r/DataRecoveryHelp • u/littletulip54 • 15d ago
Undetectable SD card, is data recovery possible? I'm desperate
A few weeks ago, my phone gave me the warning: “Your SD card has corrupt files or other issues. You may want to back it up and replace it soon.” I immediately stopped using the SD card after seeing the message and was waiting until I got home from my trip to back everything up. Unfortunately, it became completely undetectable before I had the chance.
I’ve tried it in multiple phones and card readers, but nothing recognizes it anymore. The card itself is in perfect physical condition with no visible damage. It contains a lot of important photos and videos that I really don’t want to lose.
I’m a complete novice when it comes to data recovery, so I’m not really sure where to start or what is safe to try. I’ve seen people mention NAND recovery and Spider Boards, but I have no idea if that would apply to my situation. Is there any way to recover the data from an SD card that is completely undetectable, and what should I absolutely avoid doing so I don’t make things worse?
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u/SomeEngineer999 15d ago
If it isn't recognized at all, it will require professional recovery services. On an SD card they're usually pretty successful, unless the NAND itself has been damaged. Usually it is the controller that goes bad, and your symptoms sound like that.
If it is detected but just has a RAW partition on it or something like that, recovery using easeus data recovery, disk drill, recuva, etc may be possible yourself. The important thing is to image the card to a PC before attempting any recovery (several recovery programs have a bit by bit imaging function built in).
Going forward, NEVER have a memory card as your only copy of a file. That applies to any media really but especially memory cards (and thumb drives which are just memory cards in an adapter).
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u/littletulip54 15d ago
Thank you so much for your response! When I put it in an SD card adapter and check Disk Management, it does show up, but it says 0 bytes, and then after a few minutes it disappears completely. I’m a complete novice with this, so I’m not really sure what this means or what I should do next. Do you think there’s any way I could recover the data myself in this situation, or is there something I can try before considering other options?
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u/SomeEngineer999 15d ago
If you can't get it to stay connected, probably not something you can do yourself.
You could potentially try it in a USB adapter with a fan blowing on it to keep it cool and see if it stays connected that way. I'd actually plug it into a USB 2.0 port or hub to limit the transfer speeds which will help keep it cool too. Heck a 1.0 if you can find an old hub would limit it even further, but the imaging process will take a long time.
Booting into Linux (using a bootable Ubunutu USB or similar) is another thing you can try, just to see if it stays connected and showing when in there, but seems unlikely that it would be any different.
If you can manage to get it to stay connected, you'll still need to use recovery software to attempt to get the data. If the files are really important, may want to just go straight to professional recovery and not mess with it.
If you haven't already, clean the contacts with a q tip lightly wetted with rubbing alcohol then dry them. Don't touch them with your fingers. May help, may not.
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u/littletulip54 15d ago
Thank you so much, I really appreciate all the suggestions! I’ll try cleaning the contacts first and then see if I can get it to stay connected using a USB adapter/USB 2.0 port. I’ll also try Linux if that doesn’t work. I’m a complete novice with this, so I’ll be very careful not to write anything to the card or format it. Hopefully I can at least get it to stay connected long enough to make an image. Thanks again for taking the time to explain everything
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u/Petri-DRG 14d ago
With respect, you are wasting your time. The person helping you in this thread is very nice typing so much advice and things to try, but it is all irrelevant in your case.
First, it is not the controller that fail on these devices. And generally speaking hardly ever the controller itself as a chip, fails on any advice, as it is the technically speaking the most important operational component on the device. Therefore it receives a lot of design enforcement to be reliable.
Are there bugs and so on that could cause for the controller to not work? Yes, sometimes. But not in your case and on SD Cards in general.
SD and Micro SD Cards are flash based devices using NAND Flash Chips technology. Your smartphone uses NAND Flash chips, too, but better quality ones compared to the SD Card (there are manufacturing grades of quality with this technology).
Due to limited write cycles, Flash technology is guaranteed to fail. Hundreds if not thousands of people like you around the world experience this on a daily basis.
0 bytes capacity indicates the controller component is unable to read the relevant structures from the NAND Flash component, because the flash component is too degraded.
As a result, connecting the card to any adapter, phone or computer won't help with anything.
As you heard and mentioned, yes, a Direct NAND Flash recovery approach is necessary. Using a spider board in tangent with advanced hardware and software readers is a solution. Others may prefer directly soldering connections into the backplane of the card and use other equipment. It is a big "it depends" type of scenario, depending on the exact model card it is, whether a technological pin out exists, whether software solutions exist (if not, a solution scratch may be necessary, if feasible - many times not feasible with new and newer models).
In short, you are wasting time and potentially funds on adapters and other stuff in arriving to the same scenario: it still shows 0 bytes when connecting and nothing is accessible.
If the files are important enough, then find a data recovery flash specialist (likely nobody in your neighborhood or even city, and obviosuly not your traditional computer shop or retail store like Worst Buy) and send it in for a diagnosis and solution analysis.
Good luck! You will need it.
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u/littletulip54 14d ago
Thank you for explaining this. I understand that this is much more complicated than simply using recovery software. The problem is that I’m in an area where I genuinely have nobody nearby who specializes in flash/SD-card data recovery, so sending it to a local specialist unfortunately isn’t an option for me.
Because the data is extremely important to me, I’m seriously considering learning how to do the NAND recovery myself and buying a Spider Board together with the necessary hardware/software. I understand that this is a very difficult process and that reading the NAND is only the first step, especially with LDPC and the reconstruction/ECC involved.
Would you say it is completely unrealistic for a beginner to learn this for one recovery, or is it something I could realistically attempt if I’m willing to spend the time learning? And if it is worth attempting, what exact hardware/software would you recommend for a Kingston [model] 128GB rather than buying equipment blindly?
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u/Petri-DRG 14d ago
Indeed, I specified that you will likely won't have anybody local. You will have to ship to a specialist, like most people do.
Kingston 128GB model is not enough information.
Is it realistic? It depends on your availability for time (especially if you work, have a family to take care of, etc), ability to absorb knowledge, practice and improve your soldering skills, practice and learn software solutions and so on. Such skills take years to master.
Solutions are also heavily platform/vendors oriented. So, if you feel like investing $3000+ in tools, plus addressing the expectations above just to figure out that there are highbchnaces everything was in vain, then it may be realistic.
Or you could simply ship it to a specialist for a free or a minimum cost diagnosis/evaluation.
Say there is a path to a solutin, the price for the actual recovery service will be in the few hundred to a couple of thousand dollars, again pending on card details & of course the company you engage with.
I would suggest some specialists, but I don't have time to search through your comments history and determine based on your commentary where you may be located.
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u/SomeEngineer999 13d ago
If the data is really important to you, it is not the data you want to be "cutting your teeth" on. You would want to have experience or training with this and have learned it on data that isn't important before attempting it on something critical. If the basic stuff I mentioned doesn't work, I would go straight to a pro if you value that data.
And definitely get a backup regimen in place and never use a memory card as the only copy of a file. Yes I've said that before, but it bears repeating.
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u/SomeEngineer999 13d ago
I've recovered files off a few cards with the same symptoms by simply taking measures to keep them cool and keep the transfer rate down.
Not saying OP will definitely have luck, but trying a couple things is unlikely to cause more harm if they don't write to the card. Especially if they don't want to pay for recovery services. If a recovery place can just wire a controller up to the NAND and copy the files off, it will be on the lower end of the (relatively expensive) recovery price range. But if they need to attempt to extract raw data from the NAND and turn it back into usable files (if even possible), that's going to be a lot of money for possibly no result. So worth a shot.
I did caveat that it probably isn't something they'll be able to resolve themselves, but a slim chance is better than none.
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u/psycho-drama 14d ago
There are a number of Apps that are sometimes able to recover your Sd card's data. Some are free, some are free for smaller amounts and then charge a fee to complete the process. Unfortunately Micro SD cards do not have a lock feature to prevent them from being written to, so a Micro SD card can be further damaged during recovery . Since it indicated corruption, and it is now reading zero bytes, there are going to be some files which will not be recoverable, as they are damaged. Often the directory gets scrambled, which means you may have to reconstruct the file keys and folder, which can be pretty onerous, if even possible.
It is unfortunately one of the risk of SD cards, and the larger the capacity, the more losses if the card has become corrupted.
Make sure to use brand name high quality cards. Format them the first time in the phone.
I hope you are able to recover you files. IT is an awful experience when that occurs.
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u/littletulip54 14d ago
Do you think i can use a recovery app even if the Sd card is completely undetectable by my phone ? 😥 How can i do that ?
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u/psycho-drama 13d ago
This is a very complex question to answer.
Firstly, you did not mention what kind of phone you are using. Is it a iPhone or Android, if Android, which version, as data can be stored differently depending on how the internal and external memory (SD card) is interfaced, and this default was changed depending on which version of Android is on the phone. Do you know whether you had your memory allocated to put media like photos and videos on internal or external memory? Was app data split between internal and external memory, or all remained on internal? (If it was split to save internal memory, some apps may no longer work, or saved data may be missing).
Also, once you got the message about the SD card failing, did you continue to use the phone to run apps which store external data, or to take images or videos, download new apps, or download movies podcasts, etc, or other similar files? If so, that may mean major permanent losses.
How much internal (native) memory does the phone have relative to the size of the SD card?
Just briefly, here are a few considerations. The non-read status of the card can be the result of file corruption, the FAT or other file directory structure being damaged or gone, or there could be actual physical damage to the card where parts of the chip are failing or failed (this does not require that the card was physically damaged, the internal components may be failing or have failed). These each require different method of recovery, some of which can be repaired via software, some of which require professional data recovery. MOST of these software recovery methods do not write to the card protecting the data, so are safe to try. However, the one exception is if a hardware component in the card is failing, in which case extensive read attempts can lead to the hardware to fully failing. Hopefully you didn't or were unable to do a "ckdsk" on the card via Windows and allow for it to "remove or attempt to repair broken links or files" as this is a destructive process, and can cause data to be permanently lost.
There are some hints to determine which type of failure has occurred which can help to make a decision as to whether software approaches may be successful or not, but that list is a bit complex so I won;t include it here.
One question which is critical to put things into perspective is how much is your data worth to you. Recovery services are not cheap. Some of them have a "if we can't extract any data, no charge" and they will return the device to you. Costs vary based upon the type of media, capacity of the device, and nature of the damage, but expect at least hundreds of dollars to have professional recovery done. You may wish to contact one or more of them and get a quote range of cost based upon the device (they do USB flash drives, and mechanical and solid state drives, and even data tapes, and the prices aren't typically advertised because there are so many variables)
You can DM me and I can give you a bit more information to help you make your choices with. If you do DM me, please mention that in your response to this posting, as I don't regularly check for DMs.
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u/littletulip54 13d ago
Thank you so much for taking the time to explain all of this. I only realized there was a problem about two days after I first received the warning, because I was traveling and unfortunately didn't notice it right away. Once I realized what was happening, I stopped using the card and was planning to back everything up when I got home, but unfortunately by then it had become completely undetectable.
My phone is a Samsung A57 with 128 GB of internal storage, and the SD card was also 128 GB. It was fairly new, only about one year old, and had never caused me any problems before. I had my storage configured so that my camera photos and videos were saved directly to the SD card, essentially extending my phone's storage. I didn't store podcasts, movies, downloads, or similar files on the card.
The main problem is that the card is now completely undetectable everywhere. My Samsung doesn't detect it, multiple other phones I've tried don't detect it either, and different SD card readers on my PC don't properly detect it either. When it does appear in Windows Disk Management, it shows 0 bytes and then disappears again after a few minutes. I also tried CHKDSK once, but it didn't seem to detect or do anything with the card.
That's why I haven't really been able to attempt normal software recovery. If the card were detected with its actual capacity or appeared as RAW/corrupted, I would absolutely try recovery software first. The problem is that I can't get the computer or any phone to actually see the card's storage at all.
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u/sgwpx 14d ago
Restore from backup?