Dell Venue 8 pro cannot recognize Transcend MicroSDXC UHS-I 300X 64G

5 user reports out of thousands of Venue pro tablets sold is not high-incidence or common; nevertheless, it appears that all but 1 complaint posted to this thread concern a Transcend microSD card — yet nobody has commented re. contacting Transcend tech support (???) The other card vendor — Kingston — has an outstanding reputation for tech support & customer service; in both instances, I think you each need to seek advice from the respective vendor's tech support — provided that you purchased your cards from authorized resellers.

I'm quite certain that I cannot successfully help this whole group all-at-once — especially when some have (correctly) pointed-out that I know so very little. On the other hand, when I tackle a problem by 1st disregarding what I think I already know about it, I'm more often than not successful in the end. My approach might seem tedious, but heck — Life is hard; often harder on those seeking shortcuts thru it...

@ERIBOW: I feel your pain, and I was drafting a follow-up reply to the thread when I rec'd notice of your post...

Although, there's a good deal of overlap to the symptoms reported in this thread, there can still be multiple causes for them, so each of you need to keep your own counsel, as you drill-down to your own eventual solution; it may be premature to rule-out something because it didn't work for sombody else — after all — none of you are all-the-way home with a "fix" just yet.

Just for completeness, in my case, I am using a SanDisk Ultra 64GB Micr SDXC card.  I have also pulled out the card and reseated it with the tablet shut off (multiple times) which does not fix the problem.  Pulling it out and putting it back in with the machine running, so far, has always fixed the issue.

I do not speak from a position of great knowledge, just observation and much frustration.  Some of the frustration stems from not being able to see a way forward.

Mine currently is a SanDisk microSDHC Ultra 32GB

I'm willing to go through troubleshooting steps but would ask you to read the thread here and you will see that many of these questions have already been answered, at least in my case, but to reiterate and add to the list of answers:

1) My 64GB card works elsewhere.

2) It works in the V8P when I first plug it in and will work for some time.  At some random time (usually a day or two later) the V8P will no long recognize the card.  Rebooting the tablet doesn't fix it.  Shutting down the tablet, taking out the SD Card and reseating it, doesn't fix the problem.  Only putting the card in while the tablet is on fixes the problem.

3) I low level formatted the Card to NTFS when I first started using it in the V8P.

4) The card consistently is recognized "initially" if inserted after boot.

5) I have several cards that work in the V8P including this one but left in over time, they no long show up in File Explorer (i.e. drive goes away).  I have to admit, I haven't tried leaving other SD Cards in the machine to see if they go away over time.

6) Taking a "troublesome card" to the store wouldn't help since the card initially works when plugged into the device.  Once again, read the thread and you would see this is not an "always dead card" problem but happens over time, at least in my case.

Imo, this thread is becoming a catch-all for too many problems to have a single solution... However, I do have two Sandisk 64GBs that have performed flawlessly (so far) in 3 V8Ps & a V11. Does your 32GB work OK elsewhere? Did it ever work OK on V8P? Have you low-level formatted  your card in V8P (100% erased) since encountering issue? Will card consistently mount OK if inserted after boot? Do you have any cards that work OK in your V8P? Have you (or anybody else) taken a troublesome micro card to a store w/ a V8P demo, and requested to check if your card mounts OK in that store's V8P demo?

Your posts suggest that you''re already adopting opinions about what's likely wrong, & what's going to be a waste of time & effort to check-out. Time and again, troubleshooting can get bogged-down by what we think we already know — even more than by what we don't know yet...

@ GLENNWO: I have read your posts, but since I didn't see what you saw & did, your explanations (before now) haven't been as clear as you might have thought; I have read the entire thread at least 3x already, and my most recent comments reflect that... If you folks want to continue casting your lot together, you need to be patient when a reply to somebody else (most-recently, to eribow) doesn't exactly fit your circumstances. I've tried using different browsers to access these forums (both Mac & PC) and none do a good job of showing replies properly subtended and referenced to the appropriate post — esp. since the timeline might allow several other posts between a post & a reply to it. I've previously pointed-out that my suggestions may not apply to all of you equally — since there are too-many differences in what's been reported already, for me to believe there's going to be just one solution for everybody; and not everybody will have the same troubleshooting resources available either... I won't be offended if you choose to ignore a suggestion or question which you believe doesn't apply to you, but please don't accuse me of not paying attention — if it appears that I overlooked something important to you, it's probably because I didn't get your point; please try again!

I've avoided quoting as a way to tag my responses in these forums, because threads can quickly grow huge — making them even harder to follow!  I'll use @... more routinely, with an understanding that our exchanges might hold something useful to others as well... And, NO, I am certainly NOT attempting to take-over this thread, but I saw that the discussion was getting seriously bogged-down & thought some additional troubleshooting suggestions and a better-organized approach might help some of you find your own solution; I don't yet know what that's going to be, and this round-robin format might not work well for those who are already fed-up & just want to cut-to-the chase ...

I do feel kinda embarrassed by going-on (or "off") this way, but as more Venue tablet problems appear, we owners seem to be better at discovering work-arounds than the engineers are are at finding solutions. At the same time, finding useful information in "our" forums is getting more difficult because the discussions are getting more rowdy and fragmented; even with only a half-dozen owners who have joined this thread, that was starting to happen here as well. Even so, if y'all liked it better that way, just tell me to shoo!

@GLENNWO (again): No harm done, but thanks! Your "sit" is intriguing because card(s?) disappear after a while. To confirm that I grasp what's going on for you, would you be defining "success" as finding a previously inserted card mounted after booting  and remaining mounted throughout that session, including any standby/wake events along the way? 

Does it (they) always fail to mount after boot? After warm restart, too? (I'm not clear from your posts, which symptoms might apply to other cards you've tested). If your 64GB card always fails to mount after re-boot, testing @ local brick'n'mortar is a valid option.

Have you noticed an alert beep or event log entry corresponding to when card spontaneously un-mounts or when you manually eject?

Have you attempted to swap-out your 64GB card? (No, I'm not gonna tell you where I live...)

Are you willing to test problem Sandisk card after re-formatting to ExFAT in your V8P? (Sandisk techs will probably insist on that, as a "loyalty" test)

Do you have any USB/Bluetooth devices attached or paired, or 3rd party device drivers installed?

Have you installed any 3rd party anti-virus~malware app or additional startup/background apps~gadgets?

Does failure occur when Venue is connected to charger & fully-charged?

Do these jeans make my ...   :emotion-40:

Hopefully, the preceding is mostly a checklist of what you've already considered— not a whole-lot of additional work...

:emotion-15:

@eribow: — I'm "afraid" too...  that is, I'm afraid I can't help with attempts at inspirational problem-solving which flit from limb-to-limb without testing each hypothesis in the real world; without a properly designed experiment to test your thinking — your "leaning" just puts you at risk of falling-out of that tree. Besides, I only have skills at troubleshooting deductively (sometimes called research) by reaching a conclusion thru an orderly, well-designed process of elimination (purely from an engineering POV, I could offer lots of possible reasons your current hypothesis fails to consider — but I won't). Throughout time, most important scientific 'discoveries' have been made by very smart people — who were able to gradually overcome their ignorance about a particular subject, by careful observation and testing (and observation, and testing, and...). I still believe that somewhere in the series of troubleshooting steps already posted here, you'll gain additional insight which will either reveal the source of your problem, or get you a whole-lot closer to it...

Life is hard! (Whoops, I already said that, huh?) :emotion-43:

SD card speeds and spec info for the V-Pro systems

http://www.dell.com/support/troubleshooting/us/en/04/KCS/KcsArticles/ArticleView?c=us&l=en&s=gen&docid=631103

One thing to check is you have the latest driver pack and BIOS on the system.

http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/04/Product/dell-venue-8-pro

Can you list the type of SD cards that are having problems along with the file system it’s formatted with? Want to see if we can come to a common link between them.  

Thanks

EW

@DELL-ERIN W: Most of that info has been mentioned in the thread (it's thankfully still short) — Transcend, Kingston & Sandisk SD cards; variously formatted to FAT32, ExFAT & NTFS — along with troubleshooting already attempted.

[Four of the cards I own all work reliably in my V8P tab; 2 Transcend 32GB (NTFS & ExFAT) and 2 64GB Sandisk (ExFAT)  All are Class 10 speed.]