SD Card Troubleshooting: How to Fix a Damaged or Corrupted SD Card

With their ability to greatly expand the storage capacity of electronic devices, SD cards help you get the most out of them. As you'd expect, they're used extensively in smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, and computers. For example, most Android devices come with a dedicated slot for a micro-SD card, allowing you to store more data than the device was originally specified to hold.

It is very convenient, but there is a catch: if the SD card becomes corrupted (unfortunately, not an uncommon occurrence), your computer, phone, or camera will no longer be able to read it. Worse, such a card can cause your computer to run slowly or become unresponsive altogether. And you could lose data in the process.

Fortunately, this doesn't have to be a completely gloomy scenario. This article will introduce you to seven proven techniques to fix a corrupted SD card and prevent the worst-case situation. Before we proceed, let's first reveal some telltale signs that the storage medium needs immediate fixing.

When an SD card is having issues, your device might not be able to read some or all of its contents. For example, when you insert it into a camera or computer, it may not show any previously saved images. On a Windows 10 computer, you'll see a pop-up that says "The disk is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?" or "The drive is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable." On a macOS device, you'll see a warning that reads, "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer."

If you experience any of these symptoms, immediately stop using the SD card. Do not format it right away, as this will make it much harder (or impossible) to recover your files. Instead of panicking and making a hasty decision, try these steps first.

1. Try using a different card reader, or insert the SD card into another computer.

Sometimes, a Windows 8 or Windows 10 machine fails to recognize or read an SD card because its built-in SD card reader isn't working properly. So, it's a good idea to check if the component is correctly installed and uses the latest hardware drivers.

Open Device Manager and find the reader under an entry named “Memory Card Reader” or something similar. Look for a yellow exclamation point next to it. If you see one, try updating the device's driver.

If the problem persists, try another SD card in the same slot to see what happens. If it isn't recognized either, try a different SD card reader, or even another computer. If all your devices work fine with other cards, the issue is probably with the SD card reader, and you should replace it.

2. Use a disk management tool to check the unreadable SD card

If your Windows computer isn't reading the SD card, then you should check its status in Disk Management. This system tool displays various storage-related info, including the file system, drive letter, partition, and disk space. You might encounter a few different scenarios:

SD card without drive letter

One of the prerequisites for accessing an SD card is that Windows needs to assign a drive letter to it. If this doesn't happen for some reason, your PC won't be able to read the storage device. You can resolve this issue by assigning a drive letter to the SD card yourself. Here's how:

1. Right-click on "This PC" (or "My Computer") and select "Manage" from the context menu, then navigate to the "Storage" section and click on "Disk Management." 2. Locate your SD card in the list of disks and check if it has been assigned a drive letter. If not, proceed to the next step. 3. Right-click on the entry for your SD card and see if there's an option for "Change Drive Letter and Paths" in the context menu. If it's there, select it. 4. Click on "Add" and follow the on-screen instructions to assign a drive letter to the storage device.

If this works, your computer should now be able to read the SD card. However, if you don't see an option to assign a drive letter to the storage, you'll need to try another method.

RAW file system refers to an unformatted or disk partition or storage device that lacks any file system structure. In a computer, a file system is used to organize and manage data and files on a disk, whereas a RAW file system indicates that the disk has not been assigned a standard file system like FAT, NTFS, or EXT. Consequently, the operating system cannot directly read from or write to it. In such situations, data recovery tools are typically employed to attempt the recovery of files stored within the RAW file system.

A fully functional SD card is typically formatted with the NTFS, FAT32, or exFAT file system. If your Disk Management tool shows RAW instead, that means the storage is corrupted, as your computer can't recognize its file system.

In that case, Windows will display an error dialog box stating that “You need to format the disk in drive before you can use it.” The only effective way to resolve this issue is to reformat the SD card.

The SD card shows less capacity than its actual size

If this is the case, or if the SD card doesn't show up in Disk Management at all, it means that the storage is suffering from a physical failure, and your computer isn't able to read it.

3. Resort to the CHKDSK Command for Rescue

For the uninitiated, CHKDSK is an built-in Windows utility designed to check for file system errors on disks and other issues that might prevent them from working properly. It can also fix many disk errors. If your SD card is damaged, you should definitely try using this tool to fix it. Here's how:

Insert the SD card into your computer's card reader. Click the magnifying glass icon in the Windows taskbar, type “cmd” (without the quotes) in the search field, and press Enter. Right-click the “Command Prompt” app and select “Run as administrator” from the context menu. Type “chkdsk volume: /f”, where “volume” is the letter assigned to the corrupted SD card, then hit Enter. For instance, if the card's drive letter is “E,” you'd type “chkdsk E: /f”.

Windows will format the SD card's file system, which can take a few minutes. Once it's done, your storage device should be readable again.

4. Reformatting the memory card might help.

If your SD card's file system is severely corrupted, the CHKDSK command might not be able to fix it and you'll get a “RAW drive cannot be used with CHKDSK” or similar message. If this happens, you need to reformat the storage device to make it work properly. To do that, head to Disk Management, right-click the damaged card, and choose Format.

One major drawback of this method is that all data on the SD card will be deleted. Thus, before proceeding with this approach, consider using a data recovery tool to salvage previously saved files (we'll discuss this method in more detail later).

5. Check the warranty on the SD card

If you find that your SD card has readability errors or other problems, it's worth checking if it's still under warranty. If it is, contact the retailer or manufacturer to request a full refund or replacement.

6. Contact the technical support of the card manufacturer

Another course of action is to get in touch with the support team of your SD card manufacturer. This way, you can request for a repair service and have their technicians examine your product, hopefully getting it back to working order.

Utilize data recovery software

If your SD card is too severely damaged to fix or you have to format it as a last resort, all the valuable files on it might be gone for good. To prevent this from happening, try using an effective data recovery tool like the Data Recovery Wizard before taking further action.

This reputable tool can locate and restore files that are damaged, corrupted, or even from raw storage media. Its free version allows you to recover up to 2GB of data with no strings attached. You simply scan the damaged SD card and wait for the application to detect all recoverable images, documents, and other types of files stored in dozens of different formats.

With its advanced filters, you can quickly locate specific files, and a preview function lets you see exactly what will be restored. It's a very user-friendly solution with great potential for data recovery. Try this tool if all else fails or before undertaking far-reaching filesystem operations.

How can I avoid future issues with my SD card?

To know how to avoid these predicaments, let's look at the most common reasons why these problems occur. First, if you eject the SD card from the device while transferring files, it might get corrupted. The same thing can happen if you turn off your computer or digital camera while using the SD card.

Even if no files are currently being transferred to or from it, removing an SD card unsafely can still affect it. Instead, you should eject the SD card safely through the taskbar, and wait for the confirmation message before physically removing it. Additionally, if you frequently plug and remove the same SD card between different devices, it could eventually experience physical damage.

If the formatting process gets abruptly interrupted, your SD card can also start malfunctioning. This may lead to the RAW file system status. It is known that the storage medium can get infected with a malware when inserted into an infected Windows or Mac computer. Harmful code can also cause issues.

In general, to keep your SD card safe, you should practice good hardware-removal and formatting hygiene, use a separate card for each device, and ensure that you insert it only into malware-free computers.

Conclusions

Though small, SD cards play a big role in your digital life. But like any storage medium, they're vulnerable to risks that can strike when you least expect it. That's why it's best to ensure your data storage practices have no single point of failure.

The most effective way to prepare for potential SD card corruption or damage boils down to backing up your data. Prioritize your files and keep extra copies of the most valuable ones in the cloud or on another storage device. Coupled with the basic SD card maintenance techniques mentioned above, this will give you peace of mind when it comes to data integrity.