Dead SD Card

[grouchos_tash]

Hi,

Whilst on holiday my SD card died (luckily I had a spare). I get a message on my Ricoh GRII that said 'Card not formatted for this device'. When I plug it into my Macbook nothing shows up (inc. Disk Utility). I tried it in my XT1 and got a 'Card Error' message.

Of course, I can't even try a disk recovery programme because it doesn't show up on the computer.

Thanks for your suggestions,

 

[Robert Lai]

It sounds as if you need to contact a data recovery service to see if they can somehow read the card and get the files from it. I don't know what's available in the UK, however.

 

[jsrockit]

Yeah, I had to go the data recovery route and since it was a hardware failure, it was expensive. I only did it because I had a great day of photographing and I couldn't let it go.

 

[Richard G]

I rescued one once. The Mac couldn't see it. The PC laptop running Windows XP could see the card but not the contents. I reformatted the card - FAT32 I think. The Mac could then see it and SanDisk Rescue Pro retrieved nearly all of the images.

I know I had one instance of the PC being the winner, but here's an old thread where the Mac rescued the situation. Read down the block capitals RECOVERY OF IMAGES post.

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-117806.html

 

[raid]

This was an excellent recovery from a potential loss of your images, Richard. Excellent.

 

[grouchos_tash]

I rescued one once. The Mac couldn't see it. The PC laptop running Windows XP could see the card but not the contents. I reformatted the card - FAT32 I think. The Mac could then see it and SanDisk Rescue Pro retrieved nearly all of the images.

I know I had one instance of the PC being the winner, but here's an old thread where the Mac rescued the situation. Read down the block capitals RECOVERY OF IMAGES post.

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-117806.html

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'll have a go with a PC when I get back to work and see if that helps!

 

[Dwig]

I rescued one once. The Mac couldn't see it. The PC laptop running Windows XP could see the card but not the contents. I reformatted the card - FAT32 I think. The Mac could then see it and SanDisk Rescue Pro retrieved nearly all of the images.

I know I had one instance of the PC being the winner, but here's an old thread where the Mac rescued the situation. Read down the block capitals RECOVERY OF IMAGES post.

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-117806.html

I've recovered the utility of a USB flash stick this way. My Macs couldn't see it at all and Windows wouldn't mount the volume, but Windows' Disk Management could see the drive and reformat it. In that case, I didn't need to recover data so I don't know how successful data recovery would have been.

Another useful utility is the official SD Card Formatter: https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

 

[grouchos_tash]

So I guess an option would be to format the card (the camera will allow me to format it) so that it's recognised by the computer then use data recovery software to retrieve the photos?

 

[wolves3012]

So I guess an option would be to format the card (the camera will allow me to format it) so that it's recognised by the computer then use data recovery software to retrieve the photos?

I would suggest that would be a bad move. A lot depends on the type of formatting the camera performs. A full format erases ALL data and re-writes the FAT (file allocation table), a quick format erases and re-writes only the FAT, so no actual data files are erased - it just marks the space they occupy as "available".

If the camera does a full format, everything will go and not be recoverable, although the card (assuming it's not actually broken) will be usable again. If you are accepting the images are gone, that's fine.

You would have more flexibility with recovery attempts if you use a computer. Personally I'd be trying differents OSes (Windows, Mac, Linux, Android) until I found one that could read at least something. That might open up the possibility of some disk utility software to drag the disk contents off. You might find something commercial is required, in which case it might not be worth the cost to you, your decision obviously.

 

[grouchos_tash]

I would suggest that would be a bad move. A lot depends on the type of formatting the camera performs. A full format erases ALL data and re-writes the FAT (file allocation table), a quick format erases and re-writes only the FAT, so no actual data files are erased - it just marks the space they occupy as "available".

If the camera does a full format, everything will go and not be recoverable, although the card (assuming it's not actually broken) will be usable again. If you are accepting the images are gone, that's fine.

You would have more flexibility with recovery attempts if you use a computer. Personally I'd be trying differents OSes (Windows, Mac, Linux, Android) until I found one that could read at least something. That might open up the possibility of some disk utility software to drag the disk contents off. You might find something commercial is required, in which case it might not be worth the cost to you, your decision obviously.

Thanks, I'm definitely going to try it in a windows computer, cos my macbook can't see it! Hopefully I'll have some joy with that before I give up 🙂

 

[tbhv55]

Yes, wolves3012 is right on it with his post: DON'T format it. Formatting risks losing the whole lot (depending upon the type of format, as wolves said). Firstly, don't use the card for anything at all until you've had a chance to attempt recovery of your images. Also set the write protect tab to the "Protect" position before even inserting into a computer - just in case. Macs, in particular, are notorious for attempting to write system files to a card, upon insertion... even before you ask the computer to actually do anything.

There are a few options for this situation, but it helps to have an understanding of the logical structure before you attempt any recovery work. This probably isn't the place to try to cover too much on the subject, but happy to discuss in greater detail by pm if you want to do so.