How to repair SD card

lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
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Took a bunch of pics this weekend with the camera on a card that had less than 2 dozen prior to starting. Went to toss the card into the computer today to transfer them over and now get the must format card message when trying to access the card. Any program I can use to restore the mbr or fat as I'm sure it's one of those that went bad since the card now shows an incorrect size when inserted.
 

lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
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does not report as useable by any device. windows chkdsk can't access the device because it says it is a raw device.
 

Blain

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
23,643
3
81
does not report as useable by any device. windows chkdsk can't access the device because it says it is a raw device.
Booting from a Knoppix LiveCD still wouldn't allow accessing the card?
 
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lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
32,539
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Tried using ultimatebootcd and got the same results as under windows. Unable to find/recover any partitions, 8gb drive reports as only 1gb. Probably because size report is screwed up, none of the pic recovery programs I've tried can pick up anything.
 

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
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Put it in the camera and see if it sees its own handiwork. If so, then connect the camera via USB to your PC and transfer the files.
 

lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
32,539
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Camera also gives a format card message. Someone wanted to see the stuff taken last weekend and started to try and watch them on the camera and I said give me the card and ill load them on the computer. Think they didn't turn the camera off first so when it was taken out somehow the fat got nuked. Have tried using testdisk but it says it can't find any partitions even after I correct the incorrect device size. No data recovery programs have found anything so far, most likely due to there only being about 200mb of files on an 8gb drive which is now reporting as 1gb.
 
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corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
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Mar 4, 2000
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If that is what happened with the camera, then odds are it is hosed. Not only the FAT got nuked, but everything else as the active card was dragged across active circuits.
 

lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
32,539
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seems this is a hard failure, can't even attempt a quick format to get the card recognized to attempt post format recovery. anyone have an idea on recovery prices for one of these?
 

exdeath

Lifer
Jan 29, 2004
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Try R Studio data recover or Acronis partition recovery software. The trial versions will suffice to show you if anything is recoverable.

Failing that, open up the raw card in a hex editor and see if there is anything at the start of the media resembling any organized file system. SD cards should be linear and not employ wear leveling or anything complex.

If chkdsk doesn't see anything at all, it's likely mbr/partition table related. Highly unlikely that both copies of the FAT/$MFT just disappeared in an instant; that much data over writing takes time far longer than the split second that caused the problem. NAND flash itself has safeguards to block writes and preserve data on faulty power supply. chkdsk merely follows pointers to the file tables and gives up if invalid, it won't manually scan clusters looking for file system data like the software above will.

Its imperfect piecing files together from what merely appears to be possible random file table structures, but you should still be able to get something. R Studio is pretty good at things like stitching together jpg files from random manually scanned clusters even without a valid file cluster map. Give it a try.

There is one feature of NAND flash that works against data recovery. The ability to erase entire blocks or even the entire chip at once in an instant due to organization of the cells.

If its reporting size incorrectly at the device level, the NAND and or controller got zapped through the power lines.
 
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exdeath

Lifer
Jan 29, 2004
13,679
10
81
If that is what happened with the camera, then odds are it is hosed. Not only the FAT got nuked, but everything else as the active card was dragged across active circuits.

Doesn't quite work like that. It's a serial bus with a very specific command protocol. Garbage noise on the data lines would be ignored.

Likely it was in the middle of an internal read-modify-write to the FAT or MBR (timestamp or something?) when it lost power, but that would only corrupt the file, not magically delete the entire file system.
 
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lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
32,539
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I tried rstudio and it gave me nothing like the other dozen+ programs I've tried. In explorer it shows as 0gb/0gb while in disk manager and other partition recovery programs I've tried showed it as 1gb. Think that's what is keeping any data recovery from working as with only 100mb of data on an 8gb disk, picking a single 1gb section is likely to be blank. Even on some of the programs that offer full disc scans, the disc size of such scans still seems to be restricted to the 1gb patch as far as I can tell from the sector scan progress.
 

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
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Doesn't quite work like that. It's a serial bus with a very specific command protocol. Garbage noise on the data lines would be ignored.

You mean that if the camera is in the process of writing to the SD, and it is physically pulled out of the camera it would be protected? Interesting. I recall cases of ruined floppies when the disk was ejected during drive activity.
 
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lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
32,539
260
126
that acronis is a neat looking program, but didn't get me another further than the others. guess it's time to open the phonebook and start calling around.
 

exdeath

Lifer
Jan 29, 2004
13,679
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81
You mean that if the camera is in the process of writing to the SD, and it is physically pulled out of the camera it would be protected? Interesting. I recall cases of ruined flppies when the disk was ejected during drive activity.

Not quite. You'd have data corruption because the currently executing write command inside the SD card would be interrupted due to power loss.
 

exdeath

Lifer
Jan 29, 2004
13,679
10
81
Only option then is either going to be dumping the whole 8 GB NAND with a logic analyzer or ROM dump tool, or assume that the controller itself was fried and try swapping the NAND into another identical working SD. Hard to say without knowing the vendor's controller and firmware.
 
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corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
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Not quite. You'd have data corruption because the currently executing write command inside the SD card would be interrupted due to power loss.

I'll buy that. But . . . I have had media, CF and SD that were completely unrestorable. Would not certain corrupted data suggest that the drive needs formatting?
 

lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
32,539
260
126
it's a pny 8gb class 10 card, I do have another that is the same but wasn't sure about taking it apart to swap controllers as I didn't want to risk that making it unrecoverable from a chip reader.