Hardware or ROM SD card issue (4.4.4 NHA) topic

I'm in a bit of a pickle. I'm on rooted stock 4.4.4 and recently got a wild hair to go to lollipop. I have an 8 gig Patriot SD card. Not enough room to pull off a Nandroid, etc. I have a brand new 16 gig SanDisk laying around and a brand new 32 gig Samsung EVO card that I just got in. Neither will mount properly, or reliably. Android claims it's blank and will not mount/format it. I have to slide it in and out (don't get cute with that...) until the phone mounts it and then it's in a partial read/write state. However, if I put the old 8 gig card in, all is well. I do not have SD card encryption enabled. I have tried the SD Fix applications, they find nothing wrong. If I put the card into a laptop, everything is perfectly fine.

So I'm to the point where I may have to completely ODIN my phone just to see if it's a ROM problem. I cannot back-up because of the card issue. :crying:

Any bright ideas?

thank you much