ESP32: f_mount failed: (3) The physical drive cannot work

Question

I am trying to use a 128MB SD card with my ESP32 board through an SPI interface and an SD Card Module. Despite the card being fully functional when used with my computer, it fails to initialize with the ESP32.

Setup Details:

• Microcontroller: ESP32
• SD Card Module: Connected via SPI
• SD Card: 128MB SD card
• Library: SD.h

Serial Monitor Error:

[  2502][E][sd_diskio.cpp:199] sdCommand(): Card Failed! cmd: 0x00
[  2515][E][sd_diskio.cpp:806] sdcard_mount(): f_mount failed: (3) The physical drive cannot work
[  2832][E][sd_diskio.cpp:199] sdCommand(): Card Failed! cmd: 0x00

Card Details from Linux fdisk -l:

Disk /dev/sda: 120 MiB, 125829120 bytes, 245760 sectors
Disk model: Storage Device  
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Additional Information:

• The card is formatted with FAT16.
• An 8GB SDHC card works perfectly with the same setup.
• According to this answer on the Arduino forum, the SD.h library should support SD cards less than 2GB.
• According to this article capacity larger than 32 MB uses FAT 16B.

What I've Tried:

• Reformatting the SD card to ensure it uses FAT16.
• Checking connections and re-seating the SD card.
• Testing the SD card on a PC, where it works fine.
• Used SD card format tool.