SD recovery

['putertutor]

I don't do much recovery work, but a friend is asking me to take a look at a sd card. She recently took a trip to Italy, this is likely a once in a lifetime deal, and she tells me her 64gb sd is unreadable. I'd like to help her if I could. My first suggestion was to put her in touch with a reputable recovery company, but she doesn't want to spend that kind of cash at this point.

At this point I'm not sure what I'll be able to do, but I told her I would look at it. Like I said, data recovery is not in my regular line up, so I am looking for suggestions for software that might help, and any pointers about what NOT to do (other than not take this job in the first place), would be appreciated. I will have the card tomorrow, until then all I know is that when she was attempting to transfer the files to her computer, a message popped up (after some time) saying the "card was corrupted, or something like that" (her words).

 

[Vicenarian]

1) Make a complete (sector by sector) image
2) Make a backup of the image to another storage medium
3) Run recovery tool(s) of choice on mounted drive image (GetDataBack, PhotoRec, Recuva, etc.)

Probably the approach I would take, or just try running the recovery utilities against the original SD card, after making an image backup.

 

['putertutor]

Photorec gave no results. Recuva neither. Looks like its on to the data recovery folks if I can convince her of the cost.

$300datarecovery is my first option, any others I should be considering?

 

[katz]

In your initial post you mention that the card is unreadable?

So, at this point you are actually able to read the card without errors? In the past I've had to perform a fix on some sd cards first, then attempt a recovery.

For recovery I've used;

Recover my photos
Pixrecovery
JPEG Recovery Pro

I must say I'm surprised that PhotoRec didn't return anything, I've rarely had it come up "0".

 

['putertutor]

I hadn't seen the card yet for my initial post, so I didn't know if it was readable or not. Photorec gave me blanks, and windows itself will not read the card ("You need to format" blah blah blah). I will try one of those you mentioned, but I'm just not holding my breath at this point.

 

[katz]

Check out my thread here -

http://www.technibble.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59177

I was getting the same error, and the solution I list at the end did work for me. This is a last chance resolution, as it will erase data & reset the card, but you're already at the point of no recovery, so there's really not much to lose now.

Follow the directions as outlined; if you do get the card back to a working state you can attempt a recovery then. You might get lucky & pull some data at that point. To date, I've brought back three cards since that post.

Good luck, let us know how it turns out.

 

[phaZed]

I have been thoroughly surprised with how many times a *nix could read a device just fine when Windows claims it needs to formatted.

 

[LifelineIT]

I have been thoroughly surprised with how many times a *nix could read a device just fine when Windows claims it needs to formatted.

This. It's probably just something stupid like it wasn't unmounted correctly and now the volume is dirty.

I'd be throwing it in my parted magic box, then ddrescuing it, then trying to mount and read it. If that failed, then I'd rstudio the dd image.

 

[Krilus]

This. It's probably just something stupid like it wasn't unmounted correctly and now the volume is dirty.

I'd be throwing it in my parted magic box, then ddrescuing it, then trying to mount and read it. If that failed, then I'd rstudio the dd image.

Can you follow up with more infomation on your GParted box? I don't yet have one but want to build it for my own home shop. Reading up on onGaprted, what would you recommend for this build?

Thanks for your advice and apologies for hijacking the thread

 

[LifelineIT]

Oh. Parted magic, not gparted, although partedmagic uses gparted. Partedmagic is a recovery distro that doesn't install, won't install, just runs live. I boot up my always-on manjaro box to partedmagic instead and use it from there, Everything in PM can be done from really any distro, it's just extremely well organized and easy to do. My box is like a 5 or 6 year old surplus dell core 2 duo.

 

['putertutor]

I have been thoroughly surprised with how many times a *nix could read a device just fine when Windows claims it needs to formatted.

More times than I can shake a stick at. I particularly enjoy the reaction I get from folks who tell me "its totally unreadable, windows doesn't even recognize that I've inserted a drive" and I pop it into my *nix box and "poof" I'm friggin' Gandolf in their eyes.

 

['putertutor]

Check out my thread here -

http://www.technibble.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59177

I was getting the same error, and the solution I list at the end did work for me. This is a last chance resolution, as it will erase data & reset the card, but you're already at the point of no recovery, so there's really not much to lose now.

Follow the directions as outlined; if you do get the card back to a working state you can attempt a recovery then. You might get lucky & pull some data at that point. To date, I've brought back three cards since that post.

Good luck, let us know how it turns out.

Well, that certainly does sound like a last ditch solution (how did you come upon that process?), but after talking to her again, it does sound like she's at that point. I'll give it a shot and let you know. Thanks for the help!

 

[Larry Sabo]

Before doing that, I would try DMDE and also Partition Find and Mount on the mounted dd image to see what they can find.

 

[katz]

I agree with the other posters - try to recover in Linux or other possibilities first. If ALL else fails, then my method is a good one. Believe it or not, I came across it on youtube while searching for something unrelated.

I had all but given up hope on the drives in question, so I figured what do I have to lose...

 

['putertutor]

Yep. I exhausted all the resources I could in Linux. Also katz' method failed (+1, though, for a great response - I'm looking forward to the next time I get to try it.)

I hate it when I can't get results. Bummer.

Thanks for all your help and suggestion, though.

 

[brandonkick]

Try Zero Assumption Recovery,

I was able to recover the contents of a Micro SD card that nothing else would read. Worth a shot!