Don’t know how to perform SD card recovery? Get some help from the 9 feasible methods here. Good luck!
Due to its small size and portability, an SD card is prevailing among users as an external storage device in a wide range of applications.
It works with a broad variety of devices, for example, digital cameras, camcorders, music players, mobile phones, TVs, drones, and so on.
However, like other kinds of storage devices, an SD card is delicate; it can be damaged to a certain extent after a period of use.
If handled improperly, many photos, videos, audio, and other file data in the card will be permanently lost and it will be very difficult to recover, just like an external hard disk recovery issue.
Once the SD card becomes inaccessible, the precious data in the SD card will be lost, which is the last thing users want to meet.
Then how to conduct SD card recovery? Here before we jump to the solution to the SD card issue, we’d better get some information about it first.
To understand how to recover files from SD cards, getting a basic impression of the SD card recovery issue is necessary. In this part, we are about to find out the manifestation and some common causes of data loss on SD cards.
When some errors take place, you may notice these manifestations.
Then what’s the reason behind these manifestations above? Possible causes are listed as follows.
After knowing how data loss happens on an SD card, it is time to move on to the methods of SD card data recovery. Here 9 ways are prepared, adopt anyone according to your specific situation and budget.
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The computer's inability to access the data on the SD card might be due to a virus infection. If the computer is infected by the virus, when the SD card is connected, the attributes of the files may be changed into Hidden or Read-only. At this time, users can manually unhide them to get their data back.
Step 1. Connect your SD card to the PC, start This PC.
Step 2. Go to your SD card, then click view > Options > View> Show hidden files, folders, and drives.
Step 3. Then confirm your choice and check it on your SD card to see if the missing files are back.
If the method introduced above does not fit your circumstance, you may try something else. Another reason that the SD card is not accessible may be an outdated device driver. Here we can reinstall the device driver to fix this problem.
Step 1. Tab on Win+R and input devmgmt.msc to start Device Manager.
Step 2. Right-click on the SD card in Disk Devices, and select Uninstall device.
Step 3. Then restart the PC, connect your SD card, the device driver will be automatically installed.
Sometimes an inaccessible SD card may result from the driver letter conflicts between your PC and external hard drive. The drive letter of the external hard disk is the same as that of the PC, thus an error prompt may come out. To solve his problem, users can assign a new drive letter to the SD card.
Step 1. Connect the SD card to your PC, then right-click on the Start menu, choose Disk Management.
Step 2. Right-click on the SD card, select Change Drive Letter and Path > Change > Assign the following drive letter.
Step 3. Click OK to confirm your operation. Then you can restart your device and check if everything is okay.
If the SD card shows an Only-read error prompt, it is possible that the SD card is locked with the write-protect switch. At this time, users can check if it is locked or not. If so, switch off the write-protect notch. If not, maybe users need to fix it with Command Prompt.
The "recover" command in CMD scans the hard drive sector by sector, supporting retrieving information from a corrupted hard drive.
But it can only restore readable information. In addition, detailed file paths and file names are required; and only one file can be restored at a time.
Users who don't have many files and data to restore can take advantage of this command.
Notes:
Step 1. Start Command Prompt on your PC by inputting cmd or command prompt in the search bar > choose Run as administrator > diskpart.
Step 2. Input list disk > select disk 0 > list volume. Please select the affected SD card.
Step 3. Input select volume x to choose the SD card partition > recover [drive:][filename]. Specific file path and name are required.
E.g., recover g: \2022\weekreport\week1.pdf
This command can help recover a PDF file named "week1" from the "weekreport" folder under the "2022" folder from SD card G: drive.
And thus the SD card recovery is successfully carried out.
The file system of the storage drive on your computer helps you understand where and how files are saved. If the file system of your SD card went wrong, the files will become inaccessible. Here users can utilize the Check tool in Windows to check if there are any file system errors.
Step 1. Connect your SD card to the PC via a card reader.
Step 2. Tab on Win+E to start This PC. Locate and right-click on your SD card, and click Properties. Go to Tools on the upper side of this panel. Then click Check.
Step 3. If there are errors detected, a prompt will come out, click Repair drive. After that, your drive will be successfully repaired.
“chkdsk” is short for "check disk", and is used to check the file system errors and bad sectors of the disk.
The tool displays the status report of the disk, based on the file system used by the detected partition, and lists and corrects errors on the disk.
Notes:
Step 1. Connect your SD card to your device. Start Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.
Step 2. Input chkdsk e: /r. Please replace the e with the real drive letter of your SD card.
Step 3. Check the scanning and fixing results.
This command will try to detect possible error and fix it.
The Windows troubleshooting tool usually prompts when the program needs to be updated or repaired. Generally, the error prompt is related to the driver.
So when the SD card is connected and the computer sends out a repair prompt, we can repair the SD card according to it.
Step 1. Connect the SD card to the computer, tan on Win+I to start the settings of Windows. Go to Updates & Security.
Step 2. Click Troubleshoot in the sidebar, then go to Hardware and Devices > Run the troubleshooter.
Step 3. After the troubleshooting, restart your PC and reconnect the SD card, check if it is fixed.
If you are suffering from SD card data loss due to partition loss, then you might as well find a helpful alternative to be your helping hand: a professional partition recovery tool.
Here we have a good recommendation, AOMEI Partition Assistant. The inbuilt tool partition recovery wizard facilitates users to recover lost partitions with ease.
Step 1. Install and try a ProDemo version first.
Step 2. Find Partition Recovery Wizard in Wizards on the sidebar. Locate your SD card disk select it and click Next.
Step 3. Two search methods will be presented, Fast Search here is recommended.
Step 4. The detected partitions will be listed in the panel, select the one you need to recover, then click Proceed.
After that, you will have successfully conducted SD card partition recovery.
If all the above methods do not work for you properly, or it is too inconvenient for you, then this Windows data recovery software will be the best choice for you.
MyRecover, designed by AOMEI, the leading enterprise in the data recovery industry, is equipped with advanced scanning methods and algorithms and can help you retrieve lost data from SD cards very easily.
Now download and install MyRecover to enjoy its awesome features.
Step 1. Launch MyRecover > hover the mouse over the drive > click Scan.
Step 2. It will scan the hard disk or partition to locate the deleted and other missing files. During the process, you could directly recover the files it detected.
Step 3. Select the files you need > click Recover x files to restore deleted or lost files from SD card.
Thus, you can successfully recover deleted files from SD cards.
9 feasible ways have been introduced in this tutorial, and users may choose anyone according to their specific situations and budget. Here getting some help from a trusty third-party tool is highly recommended for the sake of time and safety.
AOMEI Data Recovery is a credible software that can help users to perform SD card recovery, even if they are green hands without some troubleshooting experience.