How to Recover Data from SD Card Easily [4 Methods Included]

As a kind of popular memory device, SD card often helps people save lots of important data. However, when people use SD cards to store important files, they are also at risk of losing and damaging their SD card data. As in the case mentioned above, many users need an SD card recovery way to effectively recover data from SD card after experiencing data loss.

What causes SD card data loss?

Before we learn about how to recover data from SD card, we can get to know something about the causes of SD card data loss. There are some main causes to it below:

Accidental deletion: Users may delete some data by mistake. Then you can stop using SD card and find a solution to it.

Physical damage: Users may turn it off before ejecting the SD card, or eject it during the transfer process.

Virus effect: If your computer is attacked by viruses when your SD card connects to it, the data on SD card may disappear as well.

But don’t worry too much, we have prepared 4 effective ways to recover SD card and some information about how to retrieve corrupted data on SD card.

4 effective ways to recover data from SD card

To recover deleted files from SD card, there are 4 different main solutions and you can try them until your data is recovered successfully. If you want to pick one solution directly, just go to the easiest one.

Way 1. Recover data from SD card by unhiding

Sometimes, your data is not deleted at all and it is just hidden or read-only. Here is a way to recover it by unhiding, just follow the easy steps below:

1. Connect your SD card to your computer.

2. Go to your SD card, click on View > Options > View > Show hidden files, folders, and drives.

3. Then check if your data are back. If not, please refer to the later methods.

Way 2. Recover data from SD card with CMD

If you received the Only-read prompt, you can turn off the write-protect notch with CMD. But this method can only recover one file at a time. If you do not have too much SD card data that needs to be recovered, you can refer to the guide as follow:

1. Go to the Windows menu to find Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.

2. Next, type list disk > select disk 0 > list volume, and choose your target SD card.

3. Input a specific command line to recover your SD card data. For example, if you want to recover a PDF file named day1 under the weekreport folder under 2022 folder on SD card G: drive, you need to enter: recover g: \2022\weekreport\day1.pdf.

Way 3. Recover data from SD card with Windows File Recovery

Some tools can also help you to recover data from SD card for free like the Windows software called Windows File Recovery. It can be available in Windows 10 2004 and later. If you can get used to the usage of command lines, you can try this tool without a graphic user interface by following the steps below:

1. Go to the Microsoft store to Get Windows File Recovery.

2. Find it in the Windows menu, and Run as administrator.

3. Go to This PC to find your SD card and right-click on it, then choose Properties.

According to the file system, choose a recovery mode.

4. To recover data in Windows File Recovery, please type command line like winfr source-drive: destination-drive: [/mode] [/switches].

Way 4. Recover data from SD card via a data recovery software (Easiest)

What is the easiest way to recover deleted file from SD card? Here comes a quite simple method.

If you feel the command line recovery is too complex and inconvenient, you can try this Windows data recovery tool - MyRecover. It provides a clear graphic user interface and easy guidelines to use it so that you can recover data from micro SD card without effort. Besides, it has many advantages as follows:

● Recover 200+ types of files, including Word, Excel, PDF, photos, music, etc.
● Recover data with a high recovery success rate.
● Support Windows 11/10/8/7/Server.
● Recover files without changing their format/path/name.
● Fully scan carefully and find all your deleted/lost files.

Let’s see how to recover SD card data via this Windows recovery tool:

1. Download and install MyRecover on your PC.

2. Hover the mouse over the SD card drive saved deleted files before, and click Scan to scan.

3. After that, you can see your deleted files and other missing files after Quick Scan/Deep Scan automatically.

4. Then, check the scanning result. You can choose a new location to store your recovered data. Finally, click on the Recover X files button to begin the recovery task for your SD card.

Bonus tip: How to retrieve corrupted SD card

In addition to hidden and deleted data, you may need a way for corrupted SD card recovery as well. Here we introduce two methods for you to fix corrupted SD cards.

Method 1. Use Disk Management

If your SD card drive letter conflicts with the computer drive letter, or your SD card cannot be read or recognized, you can try to use Disk Management to assign a new drive letter to the SD card. The new drive letter should be different from all the drive letters on your computer. Here are the detailed steps to do it:

1. Connect your SD card to computer. Press the Windows + R keys to the Run window. Please type diskmgmt.msc and click OK.

2. Then find the corrupted SD card to right-click on it. Select Change Drive Letter and Paths > Change > Assign the following drive letter.

Method 2. Use chkdsk command

If your SD card is corrupted, you can also use chkdsk command to recover it. Please follow the easy guide below to use this method:

1. Likewise, find Command Prompt in the Windows menu and Run as administrator.

2. Type chkdsk F:/f (F is the drive letter of your SD card). When you see the “Windows has made corrections to the file system.” prompt, your corrupted SD card is fixed.

Wrapping things up

You can get 4 effective ways to recover data from SD card and a bonus tip to fix corrupted SD card in this post. If you want the easiest method for SD card data, you can choose a Windows recovery tool like MyRecover, which can help you recover SD card data easily and fast.