How to Recover Data from a Corrupted SD Card

More and more of us are storing our precious photos, videos, and other files on our digital media. Whether you’re archiving everything or taking frequent trips to the photo album, an SD card can help you save space while also supplying you with instant access to your media. But these versatile flash drives aren’t perfect. In fact, card corruption is one of the most common issues people run into. If you’ve ever had a file that wouldn’t open or pictures that you couldn’t delete, you might know what we’re talking about.

But data loss can strike anyone, anywhere, at any time, and while it’s frustrating, there are ways to recover from it. We’ll explain the different causes of a corrupted SD card and how to do sd card data recovery from a corrupted SD card.

What’s a Corrupted SD Card?

SD cards are storage devices that can be used in many different places. From storing files on your laptop to transferring them to your phone, the SD card can provide you with fast and reliable access to all of your important data. But while these devices are convenient, they’re also prone to corruption.

Corruption is when your file becomes unreadable or unusable. It might show up as gibberish, it might show up as nothing at all, or it might not open at all. When this happens, it usually means there’s something wrong with the physical drive that stores the data on the SD card. Corruption can arise from natural causes like heat or humidity (which can damage the pins or cards themselves), or from a human error like dropping an SD card and cracking a chip inside the device.

How to Recover Data from a Corrupted SD Card

If an SD card is corrupted, it can be difficult to recover your data. But there are ways to do this. There are many reasons why your SD card could be corrupted. One reason is if you have been using it while the power was out; another reason is if the SD card has been dropped or hit by something. There are many causes of corrupted SD cards and they all call for different solutions to recover data from a corrupted SD card.

The first step to recovering your data would be determining what type of corruption the card has and then finding a way to fix it. For example, if your files have been deleted and cannot be found on the device, recovery software will allow you to find them again. If files cannot be read because of errors with the device, some companies offer hard disk formatting services for SD cards for a small fee – depending on which company you go through – that will allow you to access them again. However, if there is physical damage like broken pins in the slot or any other sign of physical tampering with the device, then recovery may not be possible.

Reformatting the SD Card Will Not Save It

A little-known fact about SD cards is that they have internal memory. This means that even if you reformat your card, the data is still there. All you’ve done is erased some of the information on the surface and made it available for new files to be written to it. However, if something has corrupted the card’s internal memory, it won’t matter since all your files are gone and can’t be retrieved.

Unused or Damaged Cards

One of the most common causes of data corruption on SD cards is unused or damaged cards. If you’ve been storing your card for months without an update, there’s a good chance your memory has been corrupted. If you find that your files are warped and unreadable, this could be the case. When you insert the SD card into your computer, it may also show up as empty. In this case, it’s important to reformat the card before using it again to ensure that a previous user didn’t delete all of its content while they were using it.

Corrupted SD cards can also be caused by damage such as water or dust getting into the cracks of the card where its data is stored. If this happens and any part of the data is corrupted, there will be a high likelihood that other parts of the data are too.

Liquid Damaged Cards

A liquid damaged card is an SD card that’s been exposed to water or other liquids. This is a common cause of data loss because it often leads to electrical damage. If you haven’t yet taken the card out of your camera, the water might have seeped into the port and caused internal damage to the circuitry.

If you can take the card out of your camera and dry it off, then you should be able to recover your data without too much trouble. But if there still seems to be some electrical damage, then it will be more difficult-but not impossible to recover your data.

Virus Infected Cards

The first and most common way that SD cards get corrupted is by the presence of a virus. Oftentimes, your computer will be running a scan when you insert the card into the computer, and if it detects a virus, it will either ask you to delete the card or quarantine it. In this situation, there are actually two ways to try and recover data from a corrupted SD card.

If your computer does not let you delete the card, then you may have to send it in for professional recovery. But if your computer offers deletion as an option (and assuming you have backups), one solution is to use a secure wiping program on the SD card like Eraser 7.