SD card or memory card features small size but large capacity. It is widely used to extend capacity of portable digital devices like Android phones, cameras, camcorders, etc. However, SD card can be corrupted or damaged, and it may be access denied. Sometimes, SD card is not showing up. The data on it may be in danger. To recover deleted files from SD card or recover photos from SD card, a top free data recovery software can easily do this.
Some symptoms that indicate SD card corruption and data loss include the following.
- “SD card is damaged. Try formatting it”.
- “Read/write error on SD card”.
- “SD card is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable”.
- Some or all photos, videos, files on your SD card are missing. Or the SD card suddenly shows blank.
- You may see an error message saying that “memory card error” or “corrupt SD card”.
To help you rescue the data on your SD card and fix corrupted SD card, below we gather 8 quick tips.
Tip 1. How Can I Recover My SD Card Data for Free?
MiniTool Software company has been developing excellent, professional data recovery solutions, partition management, data backup and restore tools to millions of users from 180+ countries and areas for more than 10 years. Trusted by industry experts all over the world, MiniTool software products have got featured by plenty of authoritative technology sites such as TechRadar, PCWorld, CNET, FileHorse, Softpedia, LifeHacker, etc.
Their flagship product MiniTool Power Data Recovery can help you easily recover deleted files from SD card or recover photos from SD card.
Before you use the data recovery program to recover data from the corrupted SD card, you should first prepare an SD card reader. Insert your SD card to the SD card reader and plug in the SD card reader to your computer. Check if the SD card is recognized by your computer, if not, try to fix SD card not showing up issue first.
Please be aware that if your SD card is physically damaged and is not recognized by computer, then neither data recovery application nor SD card repair tool can help you.
Tip 2. What is the Best Recovery Software for SD Card?
- MiniTool Power Data Recovery (for Windows)
- Stellar Mac Data Recovery (for Mac)
Tip 3. How to Recover Data from Corrupted SD Card without Formatting?
Here we take using MiniTool Power Data Recovery to conduct the corrupted SD card data recovery as an example.
This free SD card recovery software supports recovering files, photos, videos, etc. from various types of SD/memory cards, e.g. SanDisk, Samsung, Kingston, Sony, Transcend SD card, etc. Corrupted/formatted SD card is supported.
Note: Please stop using the SD card if you find some files are mistakenly deleted or lost. If the SD card is overwritten, then even professional data recovery software can’t help you recover deleted/lost data.
Step 1. Download and install the 100% clean and free MiniTool Power Data Recovery on your Windows computer. Connect the SD card to your computer by using an SD card reader. Launch MiniTool Power Data Recovery.
Step 2. On the main UI of the application, you can click Removable Disk Drive in the left column, and click the target SD card in the right window. Click Scan button.
Step 3. After the scan process is completed, you can find need files, check them and click Save button to select a new destination to store the recovered files.
Tip 4. How Can I Recover Photos from a Corrupted SD Card?
If you’d like to recover deleted/lost photos from a corrupted SD card, you can only scan and recover photos with the data recovery software.
Windows users can open MiniTool Power Data Recovery and click Settings button next to Scan. Then select photo formats like JPEG, PNG, etc. to scan and recover.
Mac users can run Stellar Mac Data Recovery and only tick Photos on the main UI for later scanning. By doing this, the recovery result will only display photos.
Tip 5. How Do I Fix a Corrupted SD Card with Windows Error Checking
If the SD card has some logical corruption like file system error, you can try to use Windows drive error checking tool to repair the SD card.
- Still, use an SD card reader to connect the corrupted SD card to your Windows computer.
- Click This PC on the desktop. Locate and right-click the target SD card and select Properties to open the disk properties window.
- Click Tools And click Check button under Error checking section. Windows built-in free disk checking tool will automatically check and fix file system errors of the SD card.
Tip 6. How to Repair Damaged SD Card Using CMD?
Windows has another built-in free command-line tool, CHKDSK. CHKDSK can fix file system errors and mark bad sectors on the corrupted SD card. You can use it to fix a corrupt SD card.
- Use an SD card reader to connect your SD card to Windows computer. Find its drive letter in This PC.
- Next press Windows + R, type cmd, and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to run Windows Command Prompt as administrator.
- Then type chkdsk *: /f /r in Command Prompt window, and press Enter. Replace “*” with the exact drive letter of the SD card.
Tip 7. How Do I Fix a Corrupted SD Card on My Phone?
As for SD card data recovery for Android, usually, you can remove the SD card from your Android phone, and try the solutions above to recover data from Android SD card and repair the corrupted SD card.
For SD card recovery for iPhone, since its SD card cannot be removed, you can utilize a professional iPhone data recovery software to recover data on iPhone.
Tip 8. Why Do SD Cards Get Corrupted?
The causes for SD card corruption may be file system problems, virus/malware infection, improper operation or removal, etc.
To protect the SD card and data on it, you should handle the SD card gently, keep it away from virus, and back up important data to another device regularly.
Conclusion
This post analyzes how to do the SD card data recovery with the best free SD card recovery software, as well as how to fix a corrupted card with Windows built-in free SD card repair tools. Hope it helps.