Hi all,

 

I've got a 32GB microSD (class 10 if it matters) that I use in my Xperia Z phone. On Friday I took a photo of something at work, walked over to a computer to type it in and all was well. I then went to take another photo of the screen output, and the phone flashed up saying the SD card was removed. The phone for ages went on saying it couldn't see the SD card. Eventually it changed to saying the SD card was broken. (All after several removals/restarts) 

 

When I got home I plugged it into my laptop using a microSD -> SD adaptor and it didn't show in Windows (either Explorer or the disk manager MMC). The laptop is fine as my 64GB microSD shows up.

 

I'm not fussed about the SD card itself, it's a SanDisk so warrantied. What I'm wondering is; is there any way to get my data back (not something I've tried before)? I would try Recuva or something, but as the card doesn't even show I'm not sure what my options are.

 

I've got a decent amount of photos I'd like to keep, so any help would be appreciated.  It's out of a phone/laptop atm to prevent any risk of further data lose. 

 

Cheers!

Joe

Is it 100% legit card or from eBay?

100% legit I think - I got if from Amazon/eBuyer/someone decent. It's been faultless for about a year now as I had it in my old phone too.

I have had a similar thing happen with 2 micro SD cards recently.  Both were previous used in my WP7.x phone.  After that it appeared that once the card was inserted into a windows/android tablet/etc it *might* be seen as hardware but it wasn't possible to format or even partition in.

 

One was a sandisk one, so I RMA'd that, while the other, an 8GB is just sitting in the desk at home as a broken device :-(

 

I found that using a different USB card readers I could sometimes get the card to show up as a device, so that might be your best bet and try running recovering software at that point.

The cards don't last forever, have lost one or two myself recently due to failure. Sadly if the card cannot be read in a PC, or even be recognised then the data is 90% most likely gone. It can, depending on whats failed possibly be read, but your going to need a professional data recovery company to unsolder the chip and mount it on another PCB to try. If its the memory thats died then the pictures have gone as well.

 

I suspect its the controller on the card though, otherwise windows would see the card and you would simply not be able to read it had the memory died.

 

Make sure any card reader you are using supports MicroSD HC, or XC otherwise it will not read it.

Cheers, I feared as much. The data's not too important (just photos mostly), but would be nice to have.

 

I'll look for recovery software, but it's not worth paying to get back. I'll update if I have any luck