SD CARD RECOVERY OPTIONS

[frase]

I am probably overthinking things as I do, though have a customer where their images on their phone they show fine in a gallery. Though when one is accessed it only shows half or part of the image even on the phone. Now I clarified with the customer that the images are stored on the SD Card. So to me it seems that the SD Card itself has come to the point of failure. As part images loaded to me are generally corrupted and cannot be restored, or I may be incorrect.

It is now in read only mode which makes me more to that conclusion of a dying/dead card as well as it will not allow any images to be saved.
The real question is what recovery methods to TN members here use in this case.

My usual recovery is using R-Studio or linux, is this overkill or would something else be more usefull in this case. I do not go near all those other so called tools as in EaseUS etc.

The phone in question is a Samsung20 - though that is not the issue.

 

[Markverhyden]

After obtaining an image of the SD card. Then making a copy, I also might use R-Studio. But in this case, being images only, I'd probably give PhotoRec try first.

 

[Peperonix]

Your partly corrupted images are very likely caused by the presence of bad sectors (i.e. dead memory cells).

1) Use a decent SD card reader, i.e. a desktop one and not a cheap SD to USB adapter as those often offer poor contact, and poor controller that may interact badly with the card.

2) As Mark already mentioned, make an image of the SD card, with a log file (map file in the jargon) that let you see how many bad sectors there are and where they are.

3) Use a data recovery software to analyse the image dump, preferably a professional one. If you are on a budget and won't care about loosing folders and file names, Photorec is a good choice, with lot of files formats supported.
Recovering JPEG images is a relatively trivial case, that even recovery softwares for the hobbyist will handle. However, professional softwares will offer you more control (e.g. find duplicates, ...) and possibly better algorithms to reassemble image chunks even if the file structure is damaged, and are more polyvalent to handle other cases. Some professional softwares are capable to detect wether a picture could be fully recovered, is damaged, or only partly corrupt, and sort the files to different folders accordingly.

 

[backwoodsman]

I would first check to see if the photos were backed up to Google Photos. If so, no need to try to recover the memory card.

If not, then course of action may depend on how important the photos are. If the customer wants the best possible chance of recovery and doesn't mind paying for it, send the card to a professional recovery lab. It sounds like the card is in the process of dying, and it may or may not remain readable for as long as you might want to work with it yourself, so the less it's accessed the better, and they're much better equipped to have the best chance of recovery.

Otherwise, image it with ddrescue, backup the image, then hit the image with photorec and/or testdisk. But frankly I wouldn't be very hopeful of being able to recover more of the photos than the phone will show.

 

[frase]

I would first check to see if the photos were backed up to Google Photos. If so, no need to try to recover the memory card.

If not, then course of action may depend on how important the photos are. If the customer wants the best possible chance of recovery and doesn't mind paying for it, send the card to a professional recovery lab. It sounds like the card is in the process of dying, and it may or may not remain readable for as long as you might want to work with it yourself, so the less it's accessed the better, and they're much better equipped to have the best chance of recovery.

Otherwise, image it with ddrescue, backup the image, then hit the image with photorec and/or testdisk. But frankly I wouldn't be very hopeful of being able to recover more of the photos than the phone will show.

No they were not that was my first question to the customer. I generally use ddrescue then work off that in any recovery situation, though thought might be overkill.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

[lcoughey]

Get an image of the card, if you can. If not. It may require professional data recovery equipment.

Any chance that it is a fake card?

 

[britechguy]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I hope you also drill into this client, in the kindest possible way, that storage, of anything, in a single instance, particularly on removable media, is just begging for disaster.

At the very least, if they prefer to store photos on a microSD card, they should routinely be uploading those photos elsewhere, whether they choose to delete them from the phone or not. That way, this can never happen again, and it takes almost no time or effort to do (unless you've got a truckload of images, and even then the time is wait time, and you can kick off the upload prior to retiring for the night).

 

[frase]

Yes I did though not beat them down over their potential loss, though a measure needs to be in place to have a backup system of some kind. As in "cloud" or a manual backup with the Samsung Switch App. I did mention to the customer that data loss may have already occured due to corruption when viewing on the phone itself, and the SD Card itself maybe in the proccess of failure or has failed already. They took that as it is what it is, and if the images cannot be retrieved and is a loss it is a learning point.

 

[britechguy]

They took that as it is what it is, and if the images cannot be retrieved and is a loss it is a learning point.

Which is great. But even if they had a fit, that doesn't change the reality of the situation, which is something one has to hope registers and sticks, particularly should recovery somehow prove possible.

 

[Joep]

I am probably overthinking things as I do, though have a customer where their images on their phone they show fine in a gallery. Though when one is accessed it only shows half or part of the image even on the phone. Now I clarified with the customer that the images are stored on the SD Card. So to me it seems that the SD Card itself has come to the point of failure. As part images loaded to me are generally corrupted and cannot be restored, or I may be incorrect.

It is now in read only mode which makes me more to that conclusion of a dying/dead card as well as it will not allow any images to be saved.
The real question is what recovery methods to TN members here use in this case.

My usual recovery is using R-Studio or linux, is this overkill or would something else be more usefull in this case. I do not go near all those other so called tools as in EaseUS etc.

The phone in question is a Samsung20 - though that is not the issue.

Like Luke says, image the card.

If images partially display this may be due to bit errors and possibly they're fixable.

Example:

 

[frase]

Yes I imaged the SD Card via DDrescue then recovered with R-Studio all good Advised customer again the importance of backup systems to be in place, ie "Cloud" and using software such as SmartSwitch to create a local backup as well.