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Tips & Tricks – Recover Files From A Corrupted SD Or MicroSD Card

by Ronen Halevy on Jan 8th, 2009 at 3:54 pm EST
5 Comments »
 
Developer: Zero Assumption Cost: Free

Product Link >>>

zar A few weeks ago I unplugged my SD card while files were transferring and didn’t think twice about it. That is until I plugged it back in and I got the dreaded Windows Prompt that goes something along the lines of “* Drive is corrupt or unformatted. Do you want to format this drive?” The SD card showed up as a drive but I could not longer access the month of pictures that I had on it.

I know this is not exactly a BlackBerry only issue but I thought it was worth mention. I tried 2 totally free SD card recovery utilities and neither of them even found the drive. That is until I found Zero Assumption Recovery. They offer a free version of their product that will recover images and movies from a corrupt SD card. It is SCARY how much stuff they found on this 4GB SD card. It even recovered images and movies that I had already deleted. The process is lengthy (about 2 hours for 4GB) but it worked like a charm!

Their paid $50 version removes the limitation of only recovering images and movies so if your BlackBerry SD card becomes corrupt I highly recommend purchasing this application or at least using it to recover your images!

The process is as simple as:

  1. Download, install, then run ZAR trial
  2. Insert the memory card into the reader device.
  3. On the first screen, no adjustment is required, just hit “Next>>”.
  4. Program will then prompt you for an operation mode. Select “Recover images from camera memory card”, then hit “Next>>”.
  5. Select your memory card from the list of the attached devices. You can identify the memory card by its media size or by the model name (if available).
  6. The rest is mostly automatic. When the analysis is done, select files to recover, specify the directory to place recovered files to, hit “Start copying” and you’re done.

You can also follow the tutorial at this link

The free version is limited to recovering the following file formats. Sadly it does not include the .3gp extension that is used for BlackBerry video recordings…

  • GIF
  • JPEG
  • TIFF
  • CRW – Canon RAW data
  • MOV, AVI movie
  • WAV – Waveform audio
  • CR2 – Canon CR2 RAW format (see notes below).
  • ORF – Olympus RAW format

Check out the free image recovery version at this link or the full paid version at this link and let me know how it works out! The free image recovery portion is just part of the trial so you will be downloading the free trial and the image recovery will stay free after the trial expires.

This is definitely going into my USB stick recovery arsenal. Let me know if you find anything better!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 and is filed under Advanced Topics, Free Software, Software Directory, Tips & Tricks, Utilities.

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5 Comments to “Tips & Tricks – Recover Files From A Corrupted SD Or MicroSD Card”

  1. Posted by: adi
    January 9, 2009 at 3:34 am EST

    You could use SanDisk Recovery Tool that comes with all good cards from them. It is a fantastic application made by the ones that should: the factory. I don’t believe there is anything better. And the mass of applications for recovery on the net, it is true that don’t do their job.

  2. Posted by: Rohit kumar
    April 25, 2009 at 2:55 am EST

    Ur,tricks&tips are great for us but still i now where i found software to repaired a corrupted card.please email me .

    Thanku,
    Rohit kumar

  3. Posted by: Kaitlyn
    July 2, 2009 at 3:24 am EST

    Thank you for your help. I had the same problem with my new BlackBerry Curve. It’s not even 24 hrs old yet, and I came across that message a couple of times before I even connected it to the computer. I didn’t realize what happened until a couple of hours ago. I am extremely upset because all of my pictures that I had saved on my SD from the past year were gone. ZAR was able to recover some of them. Unfortunately, it didn’t recover the ones I really need. My cat died last summer, and my dog just died three weeks ago (both of natural causes). A couple of my favorite pics of them were on my card, and I haven’t been able to recover them. I really wish the program could have saved just those couple of images, instead of the 55 other useless images in comparison.

    Thanks for you help though. I really appreciate it.

  4. Posted by: armadillo
    July 7, 2009 at 4:21 am EST

    If your memory card wants to be formatted or can’t format in 80% of all cases the controller of your card is damaged and no software or card reader can help. You must separate the memory chip and dump the raw data to recover your data, look here: CF xD SD MMC memory card/stick photo recovery