The modern era is a microcosm of our daily consumption and digital content creation. Storage issues arise if that includes photos, videos and software – keep what you want to save.
While the ever-increasing and wallet-busting demand for more and more storage space (in order to keep everything we want for future generations or easily accessible) cannot be ignored, here we focus on how to deal with the possibility of data loss, a fate that some have compared to robbery or even a lobotomy.
An example of this painful situation is losing photos from the now ubiquitous form of flash storage we all use on our cameras or mobile phones – the SD card (the smaller form of microSD card).
For those readers who have accidentally deleted data from their SD card, or are victims of common SD card corruption, this article may be their savior.
It’s really not a big deal, there are lots of helpful tools online. However, the web is a veritable minefield filled with scams and/or paid data recovery software designed to defraud or steal. This guide transports readers to the end of the minefield and safely avoids danger by recommending the free software needed to recover lost data from limbo.
We will recommend PC software here to help readers recover data from SD card. If the storage on a camera or phone cannot be read as a separate drive after it is connected to the computer, the user may need to remove the SD card from the camera or mobile device and connect them to the PC via a memory card reader (a built-in card reader on a laptop will also do this, but a microSD to SD card adapter may be required).
In any case, readers should immediately remove the affected SD card from the camera or phone as there is a possibility that the device will overwrite deleted/corrupted files while using the SD card.
It is worth noting that although this tutorial focuses on SD cards, all these software can recover files well from any type of media such as hard drive, external drive, thumb drive, etc.
Recuva (for Windows)
Recuva (version 1.51.1063) is a free 4.02MB download for PCs running Windows 2000 or higher. To recover files from an SD card, load the card onto your PC via a card reader and select the appropriate drive in Recuva’s drop-down menu. By running a scan scanning button.
The scan will return a list of files on the card, including deleted or corrupted files, and give you the option to recover your files using recover button.
Pandora Recovery (for Windows)
Pandora Recovery (version 2.1.1) is a free-to-use tool with a download size of 3.12MB. It supports PCs running Windows XP or higher. Just like Recuva, users need to load the SD card through a card reader and then execute Quick scan or Depth (surface) scan Throws results for deleted and corrupted files. The second option is for formatting the memory, and although it is slower, it should show more results than the quick scan.
Users can then select the files to be recovered from the results by right-clicking on them. Alternatively, users can run Pandora Recovery Wizard and follow the on-screen instructions.
Stellar Phoenix Mac Photo Recovery (for OS X)
Stellar Phoenix Mac photo recovery software (version 6.0) download size is 13MB and supports Macs running OS X 10.5 or higher. Users need to connect the SD card through a card reader.
The user can then choose Recover photos, audio and videos option and select its drive from the left panel. Thereafter, they can choose Scan now or Advanced scanning (for custom scans) option. The scan will return a list of recoverable files from which the user can select the files to be recovered and click on the “Recover” button. Users can scan the drive and preview the files the software can recover for free, but undelete files is a paid option. This software is also available for Windows.
PhotoRec (for DOS, Windows 9x or later, Linux, OS X)
PhotoRec (version 7.0 beta) is a free, open source, multi-platform data recovery software with a 9.4MB download size (for Windows 64-bit) and is suitable for PCs running a variety of operating systems. It comes bundled with TestDisk, an application for recovering lost partitions. PhotoRec has a very basic text-based UI for older operating systems, and also has a GUI-based version for newer operating systems.
In both versions, the user will be asked to select the file system type of the drive, select the relevant drive (after connecting via a card reader), and then proceed scanning option, you can choose “Free” (for deleted files) or “Whole” (for corrupted files). Users can then choose where to save the recovered files.
We hope these tools serve you well. If you have any suggestions for other data recovery methods that you would like to share with other readers, please let us know in the comments.