Micro SD card corrupted and Formatted

[westcoaster]

Afternoon all

Does anyone know of a good software program to recover any pictures from a corrupted and Formatted micro SD card please.

Was using a KRECOO 256gb card. This has corrupted somehow and now shows a capacity of 26GB. Guess the card has gone bad, but would like to try and recover some pictures.

Many thanks for any suggestions

 

[najaB]

Normally my advice in this kind of situation is to make an image of the disk before you try anything else, but with it only showing 26GB capacity that might not be possible. What does it as in Device Manager if you mount it in Windows?

 

[westcoaster]

So I was using this in my Android phone, which can handle an Micro SD card upto 256GB.
It then started giving a notification saying SD card corrupted. This would show sometimes and not others.

If I went into gallery it would show only 400 or so picture's which are on the internal phone memory.


Just to add this morning I put the SD card into a Windows PC and it would not even read it (one time a message said no tree's available, others this card must be formatted before use)

So I formatted it and now have the below

Checked on a windows pc this morning and that said capacity 25.6GB ( 10% of the cards capacity).

 

[najaB]

What does it show as in Device Manager though - is it still identified correctly - manufacturer and capacity?

 

[westcoaster]

What does it show as in Device Manager though - is it still identified correctly - manufacturer and capacity?

Just said external device (H iirc) 25.6GB

Guess that's because it was in the H drive.

I'd have to check in properties tomorrow as I'm of to work ATM.

 

[owidoe]

So I was using this in my Android phone, which can handle an Micro SD card upto 256GB.
It then started giving a notification saying SD card corrupted. This would show sometimes and not others.

If I went into gallery it would show only 400 or so picture's which are on the internal phone memory.


Just to add this morning I put the SD card into a Windows PC and it would not even read it (one time a message said no tree's available, others this card must be formatted before use)

So I formatted it and now have the below

Checked on a windows pc this morning and that said capacity 25.6GB ( 10% of the cards capacity).

You've been scammed. It's a common trick with these no-name Chinese sellers to pass off cheap, small SD cards as larger ones by programming them to report themselves as having much more capacity than they really do, and then once you hit the actual limit they start overwriting themselves, which is what caused the corruption. The part of the disk which contains the filesystem's data, like the locations on disk of the files, its name, manufacturer and so on will have been overwritten first, since it's at the start of the address space.

As for files: they're probably still there. The records of where they are, their names, their lsst modified dates, etc. are long gone after being overwritten by the dodgy Chinese firmware running the card, but the actual bits remain and can probably be recovered.

It's critical in these cases that nothing be written to the card. Windows' formatting utility has undoubtedly destroyed perfectly good data already by stomping all over the FS records (which is why I'm perpetually annoyed at Microsoft that they don't make it very clear that "format" means "delete everything and write a new FS record", not "fix corruption").

I recommend for your purposes the venerable PhotoRec: https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
I've never used it on Windows but it's served me well.

If you particularly value the files on it, take an image (bit-for-bit copy) of the drive using https://clonezilla.org/ Clonezilla, then use PhotoRec on that: that way the drive will be absolutely guaranteed to not be further damaged by its dodgy controller and can be sent off to a professional data recovery service if needed.

 

[Alpine Rider]

Bad news first - Sadly most, if not all, of your photos on that Mirco SD card may not be recoverable.

Google it and you will quickly find that there are actually loads of "Fake SD cards", micro SD cards, USB drives etc especially among those offered online. Hence buying from a major high street retailer rather than the web should be a safer option to avoid being conned. Sadly making fake SD Cards is a common and very profitable game for unscrupulous operators who take a cheap small micro SD card and then tweek the properties to show a larger capacity. Initially things may seem fine until stored data actually exceeds the real capacity at which point you end up with the sort of data corruption messages you report.

It is perhaps worth checking with your phone provider as some smart phones automatically back up photos, apps etc to the cloud and they may be able to talk you through the process of retrieving those files from the cloud.

So moving on to the good - yes there are free and paid for programmes which can check and confirm the real capacity of a micro SD card. Others like drill disk which can potentially recover data from a corrupted card. Just realise that this process probably means giving someone else located somewhere on the planet access to anything on the Micro SD card, and provide a means of entry for a malicious site. If that causes concern and the data is very valuable then you might be better off taking the card in person to a data recovery specialist firm after carefully checking their reputation.

 

[owidoe]

Just realise that this process probably means giving someone else located somewhere on the planet access to anything on the Micro SD card, and provide a means of entry for a malicious site

Just what kind of programs are you using? Rest assured neither one I linked sends any data offsite.

 

[najaB]

You've been scammed. It's a common trick with these no-name Chinese sellers to pass off cheap, small SD cards as larger ones by programming them to report themselves as having much more capacity than they really do, and then once you hit the actual limit they start overwriting themselves, which is what caused the corruption.

That's possible. Or it really be a 256GB card with a corrupted file allocation table.

 

[skyhigh]

That's possible. Or it really be a 256GB card with a corrupted file allocation table.

If you Google the brand name the first hit is a Reddit post warning they are fake capacity cards so I think it's highly likely that's what has happened here.

 

[najaB]

If you Google the brand name the first hit is a Reddit post warning they are fake capacity cards so I think it's highly likely that's what has happened here.

If it's a questionable brand then yes, it sounds like it's a fake card.

 

[Buzby]

I was in a similar situation a few years ago, but with a kosher SanDisk card. There are a number of utilities available that will claim to recover files and photos that a device will not recognise - usually reporting the file name with a ? As the first characte. You can try a free demo to see if it finds anything viable. I paid $20 and it recovered 150 of my much-needed USA holiday pictures,. I then embraced iCloud ever since!

 

[najaB]

You can try a free demo to see if it finds anything viable. I paid $20 and it recovered 150 of my much-needed USA holiday pictures,. I then embraced iCloud ever since

I second this - while it isn't much help for the files that @westcoaster is dealing with now, a cloud backup solution is an easy free/cheap way of providing a little protection against this kind of thing in the future. Amazon Cloud gives you unlimited storage for images if you're a Prime customer (or at least it did when I signed up).

 

[westcoaster]

I second this - while it isn't much help for the files that @westcoaster is dealing with now, a cloud backup solution is an easy free/cheap way of providing a little protection against this kind of thing in the future. Amazon Cloud gives you unlimited storage for images if you're a Prime customer (or at least it did when I signed up)

I do back up onto Google photos, but the ones I want have also gone they uploaded as just grey tiles. The info about picture size , time and gpe location was there but no pictures.

You've been scammed. It's a common trick with these no-name Chinese sellers to pass off cheap, small SD cards as larger ones by programming them to report themselves as having much more capacity than they really do, and then once you hit the actual limit they start overwriting themselves, which is what caused the corruption. The part of the disk which contains the filesystem's data, like the locations on disk of the files, its name, manufacturer and so on will have been overwritten first, since it's at the start of the address space.

As for files: they're probably still there. The records of where they are, their names, their lsst modified dates, etc. are long gone after being overwritten by the dodgy Chinese firmware running the card, but the actual bits remain and can probably be recovered.

It's critical in these cases that nothing be written to the card. Windows' formatting utility has undoubtedly destroyed perfectly good data already by stomping all over the FS records (which is why I'm perpetually annoyed at Microsoft that they don't make it very clear that "format" means "delete everything and write a new FS record", not "fix corruption").

I recommend for your purposes the venerable PhotoRec: https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
I've never used it on Windows but it's served me well.

If you particularly value the files on it, take an image (bit-for-bit copy) of the drive using https://clonezilla.org/ Clonezilla, then use PhotoRec on that: that way the drive will be absolutely guaranteed to not be further damaged by its dodgy controller and can be sent off to a professional data recovery service if needed.

Thank you I will look tomorrow, tried a recovery program earlier that found over 900 pictures. Will try and find only cheaper than 70 dollars.

If you Google the brand name the first hit is a Reddit post warning they are fake capacity cards so I think it's highly likely that's what has happened here.

Lesson learned

 

[dgl]

I think I used Recuva when a repair of my SD card in my phone corrupted it, make sure you select that you want it to retail folder structure or you'll just have a folder full of random files that aren't in any particular order.

As has probably been said when buying an SD card buy one from a reputable retailer and from a recognisable brand, these include Kingston, Toshiba/Kioxia, Samsung, SanDisk, Integral, Lexar, PNY Etc.

 

[westcoaster]

You've been scammed. It's a common trick with these no-name Chinese sellers to pass off cheap, small SD cards as larger ones by programming them to report themselves as having much more capacity than they really do, and then once you hit the actual limit they start overwriting themselves, which is what caused the corruption. The part of the disk which contains the filesystem's data, like the locations on disk of the files, its name, manufacturer and so on will have been overwritten first, since it's at the start of the address space.

As for files: they're probably still there. The records of where they are, their names, their lsst modified dates, etc. are long gone after being overwritten by the dodgy Chinese firmware running the card, but the actual bits remain and can probably be recovered.

It's critical in these cases that nothing be written to the card. Windows' formatting utility has undoubtedly destroyed perfectly good data already by stomping all over the FS records (which is why I'm perpetually annoyed at Microsoft that they don't make it very clear that "format" means "delete everything and write a new FS record", not "fix corruption").

I recommend for your purposes the venerable PhotoRec: https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
I've never used it on Windows but it's served me well.

If you particularly value the files on it, take an image (bit-for-bit copy) of the drive using https://clonezilla.org/ Clonezilla, then use PhotoRec on that: that way the drive will be absolutely guaranteed to not be further damaged by its dodgy controller and can be sent off to a professional data recovery service if needed.

Can I just say a massive thank you to @owidoe. Used the listed software and managed to recover just under 1900 photos and 50 videos. Not everything but nearly all.

Also used an app called DiskDigger on my phone to find others.

 

[joncombe]

I did once have a card corrupt that wasn't fake just suddenly not able to be read. I ended up sending it to a company in Germany as all the recovery software I tried failed. Obviously I had to pay them for recovery but they were able to get all my photos back. I mention it just in case it's useful to try and get the remainder of the missing photos back, I can find the details and pass them on.

 

[westcoaster]

I think I used Recuva when a repair of my SD card in my phone corrupted it, make sure you select that you want it to retail folder structure or you'll just have a folder full of random files that aren't in any particular order.

As has probably been said when buying an SD card buy one from a reputable retailer and from a recognisable brand, these include Kingston, Toshiba/Kioxia, Samsung, SanDisk, Integral, Lexar, PNY Etc.

Just purchased this from Amazon, looks to be on offer.

Yes all the recovered pics and videos were just put in 5 files, I manually sorted them.

 

[najaB]

Not to cause excessive concern, but did you buy it from Amazon or from an Amazon Marketplace vendor? If the latter, just be aware that some of them are fronts for less than completely ethical overseas vendors.

This is Walmart rather than Amazon, and a SSD rather than an SD card but the principle still applies:

 

[westcoaster]

Sold by Amazon
Dispatched be Amazon

 

[najaB]

Sold by Amazon
Dispatched be Amazon

That should be fine then!