Hi everyone,
Unfortunately, my phone's micro sd card is corrupted.
Would a card reader be able to detect a corrupted sd card when i attach it to my laptop ?
(Really hope i can save my photos and other files in the card)
Can anyone also recommend a reliable data recovery software ?
(Disk drill seems good but i would love to hear other options)
Thank you.
Phone SD cards are often encrypted
I wouldn't exactly say 'often'
I just tried isobuster and it doesn’t look like the free version shows what files will be recoverable and only shows a few .jpg that are multiple gigs in size and I presume contain many images that need to be extracted?
I also tried disk drill as mentioned by OP and it looks like it can only find one single document file and nothing else.
Was the SD Card encrypted by the phone?
The behavior you are seeing from the recovery apps suggests encryption (the recovery software finds a "pattern" that it assumes is a JPG or DOC, but often won't be anything legitimate due to encryption)
The phone is but the card shouldn’t have been as I used to copy files directly from the card to my pc, perhaps I messed up at some point and let it get encrypted.
No, as a long time android user i never have trouble reading data off my phone's card on the pc or mac. Data is not encrypted by default, you have to do a bunch of tweaks in the settings to get started.
You may have already found this yourself, but here goes nothing, lol. I dont have any experience with a corrupted microsd though, thankfully.
Run CHKDSK in "cmd" to recover your files from a corrupted SD card. You can also use Google Photos to recover your data from the SD card. Try using recovery software like "Recoverit Data Recovery" to restore your data.
Wishing you luck
Don't EVER use "CHKDSK" on any drive you are trying to recover data from because "CHKDSK" will actually write data over the top of the data you are trying to recover, making successful recovery (with any other software) impossible :/
Run CHKDSK in "cmd"
It may overwrite data containing the files.
oops! and someone said never trust Google :/ thanks for pointing that out JV & 7ekn00
PhotoRec
When you plug in the card to a card reader and connect to your PC you'll often get a message saying there's an error and windows needs to scan and repair it. Let it do that and it will 98% of the time fix the problem and make your card readable again
Again, for the same reasons above, don't ever let windows "Auto CHKDSK" either (which is what it does to "repair") …
What I said is fine, Windows DOES NOT write over existing data on the SD card if you follow my instructions
you said " scan and repair it"
Can you explain how apps "repair" media without writing data too it? And what app windows uses to do said "repair"?!?
HINT: It calls CHKDSK, double HINT: CHKDSK WRITES data
Sure, it's fine when just trying to get the card to work, not fine in the slightest to actually recover data!
@7ekn00: Think about what you're saying. If an app is writing data to the card, then how can the card then become readable with the old data intact. I would assume that writing new data over the old data makes the old data non readable - unless it's done another way like defragmenting the storage device
@[Deactivated]: I have, I live it 24/7 … I don't need to think about it …
I recover media day in, day out for a media company (we have over 100 recording devices "live" each day)
The second you let windows run CHKDSK (which it does when you chose the "repair" option) is the second you kiss your data goodbye forever, no matter what other software you try after …
how do I know? I have imaged a card first, then tried it, could not recover from the card, but could recover from the image
@7ekn00: It sounds like you're saying the SD card loses it's data when it's repaired? So why can the data be read after the micro SD card has been scanned and repaired by windows?
@[Deactivated]: Cause it was never corrupt to the point it needs recovery to start with …
It's simple volume initiation that fails and when windows reads it again, surprise surprise it's all intact …
You have never noticed it takes the same time to complete no matter the size of the data?!?
How is that a "repair" if it's the same time for 10MB and 64GB of data on the card?!?
You do realize CHKDSK performs many functions when called right? It only gets destructive when volumes can't be read …
@7ekn00: So if an SD card falls to the ground after being removed from a camera and the photos can't be read after plugging it into a card reader, it means the data was never corrupted IF it can be scanned and repaired by windows? In this case, what is the best terminology to use to describe the state of the data on an SD card if it can be recovered by using windows to scan and repair? It's not corrupted, it's.. [fill in the blank]
@[Deactivated]: Data is not corrupt, it's simply a volume error (commonly happens when cards removed without a device being powered down or device runs out of battery while recording) …
Problem arises if CHKDSK (or Windows "Repair") is your go-to and it is corrupt data (it will be gone permanently) …
@7ekn00: How would OP know if their SD card is corrupted, or suffering from a volume error? Is it simply a matter of scanning and repairing it with windows? i.e if windows restores the data to a readable state then we can say that OP is wrong in saying it was corrupted - the fact is her SD card was never corrupted, it simply had a volume error. Or is it semantics. Most people would use the word "corrupted" to describe a read error, even if it was actually a case of having a volume error.
@[Deactivated]: They don't, that's why you never start with CHKDSK (or windows repair, etc), if it's not a volume error it goes ahead and destroys data :/
@7ekn00: Yes so their data is safe if they use windows to scan and repair because it doesn't write to the SD card. However it seems CHKDSK does, so I wouldn't recommend doing that
@[Deactivated]: No, because "scan and repair" first step is to check partition and volume data, if that is not the problem, it starts altering the file table (FAT or file allocation table on FAT formatted media), and once it does that, there is no chance of recovery (FAT data points towards which LBA the damaged/corrupted/deleted file starts and ends to reconstruct it) .. you can not prevent "scan and repair" from writing to media if volume checks fail … hence a dumb recommendation unless you know for sure it's a volume failure!
PM me if anybody needs help with recovery, just don't follow random internet advice, especially stuff that is destructive to your media (and chance of recovery) or something that worked once for one person in a completely different situation :/
@7ekn00: How can the Windows 'scan and repair' utility write over your data and then let you be able to read the data after the 'repair' has been made? If it did write over your data, then you wouldn't be able to read your data, would you?
I'm trying to understand but you're not explaining yourself very well
When you plug a 'corrupted' SD card into your computer which has read problems, Windows gives you message saying there is a problem with the disk and asks if you would like to scan and repair it. After it's done, you can then read the files on it again
This happens frequently with USB sticks that have been yanked out of the port without 'ejecting' it first
Phone SD cards are often encrypted, meaning zero chance of being read in an external device :/
I use ISOBuster for unencrypted SD Card recovery :P