step by step guidance. If you run into trouble with one of these steps then feel free to ask a new question specific to the step. This is a very good exercise to get experience with your new Raspberry Pi :-)
    – Ingo
    Commented May 7, 2020 at 20:58
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I was with the same problem. I fixed it by resoldering the pins of the sd slot. I think it's a ploblem of cold solder. You'll have to touch each pin with the soldering iron for 3 seconds approximately. I hope you can fix it too.

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