5 Ways to Fix Corrupt SD Memory Cards and SD Card Recovery

As the world move towards the paperless era, the use of digital storage media has grown immensely. The most affected sector being the personal data storage, where users heavily rely on the extended capacity of moveable data storage solutions such as SD cards or memory cards. The surge in digitalization has force major transformation in SD cards into the most efficient and less costly storage media.

Although they provide unstable storage, it has an encryption ability to protect the contents. As time pass, new SD cards are made with higher storage and fast functionalities. These storage devices can be used in music players, camcorders, smartphones (androids mostly), digital cameras, tablets, and any other portable device. Just like any other storage device, SD cards are highly prone to corruption, or damage to its contents.

Normally, the error message will prompt to indicate that something has gone wrong. At this point, it is still possible to retrieve the files in the storage device. Nevertheless, SD cards have a very short lifespan and after a certain period of time, it inevitable that they get corrupted. You need SD card video recovery to stand the test of losing valuable files.

What are the symptoms of a corrupted SD card?

The following signs are a red flag:

• You are prompted with a message ‘SD card is not accessible. The file or the directory is corrupted and unreadable.’
• If some of the files in your SD card go missing
• When you try to mount your SD card with a laptop or desktop but no folder appears, or it appears but does not open or when you try to open you get a message ‘Write error on SD card.’

The thing about SD cards is that it is easy to recover the files that were in it before it got corrupted, but another thing about them is that it is not guaranteed that you will recover all the files.

Nonetheless, there are fixes for corrupt SD card and we are going to discuss 5 of them below.

Fix 1: Use another device to connect your SD card.

In some cases, your device may not read an SD card because they are incompatible or has driver-related glitches

Fix 2: Use the command ‘chkdsk’ to check the errors in your memory card

This will require the use of a laptop. If you have one follow these steps:

1. Mount the corrupted card into a card reader and insert it to your laptop.
2. Click the file explorer and search the letter that is assigned to the SD card.
3. Click the Windows button and in the search bar type "cmd" then select the "Run as administrator" option.
4. A command window will open. From here, you can fix your damaged SD card.
5. Now, type the "chkdsk" mentioned above, after which, type the letter that represents your SD card then end it by a colon and /f.
6. Press "Enter", the ‘chkdsk’ will look for possible errors and fix it.
7. Check your SD card to see if the files are retrieved or not.

Fix 3: Try assigning a new letter to the corrupted SD card

Connect the damaged SD card to a card reader to a system. If there is no letter assigned to the card by the system, then it means that the card is unreadable. There are some instances where the system will assign the card a letter but still get the message "Please insert the disk into drive E" meaning the system is not reading the card. To fix this, try to assign a new letter to the card through the system.

Fix 4: Format SD card

Sometimes you can read the files but cannot save them. This means that the card is in write protected mode. You can unlock the write-protection button to save or change the files on the card.

If the files still can’t be accessed, then they are probably lost or have become inaccessible. There is a way to fix this. By using the disk diagnostic tool, though you will need to choose the one that works on memory cards.

Another way is to use SD card video recovery software in case of cameras or Android smartphones. The software is very efficient enough to retrieve all your files.

Fix 5: Recovery Software

If you are still reading up to this point, then I can safely assume that nothing has worked for you so far.

Now, for your SD card problems, the other tool that you can use to retrieve your data is the photo recovery software. When the SD card is inaccessible the files will remain in the same place on the storage card and can be accessed using the photo recovery software. Don’t be fooled by the name, this software can recover not only photos but other media files also and it has the capabilities to make the lost files visible. To be guaranteed of recovering all the lost data, you have to make sure that the card is not physically damaged. In addition, don’t use your storage card before the files are retrieved.

The first step is to download the software and mount your SD card to a PC or a desktop to commence the recovery process of your files. Select the option "Recover Photo, Audio, & Video".

You will see a list of all connected volumes and external devices. From here, select the device that you want to scan and then click "Start Now". You will get the "Advanced Scan" option which allows you to customize the recovery according to file types.

With "Advanced Scan", you get to choose the files that you want to recover like photos, audio or video. Moreover, you can select the range of data from the storage device. This option lets you customize just about anything as far as the recovery process is concerned and also saves you a great deal of time.

The software has a scanning process bar that you can view and preview the SD card video recovery process. Hope these steps have been of help to you, if not, let us know. Just contact us and we will see how we can help.

Umar Bajwa is a blogger and professional content writer loves to write about business and technology related niches.