How to retrieve lost data from SD/Memory Card

Secure Digital (SD) is a non-volatile electronic flash memory data storage device that is extensively used to store digital data. It is generally used in digital cameras, handheld computers, PDAs, mobile phones, GPS receivers, and video game consoles. Compared to other storage devices that have movable components, SD cards are safer to use. However, they too can become corrupted due to accidental deletion of files, corruption of the file system that manages the data on flash drive, and various other reasons. Corruption of SD cards requires memory card recovery to come out of such situations.

Memory card corruption can render all images, audios, videos, and other digital media files saved in the memory card inaccessible.

Common reasons for memory card corruption are:

  • improper handling of the digital camera
  • interrupted read or write operations
  • harmful software like viruses.

If the memory card has been formatted by mistake, an updated backup helps the user to restore all his digital files. But if there are no updated backups, then the memory card should not be used until digital files can be recovered using effective third-party digital memory card recovery software.

Good memory card recovery software has the following features.

  • It should recover all lost and deleted pictures, audios, and videos.
  • It should support multiple photo, audio and video file formats.
  • It should recover data from almost all memory cards.
  • It should recover data from all popular camera makes.
  • A thumbnail preview of recoverable files should be provided.
  • It should recover photos from damaged or corrupted media.
  • It should support recovery from physical disk and logical volume

Good third party digital media data recovery tools help in getting back the data without worrying about corruption or loss of data. These tools are designed specially to deal with card corruption and various other multimedia data loss issues. One such memory card recovery tool is Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery.

Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery is a read only memory card recovery software that saves recovered data at a new user-specified location, and prevents the original data from being overwritten or modified. This tool can recover photos from digital cameras, memory cards, hard drives, USBs, etc, and is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, XP, NT, 2003 and 2000.

Useful and easy memory card recovery tips for Beginners

Data loss from a memory card can be devastating for a photographer. It can spoil his career if he ends up losing important photos or videos. Similarly, a data loss situation can give you sleepless nights as you might lose some cherished photos unexpectedly. The above situations can erupt or surface when the memory card of your digital camera or any other host device gives up on you. You can lose valuable data on account of many instances including memory card corruption, accidental deletion of data, virus attack, unintentional formatting and others.

Though, you can recover lost data - irrespective of the file type - from a backup, there are less chances of absolute and successful recovery. In such situations, before opting for a third-party memory card recovery software, you can take into consideration the following steps:

Do not use the card for any purpose

It is recommended that you should immediately stop using the memory card after discovering that you have encountered a data loss. If you do not use the card after a data loss event, you in a way bolster the chances of memory card data recovery. Therefore, do not store new photos or videos onto the card.

When a file is deleted from the card, its index entry gets deleted from the file system while the data remains 100 per cent intact. The data (of the deleted file) remains secure until a new file overwrites it. If data doesn’t get overwritten, you can recover all lost files.

In fact be extra cautious, and lock the card using write-protect switch. As long as the switch is in lock position (as with SD and other cards), no new data can be written onto the card.

Clean dust particles, if any

On few occasions, a camera or computer doesn’t recognize the card. It could happen due to the presence of dust particles on the receptacles of your memory card, Therefore, clean the memory card’s receptacles with a soft and dry cloth, and re-insert it again. It might work.

Check your camera thoroughly

If you do not view pictures in your digital camera, which should have been on its memory card, check your camera’s internal memory. You might find your pictures there. You can also copy the pictures from the internal memory of the camera to the memory card.

Data recovery

If everything else fails and you do not recover the lost or deleted data from the memory card, download a reliable memory card recovery software from the Web. But, make sure to download a read-only software.

Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery is a user-friendly software which recovers lost or deleted photos and other multimedia files from a range of storage media including digital cameras, hard drives, memory sticks, USBs and others. This memory card data recovery utility is available for both Windows and Mac users.

Learn how to remove write-protection from memory cards

Many mobile phone users, who use memory cards, with their phones often encounter a common problem. The card refuses to permit them to modify, copy or delete any content being write-protected. The solution to this problem may differ as the memory card family includes different variants viz SD,MMC, SDHC, XD etc. While is some cases, it may turn out to be complicated or in others you would be required to reformat the memory card. Irrespective of the memory card type, you will be able to remove the write-protection from your mobile phone. Moreover, if need arises to reformat the card, you can do it without any hesitation as your lost data can be retrieved by using a memory card recovery software.

Many-a-times, you must have come across the following errors while trying to transfer data on to a SD card:

“Cannot copy files and folders, drive is write protected”
“Cannot format the drive, drive is write protected”
“The disk is write protected”
“Media is write protected”

Though, all the above error messages may frustrate you, it is quite easier to eliminate them completely by observing certain steps. You can follow the below-mentioned steps, in order to remove write-

  • Unlock the memory card: ‘Lock’ switch is slid up i.e. in the unlock position. You won’t be able to modify or delete the contents of the memory card if it is in a locked position.
  • Open Start>>Run, type regedit and press Enter, this will open the registry editor
    Navigate to the following path:
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies
    Double-click the key WriteProtect in the right pane and set the value to 0 in the Value Data Box and press OK

    Exit registry and restart your computer and now try to transfer data onto the memory card

  • If the above steps, do not help you remove the write-protection, reformat the memory card in your phone

Formatting will reset the permissions but will erase the data stored on to the memory card. You need not worry about the data loss as it can be compensated from an updated backup. However, if you haven’t maintained one, you can opt for a memory card recovery utility.

Such third-party utilities are designed to recover lost data from a formatted memory card by applying effective scanning algorithms. But, make sure you select a read-only memory card recovery utility which doesn’t alter the original content.

Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery is a reliable tool which recovers lost, deleted or formatted pictures and other multimedia files from all types of memory cards including SD, SDHC, XD, CF etc. The memory card recovery software is available for both Windows and Mac users.

How to Protect Your Memory Card From Corruption

If you use digital cameras to take crystal clear pictures, memory cards or flash cards are the storage devices on your you can rely on for reliability and longevity for storing valuable photos. The memory cards are available with different storage capacity and data accessing speed grades. However, in some cases, you may encounter corruption to the memory card data structures, you may come across data loss situations. In order to retrieve lost files in such situations, you are required to Memory Card Recovery to get your lost files recovered.

Everything goes fine until the memory card is well and functioning properly. However, some incidents of corruption to memory card make it nonfunctional. As a result, the files stored on memory card become inaccessible as the card is unreadable. This behavior of memory card leads to critical photo loss situations. It needs Memory Card Data Recovery get your mission critical data back.

Before the corruption occurs, if you know about how the card gets damaged, you can prevent the photo loss and save your money. You can try out following things to avoid photo loss situations:

The writing process on memory card needs to be completed successfully. Interrupted writing process, bye turning the camera off or removing card, may corrupt the card and cause file loss.
Removing the memory card from memory card, without safely removing it, may also damage the card.
While performing operations on memory card such as opening files, renaming files, and removing files that are opened in your system, you should not remove the memory card.
You should always keep some free space on the memory card.
Do not work with the memory card, if the camera battery is low.
Formatting the memory card with computer can damage it, as it may not understand the file system.

If you do not take these practices and memory card gets damaged, it becomes inaccessible. All the files stored on memory card such photos, songs, and videos become unreadable. At this point, Memory Card Recovery Software are required to extract lost data.

The Memory Card Recovery applications are particularly designed to thoroughly scan the corrupted memory card. They work in all logical photo loss situations and allow you to perform safe and easy recovery.

Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery is the most advanced tool for absolute recovery lost photos. The software is available for both Microsoft Windows and Macintosh operating system in two different versions. It works well with SD cards, XD cards, MMC cards, and more.