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SD cards are a popular means of providing extended storage to a wide variety of devices. Occasionally, you may accidentally delete files from an SD card before transferring them to longer-term storage. Luckily, these files are not permanently lost when they are logically erased from the card. Until their storage space is overwritten with new data, they can be recovered. This article will show you how to recover deleted files from an SD card using data recovery software.
How to Recover Deleted Data From an SD Card
We believe the best way to retrieve deleted data from an SD card used in a camera or phone is with Disk Drill data recovery software. Unless your device was connected to a computer and made use of its Recycle Bin, it is not possible to recover a deleted file without software. You need to use quality data recovery software that can scan the card and get back your important images.
Here are the steps to follow in order to restore deleted files from an SD card, micro SD card, memory stick or any other type of external storage that can be connected to your Windows machine.
Recover Deleted Files From SD Card Using Data Recovery Software
For the purposes of this article, we’re using Disk Drill Memory Card Recovery as our data recovery software of choice. Why? Because you can download it for free and effortlessly use it to recover all deleted files from your memory card.
- Download and install Disk Drill: You can download Disk Drill directly from its official website. In fact, we highly recommend you avoid downloading it from anywhere else since some third-party software download sites are known for bundling malware with software installers. Once you have the Disk Drill installed downloaded, you can go ahead and double-click on it to begin the installation process. From there, simply follow the instructions provided by the installer.
- Attach the SD card to your computer: This can be done either with a card reader or by directly connecting the device that contains the card to your machine. If your card reader only supports standard SD cards, then you need to use an SD to microSD adapter, which is essentially just a plastic shell with pins, and you can buy it for next to nothing in your favorite electronics store.
- Launch the program: To launch Disk Drill, simply double-click on its desktop icon. Windows User Account Control will ask you if you want to allow Disk Drill to make changes to your device, and you need to click Yes to continue. Disk Drill needs to be able to make changes to your device to use its advanced data recovery algorithms to find missing files. But don’t worry: it won’t actually make any changes without you explicitly telling it to do so.
- Scan your SD card: Next, you need to find and select the SD card or external storage in the list of available disks. If you don’t know how the SD card is named, then you should be able to identify it by its size, which is conveniently displayed in the Size column. You can also switch to the Info tab for even more information about any selected storage device. With your SD card selected, you can go ahead and click the Search for lost data button to start Disk Drill’s scanning procedure.
- Review and select found files: It’s very likely that Disk Drill will find hundreds or even thousands of recoverable files, including files you no longer care about. That’s why you need to review files that Disk Drill has found and select those you want to recover. Fortunately, that’s very easy to do thanks to Disk Drill’s scan result filters (located on the left) and a handy preview feature (displayed on the right). To select a file, simply click the checkbox next to it. You can also select entire folders.
- Click the Recover button: To recover all selected files, you need to click the Recover button and specify the desired recovery location. Basically, you want to avoid recovering your SD card files to the same SD card. All other storage devices, including your system drive, are perfectly safe.
Windows users can download Disk Drill for free and use the app to unerase up to 500MB of data before upgrading their license. The tool provides many features in addition to its ability to undelete an SD card such as:
- Recovery Vault is free data protection utility that will help protect you from accidental or malicious file deletion.
- Duplicate finder to assist in identifying extraneous files and eliminating them to regain precious storage space for your system. (will be available soon)
- Create disk image backups.
What is an SD Card and Where is it Used?
A Secure Digital Memory Card, or SD card, is a flash memory card that is used to add additional storage to a device. They are primarily used in mobile and portable devices such as digital cameras (Sony, Nikon, Canon, Fujifilm, and others), handheld computers, camcorders, and smartphones. SD cards enable a user to swap cards on the go to deliver as much storage as required to complete a project or photoshoot.
They were introduced to the market by Panasonic, SanDisk, and Toshiba in 1999. SD cards make use of NAND flash memory. The standards for SD cards are managed by the SD Card Association. They have defined Speed Class ratings to help standardize data transfer speeds.
There are currently three primary types of SD cards that use different default file systems and provide varying data storage capacity. They are:
- SD Cards – The basic SD card uses the FAT16 file format and has a storage range of 128MB to 2GB.
- SDHC Cards – Secure Digital High Capacity cards have storage capacities that range from 4GB to 32GB. They use the FAT32 file format as their default. They are not backward compatible with devices that only take SD cards.
- SDXC Cards – Secure Digital Extended Capacity provide storage capacity of between 64GB and 2TB. They use the exFAT file format and are not backward compatible with devices that only take SD or SDHC cards.
You can get each type of SD card in three different physical sizes:
- Standard SD, SDHC, and SDXC measure 32 x 24 x 2.1-1.4mm.
- miniSD cards have dimensions of 21.5 x 20 x 1.4mm.
- microSD cards are the smallest at 15 x 11 x 1mm.
The varying physical dimensions allow SD cards to be used as extended storage on a wide range of devices.
Did You Know?
NASA astronauts involved in a spacewalk in May of 2018 had intended to take some pictures while performing maintenance on the International Space Station (ISS). They were using a specially outfitted GoPro camera that was brought along for this specific purpose.
Unfortunately, they did not realize that the GoPro does not come with its own internal memory. The astronauts had failed to bring an SD card with them, negating a chance to capture images that may never be repeated.
FAQ
If you have an Android smartphone or tablet, then you can use an Android data recovery app like DiskDigger to recover data from your SD card. Just keep in mind that not all Android devices have an SD card slot, and those that do accept only microSD cards.
Yes, it’s possible to recover a deleted video from a memory card using data recovery software as long as the following conditions are met:
- The video hasn’t been overwritten.
- The memory card isn’t physically damaged.
- The data recovery software tool supports the video file format.
If you want to recover files that were stored on your Android SD card without removing the SD card from your device, then you have two options:
- Option 1: You can use an Android data recovery app like DiskDigger.
- Option 2: You can connect the Android device to your computer using a USB cable and recover files from it using desktop data recovery software.
From the point of view of recovery software, encrypted data are nothing but a random pile of ones and zeros. In some cases, you may be able to recover the entire pile and then manually decrypt it, but performing such recovery requires advanced skills that most home users don’t have.
Conclusion
Recovering from SD cards can prove to be extremely important. Most mobile users do not perform a backup on all of their storage cards and can easily delete images or format the wrong one. This can lead to once-in-a-lifetime photos being lost due to a simple accident.
