Damaged SD card (not physically)

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Nightstalker
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Damaged SD card (not physically)

Post by Nightstalker »

Anyone ever been able to recover data from a SD card. My phone says it is damaged. My PC is saying it needs to be formatted. I have alot of pictures on there that I would REALLY like to keep so formatting is the LAST thing I want to do. I heard of a program called Recuva. I am running it right now but it is not finding anything. I am all ears if you have any ideas.
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Re: Damaged SD card (not physically)

Post by Trench »

I've used PhotoRec (http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec) several times with successful results, both for camera cards and standard USB drives. But it ain't friendly. Try looking through the step-by-step and if it seems like something you want to tackle.

If you don't like the look of that but don't find any better software or offers, I'd be happy for you to mail it here and I'll see what can be recovered. But I assume it's probably full of top-secret beer recipes and burro porn, to where you might not want it to get outside your control...

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Re: Damaged SD card (not physically)

Post by Nightstalker »

You nailed it Trench, well except for the beer recipes. Those I keep encrypted and hidden away. Sometimes from myself :?

I downloaded the program you mentioned and I will see what happens. If it does not go well, you may get a gift in the mail. Thanks.
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Re: Damaged SD card (not physically)

Post by S.O.S »

I used Remo Recover a couple of years ago and managed to recover 1000+ photos and videos from a accidentally formatted SD card. They offer a free trial version you can try to scan your card. You will have to pay to save the detected files though.
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Re: Damaged SD card (not physically)

Post by Sarge 1/68th Armor »

Send it to me. I can fix it. ;)
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Re: Damaged SD card (not physically)

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Well I have tried 3 different recovery programs. 1 did not see the card, the other would freeze after I would initiate the "search" sequence. The one Trench referred me to found the card but did not find any files. All this to say I am not 100% confident in my ability but these programs seem fairly straightforward. I even tried to make them search for jpeg, mpegs, etc etc only. Still they found nothing. I am guessing all is gone. I may take you up on your offer Trench. My cousin said they were able to recover some info before so I am going to let them have a go at it. I guess this is my lesson to back shit up.

Which brings me to another question. If you were going to get an external harddrive. What would you get, what should I look for, anything I should steer away from. I do not want to spend too much. I have been told I can get all I would need for less than 100 bucks. I was tempted to get two for redundancy. So what would or did yall do.
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Re: Damaged SD card (not physically)

Post by Trench »

Hopefully your cousin gets it sorted, since that will be faster and more convenient to you. If not, PM me for the address and I'll take a whack at it too. With so many attempts having already failed, I'm becoming less inclined that we won't find the card to be truly damaged. But it should at least be possible to inspect the raw bytes coming off the card and determine why these other programs aren't able to pick out any files from the haystack. (e.g. Is it just all zeros now with no hope of recovery, etc.)

Regarding an external hard drive, my only emphatic "No!" is regarding LaCie drives which I have never had good luck with. They're a bit more for the Mac crowd and/or NAS, but you'll see them advertised in some places even for PCs. All of my own external drives are either Western Digital or simply generic external enclosures into which I've put a spare/displaced 3.5" drive that otherwise would have just sat on the shelf.

Having an eSATA connection in addition to USB has been important to me for speed when I'm pushing a lot of data on or off the drive. But if you have a computer with USB 3.0 (or a computer that doesn't have an eSATA connection), an external drive with USB 3.0 is more than fine. eSATA will just limit your choices and up the price.

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Re: Damaged SD card (not physically)

Post by Nightstalker »

I will keep you posted. Sarge if all else fails. It will be your turn LOLOL

I have an eSATA on this computer but not my other one so I think it would be best for me to stick with USB. Or can you get an external HDD with both connections? I have a few old hard drives laying around I could use to back stuff up but they are all smaller. The biggest is 40g or maybe 80, I do not remember. Anyways I am not really sure why I have them. I normally take them apart and use the magnets for things like, well magnetizing screwdrivers or throwing one on my oil filter LOLOL. Anyways I was thinking of getting one with at least 1T of space. I will look at the usual sites to see if I can find a Western Digital for a decent price.
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Re: Damaged SD card (not physically)

Post by Trench »

Yes, an external enclosure that supports eSATA typically also supports USB, unless it's a "raw pass-through" enclosure which is simply passing through the eSATA to the SATA connection of the hard drive, without providing any actual "electronics" or additional interfaces in the external enclosure itself.

1394/Firewire is the other interface you can find, but USB 3.0 is better than that and Firewire ports are less common on PCs these days.

A USB-only external drive or USB-only external drive enclosure is typically the most economical option, so be prepared to see a price jump if you look for eSATA + USB. My computers largely have only USB 2.0, so eSATA is a good benefit for me by having same speed connection as the internal hard drive.

If you're not tied to an "enclosed" external drive, another option in which you can get eSATA + USB support is to get an external "hard drive dock" instead of an external enclosure. For example, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817153071.

Any SATA hard drives you have laying around, and any normal internal SATA hard drives you acquire in the future, you can just "drop into the dock" and use as an additional connected drive. e.g. Backup your files to one of your 40GB or 80GB drives, then take it out of the dock and sit the drive back on the shelf. Then put one of your other drives in the dock and use it, etc. Or simply buy a new "normal" internal hard drive to use in the dock, knowing you can easily swap it out and plug in another drive later.

That's actually what I have, but it's because I do work on other folks' hard drives on occasion, and this makes it easy to plug their drive in to back it up and/or perform forensics work on it.

Just so you're not surprised, note you typically can only "hot plug" and change drives without restarting the computer if you're using the USB interface. If you're using the eSATA interface, your computer may require that you restart in order to recognize a different drive, same as if you were changing one of the internal hard drives connected to the SATA controller.

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Re: Damaged SD card (not physically)

Post by Swanny-CG »

I second the "LaCie is a blowfish" and they're way more expensive. I tried for a few hours to chain a couple externals and it would not work no matter what I did. That is not a rocket science type operation.

The other thing you may want to consider is portability and if that is a factor. is it for a desktop or a laptop? If desktop, just get an internal. If laptop, does the laptop move? Do you expect to want to take the drive somewhere else, like an offsite backup, or just stick it in your sock drawer?

If ALL you're doing is backups and general data storage, AND portability may be a factor, you might want to look for a small drive that is USB-powered, like this. It is a slower drive at just 5400 RPM but if you're not using it for anything you need to load fast then IMO it doesn't matter a bit.

I usually buy two drives, and I mirror one to the other using a backup script. When it's not being backed up, I keep the backup drive powered off. One of my enclosures died but the drive was fine so I took it apart and stuck it inside my tower as a secondary, then back it up like normal.

I don't have a fancy dock but I do have the adapter kit to plug in IDE or SATA drives to a USB port when i need to add a bare drive as a quick secondary.
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Re: Damaged SD card (not physically)

Post by Nightstalker »

Laptop and yes it goes with me. I was thinking of getting a smaller "portable" one to throw in the laptop bag, along with another to, as you said, leave in the sock drawer. I have alot of pictures of my kids and a few documents I would really like to keep. I may buy the one you linked for the portable side and then the dock Trench linked for the backup drawer. I am not sure if speed will be a big issue as long as I can feel better knowing the stuff is backed up.
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Re: Damaged SD card (not physically)

Post by opus »

You can also send your SD to me Stu, it will only cost ya around 5000 dollars to ship to Denmark. ;)
PS. I loooooove my NAS server :)

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Re: Damaged SD card (not physically)

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opus wrote:PS. I loooooove my NAS server
I certainly love the idea of NAS, but ultimately the performance of the NAS devices I feel like I can afford has always been too underwhelming. Have owned several different LaCie and WesternDigital "consumer oriented" NAS devices, none of which could ultimately keep up with video streaming over CIFS/SMB.

I'm sure a higher investment would yield higher performance, but for me the idea of "let's spend even more and get a decent stand-alone NAS chassis" always gets trumped by "I have ten computers in the house anyway... why am I not just using one of them?" Using a regular PC gives good performance, can concurrently serve additional purposes, and can be repurposed at end of life rather than always being NAS-only, etc.

My US$0.02 for things to ponder when considering consumer-level NAS devices. Your mileage will vary.

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Re: Damaged SD card (not physically)

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Agreed, but I only have 3 computers in the house. My "private" Stationary, my work laptop, and my IMAC for work. But sure.. I could and probably SHOULD build a custom second stationary for things like this, however I didn't pay a dime for the NAS server.. so.. Figured I'd keep it for now. (Got it through work).

One could also do as one of my nerd friends did... set up a dedicated server ROOM in the house. (basement).
Cost him roughly 100.000 in dollars. 500.000 kr in Danish. Half a million in our currency. I would have bought a car... but oh well.

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