SD (Solid State Digital) cards are amazing technology. Especially when it comes to the tiny fingernail-sized Micro versions. These small cards can store tens, hundreds, or even thousands of gigabytes of data!
How To Recover Data From a Corrupted SD Card
Unfortunately, the small size of SD cards comes at a price. SD cards can not only be fragile and easily lost, but they also have a terrible tendency to stop working or offer corrupted versions of your data.
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If this happened to you, let's see how to recover data from a damaged SD card.
Is my SD card really corrupted?
Before we look at recovering a damaged SD card, let's quickly talk about the symptoms that indicate that your SD card is initially damaged. Here are some common signs that your SD card has become corrupted:
- You can see files on the card, but you cannot read and / or write to them
- SD- the map appears blank, even though you know it has files.
- You can see files like photos, but when you open them, they are corrupted.
- Copying from the card shows an impossible completion time, usually resulting in a copy error.
- The Windows 10 Disk Management tool shows the drive, but reports that it is empty or unreadable.
If you observe this behavior, most likely your data is corrupted or the SD card itself is faulty. Before proceeding, you can check our guide to troubleshooting when SD cards cannot be read at all.
The basic diagnosis
Before trying to recover your data or taking any drastic measures like formatting your SD card, there are a few basic diagnostic steps you need to follow to make sure you know which device is really the problem.
- 1- Try using the SD card on a different device.
- 2- Try using a known good SD card on the same device.
- 3 - Try reading the SD card with a different reader.
- 4- Try to read the SD card through the source device with a cable.
If the SD card is indeed a common culprit, read on for further tips.
SD card problems versus corrupted write
It is possible that your SD card is fine, but the device that reads and writes data from the card has somehow gone bad. Maybe he lost power while writing or some other problem. In these cases, after you have restored all possible data, you can simply format the card so that it can be used.
Fake SD Cards
This is a new SD card or one that you have never filled before. You may have actually bought a fake SD card. "Counterfeit" in the sense that the capacity sold is not what is actually indicated on the card.
Counterfeit SD cards are a scourge of modern technology. Because small SD cards are so cheap and larger cards are many times more expensive, fraudsters create cards that report false capacity. So, for example, your "128 GB" SD card may only have 16 GB of actual capacity. When the 16GB SD card fills up, the card just starts overwriting the first data in the loop.
In fact, this can deceive us for a long time, since we will most likely only check the most recent files that we have saved, or for some time we may not reach the maximum capacity of the actual SD size.
If you suspect that your SD card is fake and not damaged, try using one of the many fake SD card testers available for download. FakeFlashTest is one of the popular solutions that will tell you if your SD card is just broken or actually fake.
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Use Disk Checker Tool
Sometimes the error is not related to your actual SD card or data, but to the file system of the card. Simply using a disk checker on your operating system can recover data from a damaged SD card. On Windows 10. What to do:
- Open Windows Explorer.
- Right-click the appropriate drive.
- Click Properties.
- Select tool.
- Click Check.
- Follow the instructions.
If your actual data is intact and the SD card is physically healthy, the disk checker will restore its logical structure and the disk can be used again. If the card is not working properly, the Disk Checker will inform you about it.
Use specialized recovery software
If none of your self-diagnostics yielded any results and the SD card is still showing up when you insert it, consider using dedicated SD card data recovery software.
These software packages bypass the limitations of average disk management standards and validate the SD card bit by bit using brute force methods. Sometimes in this way you can completely recover damaged data or at least partially recover data. What's better than losing everything.
However, these programs cannot work miracles. If the data has been physically destroyed or cannot be accessed, then the program really cannot do anything.
A good place to start is Recuva, a great general-purpose data recovery tool that has saved our own data many times in the past.
Hire a data recovery professional
Let's say the information on your SD card is very important. Perhaps you just filmed a unique event for an important project, and when you returned home, it turned out that the SD card was not working or the data could not be read.
When data is of value, you should consider seeking the help of a data recovery professional to recover data from a damaged SD card. These companies have access to hardware and software far beyond the average consumer. They can repair broken hardware components and read data from media directly.
This includes not only common damage errors, but electronics failure, memory chip failure, fire damage, water damage, physical damage, and anything else you can imagine.
Sounds great, right? Yes, of course, but hiring these specialists is expensive, so the data in question should be worth it.
Prevention is better than cure
Look, you are probably reading this article because you have suffered losses when it comes to your damaged SD cards. Hopefully one of the above solutions has restored some or even all of your data. However, sometimes the data is simply lost forever.
Therefore, to avoid falling victim to SD data loss again, try the following:
- Move the contents of the SD card from your devices such as drones and cameras to your computer as soon as possible.
- Store at least two copies of irreplaceable data in two different locations.
- Only buy high-quality SD cards from well-known manufacturers when data integrity is critical
SD cards are pretty reliable, but they still fail more often than other types of solid-state drives. Especially if you use them in applications where they are written all the time. Using SD cards in a way that recognizes their weaknesses will help you prevent losses in the first place.
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How To Recover Data From a Corrupted SD Card
How To Recover Data From a Corrupted SD Card
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