As we move towards the paperless era, the scope of storage media has increased manifold. Especially in terms of personal data storage, where individuals commonly rely on extended capacity of portable storage solutions, like SD cards and memory cards. The spur in digitization has transformed SD cards into most convenient and inexpensive storage media. It provides volatile storage as well as encryption capabilities for protected content too. The latest SD cards are faster with higher storage capacities. They are universally used in camcorders, music players, smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, and other portable devices.
However, SD cards are easily prone to corruption, accidental formatting or damage leading to loss of all the stored photos, videos, and audio files. Usually, this situation initiates with an error message. If not handled properly, it can leave you in a permanent data loss situation in which the SD card recovery gets difficult. Moreover, memory cards have a limited lifespan, so after a certain period of usage they are bound to get corrupt or damaged.
Yes, your SD card got corrupt if it has any of these symptoms!
Your SD card is deemed corrupt if you find below signs:
 | A black screen appears along with an error message 'SD card is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.' |
 | Most of the photos on your SD cards are missing. |
 | When you try to read the SD card through a system, no folder appears, or the folders do not open and show error messages - 'Read / Write error on SD card' that indicates it cannot read from the device. |
 | You get error messages reading 'memory card error' or 'corrupt memory card' while trying to access your precious photos or videos stored on the card. Read more on Memory Card Recovery. |
 | You can see the contents of your SD card in your camera as well as in your system, but unable to copy these contents and get an error message that disk is 'write-protected.' |
 | Your SD card is recognized by your PC, but you are unable to see any stored photo or video. It shows the message 'SD card is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?' |
 | You are unable to add, delete, copy or save anything in your SD card. |
Whenever your SD card gets corrupt, there is no guarantee that you will always recover your data back. In the case of physical damage, you may not be able to repair it, but a logical error can be tackled in some simple ways.
Wait! Have you tried any of these First Aids/Handy fixes before going further?
Determine the type of your SD card; then it may require an SDHC device to read it. At times, some devices like readers and cameras may need software download to read the SDHC cards. Therefore, go to the device manufacturer's website and find out whether such an upgrade is needed or not.
7 Fixes For Corrupt SD Card and Photo Recovery (An Infographic Chart)
Let us have a look at the above fixes in details and see which works best for you
Fix 1: Connect SD card to another device
At times, some of the devices may not read an SD card or they are incompatible to that SD card. In such cases, try to connect your SD card to another device.
Fix 2: Try chkdsk command
Type "chkdsk" followed by drive letter, colon and /f at the command prompt: Insert the affected card into a card reader and connect it to your system. Click on the "Start" option from your Windows taskbar and then select the "Computer" option. Search for your SD card under "Devices with Removable Storage" and note the drive letter assigned.
Next, click the "Start" option again and type "cmd" in the "search" box. Right-click "cmd" and then select the "Run as administrator" option. A command window opens, and you can fix your corrupt memory card from here. Next, type "chkdsk" followed by the drive letter corresponding to the SD card, then by a colon and /f. After you press "enter", the Chkdsk will check for possible errors and try to fix the corrupt SD card. Follow the subsequent message prompts. Lastly, check your assigned drive letter to your SD card to verify if the files are recovered or not.
Fix 3: Assign a new drive letter
Connect your SD card to a card reader to the system, if your system does not assign a new drive letter to it, then it isn't reading it or the card is unreadable. In some cases, the reader might be assigned a drive letter, but still, you get the message "Please insert the disk into drive E:" indicating that it isn't reading the card. To resolve this problem assign a new drive letter to this connected Card through your operating system settings.
Fix 4: Use Sandisk in-built solution
If none of the files can be read, then possibly the directory will list the filenames, but the files can't be accessed. You can right-click on the drive letter and select "Properties." If you can view the used space on the card and if it shows all or almost all free space, then either all the files have been deleted, or the directory has been erased. In this case, you can use a Sandisk inbuilt solution that might restore all the deleted files easily.
Fix 5: Format SD card
If you can read all the files but cannot save them, then your card might be in write protected mode. Unlock the write-protection switch to save or modify files on the card.
If still, you are unable to read or write to the card, then possibly your files are lost or have become inaccessible. To fix it, you need to use a disk diagnostic tool that can work on memory cards too. Although you can also get access to your card by reformatting it, it will remove everything on the card. Therefore, make sure you have recovered all the stored files and copied everything to another drive before SD Card format.
In the case of cameras or Smartphones you need to use an SD card Recovery software as most of the files stored on your SD card will be related to photos and other media files. There are some sd card recovery tools available online which are efficient enough to avail you the best and accurate recovery results. You just need to choose the right tool and try to restore your lost, deleted and inaccessible files from the SD card.
Fix 6: Reinstall the driver
You can try to reinstall the driver. To do so follow these steps:
- Go to and right click on My Computer/ This PC. Click on the option Manage.
- Click on Device Manager option on the left side.
- Double-Click Disk Drives option from the list. Then Right Click on the name of your removable drive.
- Click on Uninstall and click on Ok.
- Disconnect your storage media and restart your PC.
- Reconnect your SD card again. Your PC will detect it.
Fix 7: Nothing worked? Yes, Recovery Software is your solution!
Whenever an SD card becomes inaccessible or formatted, mostly the stored data gets lost. However, all files remain in the same position on the card and can be recovered by a photo recovery software. Stellar Photo Recovery Software is specially designed to fetch all the lost photos and other media files from their actual place and make them visible. To restore all lost files from an SD card, make sure the card is not physically damaged. Additionally, stop using your SD card before recovery.
Recovery Steps for getting your memories back!
- Download & install Stellar Photo recovery software and connect the SD card to your system to initiate the recovery of photos/music/videos from SD card.
- The software lists all the connected volumes and external drives. Select the drive that you want to scan for recovery and click 'Scan Now'. Here, you will also get the option of 'View all drive list" that allows you view all the connected drives and volumes to scan for recovery.
- After initiating a scan, you will be able to view the process in the scanning process bar. All the found files will be listed in a tree like structure format in the left-hand side window pane.
- Now, you can preview the listed items by clicking on them. Here, you can also select the desired files and click the 'Recover' button to initiate recovery.
- The next window asks you to select a location to save the recovered multimedia files. Choose the desired location and save the recovered files.
Things to Remember to Protect your SD Card!
- Never remove a memory card while turning on/off your camera or other devices.
- Never remove your memory card while saving and viewing a photograph.
- Do not take or view new pictures on battery low mode.
- Never change your memory card when the camera is on.
- Use SD cards from big brands such as SanDisk, Panasonic, Sony, Kingston, Lexar, Olympus, etc.
Supported SD cards:
Stellar Photo Recovery Software supports almost all types memory cards, such as SD, SDHC, SDSC, SDXC, SDIO, Mini SD, Micro SD, memory cards along with SSD, MMC, CF, XD, cell phone memory card, Compact memory cards, which are used in digital cameras, camcorders, mobile phones, MP3 players and any other type media cards, etc.
About SD card capacity:
Capacities of SD cards depend on their models, such as SDSC (SD) cards starts from 1 MB and goes up to 2 GB, where some of them start from 4 GB and go up to 32 GB. Apart from this SDHC starts over 2 GB and goes up to 32 GB and SDXC starts over 32 GB and goes up to 2 TB. All the SD cards work with all host devices that support SD, SDHC, or SDXC cards. SD cards are used by almost all the gadgets that have external memory slots such as digital cameras, camcorders, video game consoles, android mobile phones, and all handheld computers.
SD card slot? Do today's devices need that?
Along with various advantages, SD cards also have some shortcomings which are encouraging manufacturers to remove SD slots from portable devices and replacing SD card slots with USB ports and internal memory.
It is all about business in the first place as the manufacturers want to reduce the complexity of portable devices by removing the detachable battery and replacing the SD card slot with more internal memory. This change not only reduces the multiple things attached to the portable devices but also increases the hardware price. Limited internal storage does not decrease the use of mobile data, but increase the use of cloud storage and online services, etc. where non-removable battery makes the devices disposable.
- The SD card market is flooded with cheap and off-brand cards on various sources. There are many SD cards that claim of higher capacity than they are.
- A file system that is unreliable, slow, and doesn't need user permissions to open
- SD cards are comparatively slower and unreliable than memory chips.
- Cloud storage is better than these portable storage devices as they offer better storage options due to which cloud storage is becoming a more viable and easier to use storage source all the time.
- Data streaming and cloud storage make big money
- SD card also takes physical space in the devices
- Bigger storage options on the phone make more money
23 min read
23 min read
23 min read
