[Epic 4G General] sonarchist:
.....yup, you're holding a time-capsule (of data), hopefully nothing urgent in there; if the chip is NOT cracked, time + research will reveal the fix ................. just in case you're thinking of taking this up a level yourself: stopped by a phone store a few weeks ago, the technician gave me a spare microSD Card (used) from the bench, sometimes they're good like that, especially when there aren't too many people around.............a used mSD (instead of your valuable extra one) would allow you to transplant the chip to a different controller + confirm whether the housing is the culprit (careful + steady procedure, this, have read a few descriptions from individuals that were successful w/ this method of recovery).........and what if it's not the controller?

..............a safer but pricier route --if you do not want to risk damaging your chip further-- is to have the folks at a data recovery center have a look at it, you would be doing this in person, w/out making a commitment for service in which all possible remedies get mapped out on the table...............you're now weighing the balance between the actual data in the mSD + the fee ($250 to commence recovery / price may vary / no cost if unable to recover your data).

quick99si: THANKS for sharing your experience, your case is valuable to other members ...........as a REFERENCE, am adding my recent case w/ an mSD issue (however, unsure how this compares to what led to yours)........... it was nothing UNUSUAL, far as I was concerned, right after a firmware update (went from EH06 to EI22), after mounting pc to SD Card (same as I had done 1,000's x's before on prior firmware), this: while in the process of unmounting device from pc, the pc began displaying a red error notification message 'An error occurred while ejecting Removable Disc (D: ).' (this happened immediately after clicking USB device icon in pc taskbar 'Safely Remove Hardware + Eject Media'), yes, despite this, the device had NOT ejected..........next, I selected "USB Mass Storage in use. <before turning OFF USB Storage, make sure you have unmounted ("ejected") your Android's SD card from your computer.>" on the epic, at which point the dial spinner went into a bootloop................wished that I had tapped 'USB Mass Storage" FIRST, then "Safely Remove...Eject Media" icon in taskbar AFTER, if only to possibly save the mSD Card........oh well,

..............................fast forward: am still unsure whether this specific maneuver was the cause of the damaged microSD Card (all transfer activity between pc + mSD had already completed) or whether it was simply the final breath of redundancy of overuse of an external storage element on the Epic................thankfully, the mSD responded well to recovery.........have decided NOT to reformat (reformatted this very same mSD previously, during a separate issue w/ data corruption about a year ago)................think it's wise not to reformat + reuse mSD's that have already shown corruption, to be on the safe side (yet others do, w/ no immediate apparent issues).

*edit* a known bug involving soft-key Safe Remove Hardware is discussed in the following thread (as well as the fix):

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2401954