How to Repair Corrupted Memory Card

This wikiHow teaches you how to recover photos and data from a damaged memory card. There are also instructions on how to reformat the memory card if it can be repaired and used again.

Table of Contents

Recover data in card

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Stop using the card immediately. If the camera displays the message “Card Error”, “Read Error”, or similar, turn off the camera and remove the memory card. Continuing to use the card after receiving this message will reduce the possibility of data recovery on the card. ^{[1] X Research Source}

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Find a data recovery program. Although the card may be completely damaged, there is still a chance to recover the data. Here are some popular free data recovery programs: ^{[2] X Research Source}

Recuva – After selecting the drive (in this case, the SD card) and ticking the “Photos” option, Recuva will do all the work in the background. Recommended for most users.
CardRecovery – After a quick setup, CardRecovery will scan the SD card. At the end of the CardRecovery trial period, you must pay a fee to continue using the service.
Photo Rec – This is a program with a minimalistic interface and requires you to know how to navigate the Command Prompt program, so it is not recommended for newbies.

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Download and install the selected data recovery program. Normally, this will open the recovery program’s homepage, click the Download button, and double-click the downloaded file.

The location of the download button on each page will be different. If you can’t see it, try looking at the top or side.

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Connect the memory card to the computer. Most computers have a flat rectangular memory card slot with the word SD next to it. This slot is usually located on the side of the laptop and is located on the CPU if it is a desktop computer.

If your computer or Mac does not have an SD card slot, you can buy an SD card reader to plug it into your computer via a USB port, the price is only about 200,000 VND. ^{[3] X Research Sources}
You may need to authorize your computer to use the SD card before accessing it.

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Open the data recovery program. The program is installed at the location you selected in the previous step.

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Follow the instructions on the screen. You need to select the memory card as the scan location and select “Photos” in the data recovery program’s scan standard before scanning the SD card.

Once the scan is complete, most programs will have the option to sort or export all the photos to a location of your choice (e.g. the screen).

Repair memory card on Windows

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Connect the memory card to the computer. You can use the long, flat memory card slot with the word SD next to it built into your computer. Usually, this memory card slot is located on the side of the laptop and on the CPU box if it is a desktop computer.

If your computer or Mac doesn’t have a memory card slot, you can buy a memory card reader to plug it into your computer via USB. Card readers cost less than 200,000 VND.
You may need to authorize your computer to use the memory card before you can access it.

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Click on ⊞ Win . This button is located in the bottom left corner of the screen.

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Type “My Computer” into the search bar. On Windows 8 and 10 “My Computer” is called “This PC” or “My PC,” but you can simply type “My Computer” to redirect your search to the default version of My Computer.

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Press the ↵ Enter key. This is to open the This PC window.

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See the “Devices and drives” section. This section is located near the bottom of the “This PC” window. Here you will see the “OS (C:)” drive mark (this is the main drive) and other connected drives, one of which is your memory card.

If you can’t distinguish which drive is the memory card, leave this window open and remove the memory card from the machine to see which drive is gone. Remember to insert the memory card before continuing.

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Remember the drive letter. The default drive is drive “C”, so your memory card will be another drive.

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Hold down the ⊞ Win key and press X . This is the operation to open the Windows quick access menu through the Start button in the bottom left corner of the screen.

You can right-click the Start button to open this menu.

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Click on Command Prompt (Admin) . This is the operation to open the Command Prompt program that allows you to reformat the memory card.

If you do not use an administrator account, you cannot operate.

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Type chkdsk m: /r into the Command Prompt . You need to replace “m:” with the letter corresponding to the drive name of the memory card (eg “e:”). The “chkdsk” function will check the selected drive for damage and reformat the area to be repaired.

There is only one space between “m:” and “/r”.

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Press the ↵ Enter key. This is the action that starts the testing process. If the Command Prompt finds any problems that need fixing, it will fix it if it can.

If the Command Prompt asks for permission to continue, press Enter .
You may see the message “Cannot open vpume for direct access” after pressing Enter . If you see this error, you don’t need to format the memory card (it’s not damaged) or it can’t be repaired anymore.
In some cases, the “Cannot open vpume for direct access” error is caused by the computer’s anti-virus program preventing the formatting process. Try disabling the antivirus while reformatting the drive to see if that fixes the problem.

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Remove the SD card. Once the process is complete, you can safely remove the memory card from the computer and reinsert it into the camera.

Repair memory card on Mac

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Connect the memory card to the Mac. You may need to buy an SD card reader because not all Macs have a memory card reader slot.

If your Mac has a card reader, it’ll be on the side of your laptop or behind the CPU if it’s a desktop. Sometimes the memory card slot is located on the side of the keyboard on some desktop computers.
Some devices require you to enable the USB drive through setup before the computer recognizes it.

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Open Finder on Mac. It’s the blue face icon in the system tray.

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Double click on Go . It’s on the toolbar at the top of the screen.

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Double click on Utilities . This is to open the Utilities folder for you to run Disk Utility.

Alternatively, you can hold down ⇧ Shift and ⌘ Command and touch U to open Utilities.

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Double click on Disk Utility . The app looks like a gray drive icon with a stethoscope above it.

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Select a memory card. You should see the memory card listed under the “External” category in the left column of the Disk Utility window.

If you don’t see the memory card listed here, try removing the memory card and inserting it again.

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Double click on First Aid . This is the stethoscope icon in the options row at the top of the Disk Utility window ^{[4] X Research Sources}

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Click the Run button. If you see the “Your disk is about to fail” window, you cannot repair the memory card. ^{[5] X Research Sources}

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Wait for the memory card to be repaired. Once your Mac tells you it’s done, you can safely remove the memory card from the device and insert it into the camera.

You may get the error “The underlying task reported failure”. Then restart the machine and run the memory card repair again.

Advice

You can avoid memory card damage and failure by refusing to remove the memory card during saving or recording, avoiding saving when the device battery is low, powering off the device, and removing the memory card when possible.
The memory card cannot be used forever. Memory cards have a lifespan of 10,000 to 10 million writes and erases, so it is recommended that you back up your data and replace the memory card every few years, depending on usage.
New 8GB memory card costs less than 200,000 VND.

Warning

Although a memory card can be repaired, you should consider buying a new card instead of reformatting the old card because a damaged card is less reliable than a new memory card.

Steps

Recover data in card

Repair memory card on Windows

Repair memory card on Mac

Advice

Warning

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