SD Card Recovery

[PilotMan7700]

Well, not sure how it happened but my card got corrupted somehow. Does anybody know of a good totally FREE piece of software that can be used to recover files on a card that has lost it's format.

So I got done with my first 4K shoot. It took just shy of 2 batteries to fill a 64GB card, not sure if that is normal. I took the SD card out of the Mavic and put it in my computer to review the video, I got some spectacular shots of some irreplaceable moments. After I was done reviewing the shots I just got I then "ejected" the card from the computer, removed the card from my computer, and closed up the laptop and came home. As soon as I got home I opened my laptop up and had a message that said I had removed the card without properly ejecting it. I then put the SD card back into the computer and now I'm getting messages that says my computer doesn't recognize the card. Tried another computer and same issue. I also tried putting the card back into the Mavic and now I'm getting an "SD Error".

I would imagine that all the footage I got today has to be sitting right there but I can't access it. I have been able to use some free software that will only allow me to see the files available but I have to pay in order to recover the files. Any help would be amazing!!

 

[Anthony Viscomi]

Well, not sure how it happened but my card got corrupted somehow. Does anybody know of a good totally FREE piece of software that can be used to recover files on a card that has lost it's format.

So I got done with my first 4K shoot. It took just shy of 2 batteries to fill a 64GB card, not sure if that is normal. I took the SD card out of the Mavic and put it in my computer to review the video, I got some spectacular shots of some irreplaceable moments. After I was done reviewing the shots I just got I then "ejected" the card from the computer, removed the card from my computer, and closed up the laptop and came home. As soon as I got home I opened my laptop up and had a message that said I had removed the card without properly ejecting it. I then put the SD card back into the computer and now I'm getting messages that says my computer doesn't recognize the card. Tried another computer and same issue. I also tried putting the card back into the Mavic and now I'm getting an "SD Error".

I would imagine that all the footage I got today has to be sitting right there but I can't access it. I have been able to use some free software that will only allow me to see the files available but I have to pay in order to recover the files. Any help would be amazing!!

Try using another computer is possible.

 

[Intrglctcrevfnk]

Well, not sure how it happened but my card got corrupted somehow. Does anybody know of a good totally FREE piece of software that can be used to recover files on a card that has lost it's format.

So I got done with my first 4K shoot. It took just shy of 2 batteries to fill a 64GB card, not sure if that is normal. I took the SD card out of the Mavic and put it in my computer to review the video, I got some spectacular shots of some irreplaceable moments. After I was done reviewing the shots I just got I then "ejected" the card from the computer, removed the card from my computer, and closed up the laptop and came home. As soon as I got home I opened my laptop up and had a message that said I had removed the card without properly ejecting it. I then put the SD card back into the computer and now I'm getting messages that says my computer doesn't recognize the card. Tried another computer and same issue. I also tried putting the card back into the Mavic and now I'm getting an "SD Error".

I would imagine that all the footage I got today has to be sitting right there but I can't access it. I have been able to use some free software that will only allow me to see the files available but I have to pay in order to recover the files. Any help would be amazing!!

Don't have a link for recovery software- but I've got an idea why you had an error.

What OS do you use? Mac or PC? If it's Mac you can go to disk utility and find the first aid/repair section.

When it comes to ejecting an SD card you've got to make sure whatever program you used to view or edit the file has been shut down and released the file in use. Otherwise the card won't eject properly. Usually, you should see an error that says something like 'unable to eject drive E:\, file in use' or something to that effect.
Of course computers do strange things, like showing the drive as ejected when part of the system actually still has access to it. And depending on what the software was doing (like doing writes to the card) it'll screw up the file allocation table on the card. The better cards will have some algorithms to account for bad sectors, where cheap ones will just 1:1 write the sectors without error checking.

I've bricked some cheap cards when I first started tinkering with Raspberry Pi and Linux commands. I learned the hard way about $ sudo shutdown -h now !!

Anyway sorry to hear about that - let me know what OS you are on and I'll see if I can help.

 

[Neil]

HI
Piriform Software (the people who do CCleaner) also make "Recuva" - free file recovery.
I've had the same situation with files on my Mavic SD card, and Recuva found them and restored them.
Unfortunately the .mp4 header info was lost, so I had to use a programme "DJI-Fix" recommended on here as well.
hth
Neil

 

[PilotMan7700]

Don't have a link for recovery software- but I've got an idea why you had an error.

What OS do you use? Mac or PC? If it's Mac you can go to disk utility and find the first aid/repair section.

When it comes to ejecting an SD card you've got to make sure whatever program you used to view or edit the file has been shut down and released the file in use. Otherwise the card won't eject properly. Usually, you should see an error that says something like 'unable to eject drive E:\, file in use' or something to that effect.
Of course computers do strange things, like showing the drive as ejected when part of the system actually still has access to it. And depending on what the software was doing (like doing writes to the card) it'll screw up the file allocation table on the card. The better cards will have some algorithms to account for bad sectors, where cheap ones will just 1:1 write the sectors without error checking.

I've bricked some cheap cards when I first started tinkering with Raspberry Pi and Linux commands. I learned the hard way about $ sudo shutdown -h now !!

Anyway sorry to hear about that - let me know what OS you are on and I'll see if I can help.

I'm running the current OS X on my Mac. I tried disk utility as you suggested and no luck. I ran the "first aid" option and it said it was successful but no change in how it's working. Any more help would be fantastic!!

HI
Piriform Software (the people who do CCleaner) also make "Recuva" - free file recovery.
I've had the same situation with files on my Mavic SD card, and Recuva found them and restored them.
Unfortunately the .mp4 header info was lost, so I had to use a programme "DJI-Fix" recommended on here as well.
hth
Neil

Thanks in advance! I'll get started on trying this out as well and come back with the results.

Try using another computer is possible.

Thanks for the reply but as I stated in the original post I already attempted that, both in my Mac and on my old PC.

 

[PilotMan7700]

@Neil I'm trying to download Recuva and it seems that it's a PC only software, I'm using a Mac. (Sorry I probably should have stated that to begin with). When I select the link "Apple Mac User? - Click Here" it just sends me to the CCleaner for Mac. I went ahead and downloaded the free version of CCleaner and don't see any options for file recovery.

 

[HeavensAbove]

Buy a SanDisk card, they give you a years free licence to recovery software.

Or if you REALLY want to pay nothing for it, someone on here could send you a code. I've got one unused somewhere and I'll forward if I come across it.


Sent from my iPad using MavicPilots

 

[PilotMan7700]

Buy a SanDisk card, they give you a years free licence to recovery software.

Or if you REALLY want to pay nothing for it, someone on here could send you a code. I've got one unused somewhere and I'll forward if I come across it.


Sent from my iPad using MavicPilots

What?!?! My card is a SanDisk. The Extreme PLUS 64GB Micro. I'll dig into that, I had no idea!! Thanks for the help!

 

[PilotMan7700]

@HeavensAbove I looked into it and I can't find anywhere about having a year free. I even found a specific thread that said that data recovery is not included in your products warranty. Did I miss something somewhere? The software they recommend and that you can download from their website is just shy of $40. I might just go with that route but I hate to pay for something that really isn't that huge of a deal, main reason why I'm looking for free options. Thanks again for the help!

 

[F6Rider]

I use Card Rescue, works great for recovering files on bad cards. www.cardrescue.com
OK, this is for MAC and I didn't see your OS mentioned, but from the tone of your post I am thinking a PC

 

[ATXdrone]

If you didn't write the files while you had the SD card in your Mac (i.e. use an editor on them, etc.) then the files wouldn't have corrupted.

I find it unusual that 2 batteries filled 64GB. My 4K videos are about 135seconds per GB. To fill a 64GB card would take 8640 seconds. Or about 2.4 hours or roughly 7 batteries.

Something else is going on with that card. The corruption on it may be coincidental to the improper removal.

First thing I would do is try and get the data copied off to a safe place. If you fire up Disk Utility, can you see the "NO NAME" volume on the card? If so, right click and choose "Image from NO NAME", and save the file somewhere safe. You can restore this to another SD card.



My guess is that this will fail, however. You can do the same type of thing using "dd" from the command line, but misusing "dd" can corrupt other things like your hard drive. So I'm not about to post that up here.

 

[PilotMan7700]

If you didn't write the files while you had the SD card in your Mac (i.e. use an editor on them, etc.) then the files wouldn't have corrupted.

I find it unusual that 2 batteries filled 64GB. My 4K videos are about 135seconds per GB. To fill a 64GB card would take 8640 seconds. Or about 2.4 hours or roughly 7 batteries.

Something else is going on with that card. The corruption on it may be coincidental to the improper removal.

First thing I would do is try and get the data copied off to a safe place. If you fire up Disk Utility, can you see the "NO NAME" volume on the card? If so, right click and choose "Image from NO NAME", and save the file somewhere safe. You can restore this to another SD card.

View attachment 6240

My guess is that this will fail, however. You can do the same type of thing using "dd" from the command line, but misusing "dd" can corrupt other things like your hard drive. So I'm not about to post that up here.

@ATXdrone This is what I'm seeing when I bring up Disk Utility: I'm unable to right click on it to give me any options to save the information on it elsewhere. The only thing I can do is "first aid" which does nothing or reformat it.

 

[Alex Baxter]

Well, not sure how it happened but my card got corrupted somehow. Does anybody know of a good totally FREE piece of software that can be used to recover files on a card that has lost it's format.

So I got done with my first 4K shoot. It took just shy of 2 batteries to fill a 64GB card, not sure if that is normal. I took the SD card out of the Mavic and put it in my computer to review the video, I got some spectacular shots of some irreplaceable moments. After I was done reviewing the shots I just got I then "ejected" the card from the computer, removed the card from my computer, and closed up the laptop and came home. As soon as I got home I opened my laptop up and had a message that said I had removed the card without properly ejecting it. I then put the SD card back into the computer and now I'm getting messages that says my computer doesn't recognize the card. Tried another computer and same issue. I also tried putting the card back into the Mavic and now I'm getting an "SD Error".

I would imagine that all the footage I got today has to be sitting right there but I can't access it. I have been able to use some free software that will only allow me to see the files available but I have to pay in order to recover the files. Any help would be amazing!!

Is there any chance that it's a ripoff SD card, as has been pointed out, 64 Gb will do more than 2 batteries. Where did you get the card? It's easy to have a rip off card misreport it's size, and I'd say there are plenty of people prepared to print 'SanDisk 64gb c10' on a 4gb c3 card. Software is available to verify the size of SD cards, but a proper check will take a long time. Good luck getting your photos off it.


Sent from my Nexus 9 using MavicPilots mobile app

 

[Kilrah]

Photorec.

 

[Neil]

@Neil I'm trying to download Recuva and it seems that it's a PC only software, I'm using a Mac. (Sorry I probably should have stated that to begin with). When I select the link "Apple Mac User? - Click Here" it just sends me to the CCleaner for Mac. I went ahead and downloaded the free version of CCleaner and don't see any options for file recovery.

Sorry PM7700, I assumed you were on a PC. It might be worth finding a friend with a PC to do this job - the software I suggest worked like a charm for me.

 

[HeavensAbove]

@HeavensAbove I looked into it and I can't find anywhere about having a year free. I even found a specific thread that said that data recovery is not included in your products warranty. Did I miss something somewhere? The software they recommend and that you can download from their website is just shy of $40. I might just go with that route but I hate to pay for something that really isn't that huge of a deal, main reason why I'm looking for free options. Thanks again for the help!

I bought mine from Amazon UK and it was on a small printed piece of paper with URL where to download (I'm sure it was predominantly red and black). I put it somewhere safe. Too safe it seems.


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[PilotMan7700]

Photorec.

Thanks for the tip, Photorec seems to work really well. It pulled off pictures that I had deleted weeks ago but all the videos it found I can't seem to play. Any ideas? Is there another step to cleaning up these files that I need to do?

 

[Neil]

Thanks for the tip, Photorec seems to work really well. It pulled off pictures that I had deleted weeks ago but all the videos it found I can't seem to play. Any ideas? Is there another step to cleaning up these files that I need to do?

Yes, you need DJI-Fix:
Repairing Corrupt DJI Video Files

 

[PilotMan7700]

Project SD Card Recovery Complete!

I want to thank everybody that gave some really good advice and input on the matter. Ultimately though, it just came down to Mac being a crappy product for being able to fix a simple issue such as this. A buddy of mine had the same thing happen to him with his sd card out of his phone a while back and he just ran some sort of "chkdsk" in the cmd.exe through Windows on his PC and it fixed it. I was able to slide the card back into my computer and all my videos are there safe and sound. They have now been transferred to my permanent storage drives for safe keeping and editing in the near future.

It seems that I must have just whipped the card out before the computer had finished ejecting it. I was in a bit of a hurry but I thought for sure it showed that it was ejected properly. As for the card getting full before I finished my second battery, I'm still a little perplexed about. The 35ish minutes of 4K footage is only about 16 or so gigs. The only thing I can think of is that I haven't formatted the card since I first got it. I generally just copy the files off the card and then delete them. :/

Anyhoo, thanks again for all the input.

Here are the steps and a link to the procedure of what my friend did for anybody reading this in the future that is having the same issue.

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Damaged SD Card Recovery | How to Fix/Repair Damaged SD Card - EaseUS

Use chkdsk to fix/repair a corrupted SD card without data loss
"chkdsk" command is your first choice for damaged SD card recovery. Requiring no format, it allows you to fix or repair a corrupted SD card without data loss. Now let’s look how it works. (I'm using Windows 7 for this demonstration)

1. Plug in your SD card to your computer with a card reader.

2. Go to the start menu, type in "cmd" in a search bar, hit enter and then you can see something named "cmd. exe" under a list of programs.

3. Right click "cmd. exe" and then you will get the following command windows that allow you to fix your corrupted SD card without format.

4. Type in "chkdsk /X /f sd card letter:" or "chkdsk sd card letter: /f ", for example,"chkdsk /X /f G:" or "chkdsk h: /f".

Finishing all the steps, Windows will check and fix the file system of the SD card. It usually takes several minutes. After that, if you see "Windows has made corrections to the file system" in the command window, then congratulations! The damaged SD card is successfully fixed and you can access your data with ease. If not, you should try a third-party data recovery software to fix the damaged SD card and get back your data with an efficient damaged SD card recovery.

 

[Logger]

Well done sorting it out. Was going to suggest chkdsk until I saw you were on a Mac.
I had a similar issue a while back DJI Assistant just borked my 64GB SD card!! where it saved my bacon after my Mavic sd reported itself corrupt with a heap of video on it. This lead me to post in an earlier thread. Samsung Micro SDXC Error