Dual SD card model is healthy but not able to see nor use SD cards

Back in the days when the IDSDM was a good idea we have 100s of these.  What me puzzled is that you told us that you have insert 2 SD cards....

1. but in the list is only one
2. The Storage size is reportet 0MB.  You have removed the write lock from the cards?
3. Within the BIOS/iDRAC setup you have to specify if you want SD mirroring and which SDx is the master one

Hi Origin3k,

Thank you for your response. let me answer your questions in line:

1. but in the list is only one --- > yes, I added 2 SD cards as this Internal SD Module is dual SD slot. 
2. The Storage size is reportet 0MB.  You have removed the write lock from the cards? ---- > upon physical observation on the SD cards, both of them have the lock in up position which means write-protection is off.  
3. Within the BIOS/iDRAC setup you have to specify if you want SD mirroring and which SDx is the master one  ---> in Bios, I disabled mirror SD by Dell instruction and first SD is one.  
   the following picture i took from my bios.

For sure we have "Card Redundancy" set to mirror but thats not the root cause of your problem.   Are these original Dell labeld SD cards? As long as the reportet size is 0 it will not work.

Reset everything

If you only insert a CARD into SLOT2 will the list changed?

Regards,

Joerg

Hello, what is the SD memory model you are using? Can you give us the part # ?

@DELL-Young E​ 

Hi 

the SD card is Lexar professional Silver. and its part number is L06251568661967128B

@Origin3k​ 

hi

To answer the first question, no it is not Dell brand SD and I did not know Dell has SD card. to answer the second question: I just polled out SD card from slot 1 and kept only SD in slot 2. I iDRAC, i do not see any change as its status is still "Good"
in OpenManage GUI, what is see is SD1 got changed to SD2 but still 0 MB.

do you think i should format the SD(s) with another system? now they are exFAT

Hi, 
Let me update my ticket information upon recent finding. 

by swapping the SD cards slots, one of them got detected by windows server (I will check ESXi in a few min), however, regardless of SD card slot, only one of SD cards could be detected at the time. 

meaning, if i put SD in slot 1, slot 2 is not being detected and even its light becomes orange and the same if i do for slot 2 first. 

so now, my question is bit changed. 

is dual SD card module suppose to detect both SD cards or it works with both SD only in Mirror mode?

The "orange" blinking sound right for me because the BIOS configuration doesnt match the physical world which means a dead/missing SD.

Hint: Your system can support up to 3 SD cards

1. iDRAC vFLASH

2. IDSDM 1

3. IDSDM 2

It might be possible that ESXi is unable to format a device when there is already a FS on a device. But for me it looks wrong when size of 0 MB is listet.

I can take a look later into of of my Systems.

@Origin3k​ 
Initially thank you for your responses. 
I a bit doubt that orange blinking does not matter since I observed that every time one slot blink orange, that SD would not be detected by OS (ESXi nor Windows Server).

Nevertheless, one SD is fully functional as i tested it but second one is not being detected by either of OS(s).
if you know that system shall support both, i would ask help from Dell community if you could help me with troubleshooting it.

Best regards

Hello, @Ehsanghasemi
Thanks for getting back to me.
"the SD card is Lexar professional Silver. and its part number is L06251568661967128B"
This isn't a Dell card.

I would also like to add this information as well.

SD card/USB boot device revised guidance
https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/317631/sd-cardusb-boot-device-revised-guidance.html
"vSphere customers have encountered many issues related to device reliability when SD cards are used as the boot device. Endurance ratings can no longer guarantee the viability of SD cards as a boot option."

Respectfully,

@DELL-Young E​ 
Thank you so much for your professional response. 
Issue is not SD cards as both of them work, if I locate once at the time. Issue is Dell Internal dual SD card module that does not detect both cards at the same time. 
Is it a limitation of using two cards only in mirror mode or it is an abnormal situation and needs troubleshooting that sd card module could not detect both SD cards together?

Very well explained. thank you. 
let me express here the result of what you mentioned. 

1- yes, if i go with 1 SD inserted, regardless which one of two got inserted, it works just fine. Windows and ESXi could see it but ESXi could pass it through which is another story. 
2- I need this SD or SD(s) to act as my HSM and not for OS. so it should be detected as storage block just like USB. So i gave up on it since I cannot pass SD even one of them to my PKI VM.

3- What is left for me to check is the screenshot you shared that shows both SDs are detected as good. 

thank you all