The Ultimate Guide to SD Card Repair

Eleanor Reed

Dec 16, 2024 • Filed to: SD Card Solutions • Proven solutions

In this article, we all talk about the things of SD card repair. List the common reasons that cause your SD memory card damaged or corrupted and with the best way to repair a damaged SD card.

Part 1. The Symptoms of SD Memory Card Got Damaged

SD memory cards are mostly used for personal data storage, they are universally used in Android phones, digital cameras, camcorders, music players, tablets, and other portable devices. For storing the data files like photos, videos, audio files, and other document files to extending the capacity of the device internal storage space.

If you handled the card improperly, it might cause your data loss. Also, the SD memory cards have a limited lifespan, so after a certain period of usage, the care is bound to get damaged or corrupted.

When your SD card gets damaged or corrupted, the reasons can be physical damage or the files system/corruption, while using the SD card on your mobile phone or camera an error message occurs; sometimes improper use of the card also can lead it to malfunction.

The most common reasons caused by SD memory cards get corrupted and the data loss is logical and physical damage, the file system corruption, improper usage, or due to virus attack and other causes. Check all the symptoms as below:

Part 2. How to Repair Damaged or Corrupted SD Card

How to repair a damaged SD card? The following 6 solutions can help you figure out the SD card problems.

Solution 1. Repair damaged SD memory card using CMD

• Connect your SD card to the computer and go to "My Computer".
• Make sure your SD card is detected on your computer.
• Go to the start menu, type in "cmd" the window will come out.
• Type "chkdsk X: /r", where "X" is the card’s letter.

The chkdsk command will scan the damaged SD card and check the issues to repair the damaged micro SD card. After the scanning, try to connect the card to the device to check the error "SD card is damaged. Try reformatting it" has been solved or not.

Solution 2. Repair corrupted SD card using Windows Explorer

• Connect your corrupted card to the computer and right-click.
• Click the "Format" option and click "Restore Device Defaults" in the popup window.
• Click the "Start" button to start the format. (Also, you can select the "Quick Format" option)
• After the format process is finished, click "Ok" then you get the safe SD card.

Solution 3. Reinstall the driver

You can reinstall the driver for your card as the following steps:

• Go to the "Device Manager" option by clicking My computer.
• Double click the "Disk Drives" on the list. Right-click your SD card name.
• Click the "Uninstall" option and click "Ok".
• Restart your computer and reconnect the card again, the PC will detect it.

Solution 4. Connect the Card to another device

While you get an error message of your card which used in the camera, the device cannot read the card, try to connect the SD card to another device. If it works, you need to backup your data from it in case the card gets damaged. This is maybe the device issue and causes SD card and data inaccessible.

Solution 5. Try another USB port

While you connect the card to a USB port on the computer, and it does not pup up the external devices option. It could be possible that the USB port is damaged or some software issue, try another USB port and make your SD memory card connect to the computer and get recognized.

Solution 6. Recover SD card data back

The SD card becomes inaccessible or needs formatted, the data files stored on it will get lost. You still can get an SD card recovery software to help you retrieve all data back before you format it. Make sure your card is not physically damaged, you can restore all lost files from the SD card.

Part 3. How to Recover Data from Damaged SD Card

To recover data files from damaged SD card, we recommend Recoverit Data Recovery Software. It is the best SD card data recovery software to help you recover lost photos, videos, and other document files from the Micro SD card.

Download and install Recoverit SD Card Recovery Software on your computer. Connect your damaged or corrupted SD memory card to the computer and follow the next steps to perform damaged SD card recovery on Windows computer. If you working on Macbook, you need to download Recoverit Data Recovery for Mac.

Step 1: Choose a location

Launch Recoverit and click the SD Card section. Select the card which is detected on the computer, and click the "Scan" button to process.

Step 2: Scan the memory card

Recoverit Data Recovery will start to scanning the card to search the lost data files.

Step 3: Preview and recover card data

After the scanning, you can check all recoverable files. Preview some photos and click the "Recover" button to get your data files back.

You should get a safe storage media to save your all recovered files to avoid data loss again. With Recoverit Data Recovery software you can easily restore your lost data files from an SD memory card.

Part 4. How to Avoid the SD Card Data Loss Problems

In the following guide, we will list some useful tips and explain how to keep your SD memory cards healthy. Take care of your SD card properly and avoid the data files lost.

• Format the card in your camera
• Get A High-Quality Card and Card Reader
• Safely Eject the SD Memory Card from the Computer
• Remove the Card after Turn off the Camera
• Stop shooting When the Battery is Low
• Never shoot while the Card is Full
• Put the Card in a Safe Environment
• Stop Using the Card when the Error Occurs
• Backup your Data Files in Regularly

Format the card in your camera

While your SD card is used in a digital camera, be sure that the card is appropriately formatted in the camera and completely prepared to work with it. We don't recommend using the same SD memory card in multiple devices. Back up your data on a safe device, and reformatting the card while used in other cameras. Or it will cause your data loss and SD card errors. You can check out the video tutorial to format your card in the camera below. (video via AC Guevara)

Get A High-Quality Card and Card Reader

When transferring your photos and video from an SD memory card to the computer, you should get a high-quality card reader to carry your SD card and connect it to the computer. While the card reader is "Reading" the memory card, sometime it still will cause the card damage. With a high-performance card reader, the transfer speeds will help you copy data files to the computer quickly.

Snapchat is a social media application, specially designed for smartphones. Unfortunately, you cannot get this photo-sharing application on your computer.

Remove the Card after Turning off the Camera

The way to prevent your SD card from getting damaged or corrupted, you should turn off your digital camera before removing the SD memory card. Improperly take your card off the camera, all your photos and video will get lost and you need to make a memory card data recovery.

Stop shooting When the Battery is Low

The battery of your camera is nearly as important as your SD card, while you are shooting on a low battery, your camera is writing your memory card, and it would cause you to lose all of your photos and videos. To avoid data loss, you should turn off your camera and take out it to charge the battery.

Never shoot while the Card is Full

You should pay attention to the SD memory card’s capacity while you shooting photos and videos. The camera has an indicator on the internal screen that will show how many photos you can store on the SD card. Do not take more photos on it as the card is full, back up your files on the other card to avoid your data loss.

Backup your Data Files in Regularly

Don't put all eggs in one basket. Doing backup your data files is very important, copy them to another safe storage media. If your data got lost, you can retrieve them from backup directly. Also, while you want to delete your files, you should think twice before deleting. What if your photos deleted or lost, you can get Recoverit Data Recovery Software to help you recover all data back.

Safely Eject the SD Memory Card from the Computer

Properly ejecting your SD card from your computer is very important, otherwise it will cause your card corruption and data loss. While you finished the data transfer, you should remove your card from the computer according to the eject message.

Put the Card in a Safe Environment

The SD memory card has a lifespan, to protect the card safe the environment is most important. Many elements can damage the card, including dust, water, and static electricity. Provide a clean storage environment for your memory cards and keep your data files safe.

Stop Using the Card when the Error Occurs

While the SD memory card got damaged or corrupted, you will see an error message for the card. Once it occurs, you should stop using the card immediately. You can try to fix the damaged SD card with the solutions (#Part 3). Or take your digital camera and SD memory card to a camera repair shop to help you out.

Part 5. Best SD Memory Card for your Devices

here are many SD memory card manufacturers to provide thousands of SD memory cards and devices to SD standards. The speed classes, storage capacities, application performance class, and three different physical sizes -- SD memory card, micro SD memory card, mini SD memory card. For you, it is important to understand which SD card works best with your devices like mobile phone, digital camera, computer, tablet, camcorder, and other electronics. (Reference from sdcard.org)

Type of SD Card:

There are three main types in the SD memory card family: SD, SDHC, SDXC. SDXC stands for Secure Digital eXtended Capacity and SDHC stands for Secure Digital High Capacity. There is a memory capacity range for each type of card:

• SD standard – Up to 2GB SD memory card using FAT 12 and 16 file systems
• SDHC standard – Over 2GB-32GB SDHC memory card using FAT32 file system
• SDXC standard – Over 32GB-2TB SDXC memory card using exFAT file system

Speed Class Standards

"Speed Class", "UHS Speed Class" and "Video Speed Class", three kinds of speed classes for SD cards. The most important is for video recording capabilities, all speed classes provide the constant speed necessary for video recording by designating a minimum writing performance so that minimum and constant speed could be achieved for camcorders, video recorders, and other devices.

Application Performance Class

The App Performance Classes assure minimum random and sequential performance speeds to meet both run and store execution time requirements under given conditions, while still providing storage of photos, videos, music, documents, and other data files.

Bus Interface Speed Standards for Large Size Data Transfer

SD memory card Bus Interface Specification has been continuously increased over the years from High Speed (25MB/s) to 3rd Generation of Ultra-High-Speed UHS-III (624MB/s). Now the SDA offers SD Express which uses the PCIe Interface and NVMe Protocol to deliver (985MB/s) data transfer rates between SD host devices and SD cards.

SD, SDHC, SDXC, and SDUC Card Capacity Choices

• SDUC memory cards must only be used with SDUC Host Devices.
• SDXC memory cards can be used with SDXC devices and SDUC Host Devices.
• SDHC memory cards can be used with SDHC devices, SDXC devices, and SDUC Host Devices.
• SD memory cards can be used with SD devices, SDHC devices, SDXC devices, and SDUC Host Devices.

• SDUC Host Devices can use SD memory cards, SDHC memory cards, SDXC memory cards, and SDXC memory cards.
• SDXC Host Devices can use SD memory cards, SDHC memory cards, and SDXC memory cards.
• SDHC Host Devices can use both SD memory cards and SDHC memory cards.
• SD Host Devices can only use SD memory cards.

Final Tips for SD Card Recovery

Get the best SD card storage for your devices like Android phones, digital cameras, or other electronic devices. Take care of your SD memory card and the device which you are using. What if the SD memory card get damaged or corrupted, you should take it to the professional repair service. Also, get the best SD card data recovery software to help your get all data back.