Bricked SD card - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: electrolux
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2014, 11:10:05 am
content: I Know this is the wrong place for this question but anyway. One of the many SD cards I've got is bricked,its an 8GB Interagal full of nice pictures, and when I put it in the camera the camera doesn't recognise it, it just said 'no card' I know it's not capability because it used to work.

author: andtfoot
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 22, 2014, 12:03:12 pm
content: Tried it in a laptop and/or card reader?

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2014, 12:12:45 pm
content: If the card isn't recognized in at least three different computers (PC and Mac at least), then there are recovery schemes and software that some have found useful for recovering content. There are also recovery specialists. They aren't cheap, but it depends on how valuable the content is. This probably a common topic in photography circles.

author: sacherjj
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2014, 12:15:31 pm
content: Get a few cheap SD to USB adapters and try many computers.Most people don't realize that SD cards have fairly high speed processors in them. This is to identify the bad memory from the good. All SD cards have bad memory. As they are used, more goes bad. Some go faster than others. They are not a real reliable storage medium. Back them up.

author: HackedFridgeMagnet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2014, 12:53:01 pm
content: Maybe to FAT - table has been borked.You can actually read off the bytes themselves if this is the case.You might try a dev board with an SD card, compile some standard example code and then attach a debugger, it will give you the point of failure at least.

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2014, 01:28:05 pm
content: TestDisk saved my bacon once, not with an SD but a USB drive that had a completely hosed partition table.http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDiskhttp://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_StepWorth a try.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2014, 08:34:16 pm
content: You can try to see if it shows up with a cardreader in Linux.From your symptoms it looks like the card is not responding at all instead of just being a filesystem corruption issue.The SD protocol has no minimum speed so you can hook up an MCU of the right voltage to it (an Arduino is fine) and see if it responds to the basic identify/read info commands.

author: electrolux
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 01:03:04 pm
content: Thank you to all I shall try some of the suggested things

author: electrolux
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 01:04:32 pm
content: Quote from: andtfoot on April 22, 2014, 12:03:12 pmNo

author: electrolux
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 01:06:49 pm
content: Quote from: sacherjj on April 22, 2014, 12:15:31 pmThanks, I do back my cards up but also it would be nice to be able to use the actual card.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 01:33:24 pm
content: if you dont care about the data on the card you can tell the camera to format the card.That will wipe out the partition table and start again from empty.

author: tsmith35
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 01:38:11 pm
content: If you put it in a PC card reader, does it show up under Disk Management? In Windows 7, you can just use Windows+R and type indiskmgmt.mscfor the name of the program to run.

author: fluxcapacitor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2014, 12:40:26 am
content: Where did you get the SD card from ,is it a genuine card from a reputable seller. I always test my cards/flash drives these days with H2testw software to make sure i havnt bought a fake .http://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/This is the link to H2testw ,language is german or english.It runs on windows.http://www.heise.de/download/h2testw.html

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2014, 12:50:37 am
content: Quote from: sacherjj on April 22, 2014, 12:15:31 pmIndeed. Flash quality also greatly varies: what you may buy as a 4GiB card might have once been a 16GiB, but had too many bad blocks.If the device registers to your OS as existing, then the flash controller has decided to give up on the world and prevent access to the flash. Some controllers are polite and give you RO access, but there are many different designs of controller.Quote from: amyk on April 22, 2014, 08:34:16 pmThis is pretty much your only option at this point, apart from finding recovery specialists (which cost a lot).

author: Dataforensics
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 25, 2014, 01:31:19 am
content: The forensic toolkit suppliers Accessdata.com allow you to download and use non commercially for free their imager tool.This might allow you to see if the data is recoverable as it also provides basic forensic tools to view the disk structure and data even if the file system is damaged.http://www.accessdata.com/support/product-downloadsHowever you do need a fair bit of data forensics knowledge to use the tool, and a PC reader.I have no affiliation with Accessdata, but used to use their products along with others before I retired.Tony

author: electrolux
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2014, 01:08:26 pm
content: Quote from: tsmith35 on April 24, 2014, 01:38:11 pmEven the computer doesn't recognise it.

author: electrolux
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2014, 01:09:34 pm
content: Quote from: sacherjj on April 22, 2014, 12:15:31 pmI backed up all my cards except the one that's ruined

author: tsmith35
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2014, 07:25:19 pm
content: Does your computer acknowledge in any way (tone, tray popup, etc) that anything was inserted when you put the card in? Open device manager, then insert the card. Does the list of attached hardware change? At the least, it should refresh if it detects anything.Try *lightly* cleaning the contacts with a pink (aka "Pink Pearl") eraser.Another possibility: insert the card into your camera while the camera is off, then turn on the camera. Sometimes that works.Have you tried using a different external SD reader?

author: M0BSW
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2014, 07:47:26 pm
content: Quote from: electrolux on April 22, 2014, 11:10:05 amI took a messed up card into a camera shop and they dealt with it, as photography is a second hobby of mine, I think I went to boots or Jessops, thing is not to panic it can be rescued .

author: hamster_nz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2014, 08:12:30 pm
content: If you get stuck, drop me a P.M - I'm woking on an FPGA based SD/SDHC/SDXC card reading tool, for recovering data shagged SD cards - (over SPI or SD interface, at various clock rates, differing block sizes, statistical analysis, in the freezer at -10C, at different voltages and so on....) I've got a software stack behind it that can reconstruct MBRs, PBRs, handle corrupted FATs and directories and so on.However I'm having a hard time getting borked cards. If you can post me the card, I'll extract what I can and send you a fresh one back with whatever is salvaged.