Best Way to Recover Data from SD Card in 2023

Read time 8 minutes

The Secure Digital Card (SD Card) is a compact yet high-capacity memory card, offering storage capabilities ranging from 1MB to 4GB. These cards find application in petite, portable devices such as digital cameras, camcorders, audio players, and mobile phones, augmenting their memory capacities. They are engineered to accommodate a diverse range of file types including images, audio, and video files. Nevertheless, like other storage mediums, SD cards are susceptible to corruption and potential data loss.

• Accidental files deletion
• Accidental formatting of SD card
• Physical or Logical damage
• Corruption of SD card

• Removing card while turning off or on your device.
• Removing card while saving files, pictures, videos or other data.
• Viewing or taking pictures in low battery mode.
• Improperly detaching SD card from the computer.
• Abrupt system shut down while transferring files from SD card to computer and vice-versa.

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• If you are unable to view files stored on it, even though files are there.
• If you see an error message saying, ‘SD Card is not accessible’ along with a black screen.
• If you are getting an error message saying, ‘memory card error’ or ‘corrupt memory card’ while accessing your stored data.
• The contents if your card is visible in system or device, but you are unable to copy them. Whenever you try to copy anything from your card you get an error message saying, ‘disk is write-protected.’
• When you connect your SD Card to your device, and you are unable to see any content. The system is asking you to format your SD Card.
• If you are unable to make any changes to your SD Card, whether it is copying, deleting or saving any content.

After an SD card gets corrupt, damaged or accidentally formatted, you still have a chance to recover lost data from SD card. If the data loss happened due to the physical damage, then there are hardly any chances of recovery. If data loss happened due to any logical error, then you can follow below-mentioned methods to recover them.

Attempt to Insert your SD Card into a different device rather than the one displaying the error. Occasionally, compatibility issues or driver-related problems can lead to SD Card errors. These errors may be either temporary or permanent. However, if the card fails to function in any other device, it’s conceivable that the SD Card is corrupted.

You can try chkdsk command.

1. For this, you first need to go to the My Computer section. Search your SD Card under “Device with removable storage” section and check what is the drive letter assigned to it.
2. Once you know the drive letter, click on the Start button and type ‘cmd’ in the search bar. From the menu, right click on cmd and click on ‘Run as Administrator.’
3. When the command window will open, type chkdsk, write the drive letter for your SD Card, and then put a colon followed by /f. Click Enter.
4. Once you have given the command, the chkdsk will search for the possible errors and will try to fix it. Don’t forget to check your assigned drive letter to check if the files are recovered.

If you’ve plugged in an SD Card using a card reader and your system can’t recognize it or hasn’t assigned a drive letter, attempt to assign one manually. While the system typically handles the drive letter assignment for the reader, there are instances where you might see the message ‘Please insert the disk into drive E:’. In such scenarios, it’s necessary to manually allocate a drive letter.

If you’re unable to retrieve files from your SD Card despite it being visible in the folder, consider employing SanDisk’s built-in solution. Begin by right-clicking on the drive letter and choosing Properties from the menu. While in the properties, inspect the disk space. If it predominantly displays as free, don’t jump to the conclusion that your files have been deleted. Instead, utilize the built-in SanDisk solution for this scenario.

You can save your SD Card’s data by installing a Data Recovery Tool, just like Kernel’s Windows Data Recovery Tool. With the help of it, you can recover the lost data from removable USB drives, SD Cards, Hard drives, and more. It can effectively recover all sort of deleted files and folders, containing media, documents, emails, etc. It is compatible with all Windows platforms and comes in the trial version.

For this, you need to install the software and follow below-mentioned steps:

1. Click on your preferable scan method, like Quick Scan.
2. Select the Drive from the list and click on Next.
3. On the next Window, it will show you the information about your drive. Click Next.
4. On the next Window, you will see that the process has started and if you want to stop it click on Stop any time before it completes.
5. Select the folders you want to recover and click on Recover.
6. Select the path for your file, where you want to save all the recovered data and click on Ok.
7. The recovery process will start, you can stop it any time if you want. After the completion, click on Ok.

Conclusion:

Creating a backup has always been the essential measure to safeguard your data in case of an SD card format. Hence, ensure you have a backup of the data saved on your SD card. If you do, you can easily restore the files back onto the SD card from there.

The files that are accidentally deleted are transferred to Recycle Bin. So, do not forget to check the recycle bin once. If your SD card has got corrupted and you are prompted to format the card, then the only solution for you to recover data from recycle bin is the use of the software. You can install the software on Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8.0, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows 95, and Windows NT.