How to Recover Data from SD Card with FREE Software

Help! What to do after losing SD card data?

SD card, as a popular data storage device, is widely used in mobile devices such as digital cameras, telephones, music players, and so on.

It can store many types of files, such as pictures, videos, music files, documents, and so on. However, important data can be lost due to various reasons such as accidental deletion, formatting, virus attacks, and so on.

Faced with a tricky data loss disaster, you need a very reliable free SD card recovery software to rescue your lost data.

How to recover data from SD card with FREE software [2 Methods]

When your files are lost and you haven't backed them up in advance, you need to use recovery software to get them back. 

▶ Option 1. Using Windows File Recovery to recover deleted SD card data

CMD tool Windows File Recovery is available for Windows 10 2004 and above. It can restore various types of files, containing jpg/png/pdf/docx/xlsx/mov/zip, etc. It’s reliable but complex, the people without a computer background can’t use it at ease, because it does not give users an intuitive interface.

Before using it, you should learn some parameters. By the way,  The command line format is like winfr source-drive: destination-drive: [/mode] [/switches].
▪ Source drive: the place where files are lost/deleted.
▪ Target drive: the place where you choose to store the recovered files.
▪ Recovery mode: general: Regular & Extensive; advanced: Segment & Signature.
▪ Switches: parameters to target the folders and file types.
▪ Mode: Mode is related to the file system. Check out the following screenshot.

Check file system: Click This PC > Right-click the source drive > Tap the Properties.

Switch:

Then, you can begin to write the command line.

Step 1. Download and install this tool in the Microsoft Store.

Open Start menu > Find and click Microsoft Store > Input Windows File Recovery on the search bar > click Get button.

Step 2. Open Windows File Recovery and click Run as administrator.

Step 3. Input your command line, and click Enter.

▶ Option 2. A better alternative to Windows File Recovery

It's highly recommended to use MyRecover, a free SD card recovery software. It provides a graphical user interface and supports Windows 7 or later. Its biggest merit is that it can restore the file name, format, and path of the original file.

★Highlights:

 Combine 2 scanning modes: Quick Scan & Deep Scan can scan out all the lost data.

 High-speed: It can retrieve 200＋ deleted or lost data in a short time.

 Widely use: It can restore data from SSD/HDD, and also supports FAT32, NTFS, exFAT, and ReFS in Windows.

 Various files recovery: It can recover various files, like PPT, Word, Excel, Photos, Videos, Audio, Zip files, and so forth.

Intuitive comparison chart of the three software.

Step 1. Find the SD card drive and click Scan.

Step 2. The lost files will be detected.

Step 3. Select a path to store the files, and then click Recover x files to retrieve your target data. 

How to Recover SD card data with CMD

If you need to try SD card recovery with CMD, refer to the following steps.

▶ Type CHKDSK command

If the data on your SD card is lost, you can check if there is a problem with your disk. CHKDSK is a good tool to scan through your entire hard drive to find and fix problems.

Step 1. Connect your SD card to your device. Start Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.

Step 2. Input chkdsk F: /f. > Type Y press Enter > Input F > Press Enter.

▶  Type attrib command

Sometimes the missing files are not lost, but hidden, you can use the attrib command to retrieve your hidden files easily.

Step 1. Open Start, type Command Prompt in the search bar, and click Enter.

Step 2. Open it, and choose Run as administrator.

Step 2. Type attrib -h -r -s /s /d D:\*.* (D refers to the drive where your file is located) and click Enter to retrieve hidden files.

Conclusion

The post shows how to recover data from SD card with free software. Among the three software, I think MyRecover is better to use because it is easy to operate, has strong compatibility, and the file format path can also be recovered. The passage also introduces recovering SD card data by the attrib command and CHKDSK. I believe these methods can help you a lot.