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SanDisk SD Card Corrupted: Fixes & Data Recovery Methods

Updated on Monday, April 8, 2024

iBoysoft author Rivers Wong

Written by

Rivers Wong
Professional tech editor

Approved by

Jessica Shee

English

How to Fix SanDisk SD Card Corrupted & Do SanDisk SD card recovery

Summary: This article offers feasible solutions to help you fix the SanDisk SD card corrupted problem. More importantly, it tells you how to perform SanDisk SD card recovery and helps you retrieve your lost data. The most effective way to restore files from a corrupted SD card is to use iBoysoft Data Recovery for Windows.

how to fix SanDisk SD card corrupted and recover data from it

As one of the most reliable memory cards, the SanDisk SD card is widely used in digital cameras, mobile phones, handheld game consoles, and voice recorders for storing data. But SD cards, like other external storage devices, such as USB flash drives or external hard drives, are fragile and prone to be corrupted.

Though data loss happens frequently in a corrupted SD card, there's no such 'SanDisk inbuilt solution' for data recovery and SanDisk warranty only covers the product itself. That's where this article comes in. In this post, you'll learn how to fix the SanDisk SD card corrupted problem, as well as how to perform SanDisk SD card recovery to get your lost data back with free SanDisk data recovery software. Read on for more!

Table of Contents:

How do I know if my SanDisk SD card gets corrupted?

Memory cards don't beep or rattle to let you know when they are getting corrupted as hard drives do. So it's important to recognize the signs indicating it so that you can perform the SanDisk memory card corrupted solution in time before the corruption causes bigger troubles.

There are a bunch of signs indicating that your SanDisk memory card is corrupted. Some of the most common symptoms of a SanDisk broken SD card are listed as followings, let's check them out:

  • SD card is not showing up in Windows computers, digital cameras, or Android phones like you never put it into your devices.
  • Error messages like "SanDisk SD card is not accessible" or "Damaged SD card. SD card is damaged. Try reformatting it" pops up when you try to access files stored on the card using your digital camera, PC, or other media.
  • SD card is read-only or write-protected. You are unable to make any changes to your SanDisk SD card, like saving new files to it or deleting documents.
  • Some of the SanDisk SD card files are missing for no reason, or the card appears empty even though you know it contains some items. In this situation, a SanDisk file recovery is urgent.
  • SD card shows RAW file system. Your SanDisk SD card shows RAW as its file system in Disk Management on Windows and has 0 bytes used for free storage space.
  • SD card is physically damaged. In this situation, you may not able to do the SanDisk memory card recovery with the help of some SanDisk SD card repair tools. Instead, you should send the card to a professional memory card repair center.

When you notice that your SanDisk SD card is corrupted, don't worry! There's a high chance for you to get this problem fixed. The first thing you should do is to recover all your lost SD card files with a SanDisk file recovery utility, then fix that faulty card.

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How to recover data from a corrupted SanDisk SD card?

When a SanDisk SD card is corrupted, the important data stored on it are at risk of being permanently lost. So before fixing the corrupted SanDisk micro SD card, you need to recover data from your SD card.

There are countless SanDisk data recovery tools on the market, among them, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Windows stands out. Apart from SanDisk photo/image recovery, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Windows can recover lost data for over 1000 formats, including videos, audio, documents, etc, from SD cards and micro SD cards, as well as other external storage devices.

This software also has an excellent recovery rate. It supports exFAT, FAT32, and NTFS file systems, and you can use it to perform SanDisk corrupted SD card recovery on Windows 11/10/8/7/XP/Vista.

Here's how to recover deleted/lost files from a corrupted SanDisk SD card using iBoysoft Data Recovery for Windows:

  1. Click the above button to free download iBoysoft Data Recovery for Windows on your computer, follow the on-screen instructions to finish the installation, then launch it.
  2. Properly connect your corrupted SanDisk SD card to your Windows computer, you can try to connect the device that contains the SD card to it first. Use a card reader if necessary.
  3. There are three modules in the main interface of iBoysoft Data Recovery for Windows, to recover lost files from a corrupted SanDisk memory card, choose the Data Recovery module. 
    iBoysoft Data Recovery main interface
  4. Select your malfunctioning SD card from the Drives list, then click the Next button to start scanning. It may take a while for the software to find lost files on the card, so wait patiently until the whole scan process completes for the best recovery results.   
    find lost files on the corrupted SanDisk SD card
  5. Once the scan completes, select the file you want to recover, and click on Preview to preview it as well as see make sure it is not corrupted.  
    preview found results
  6. Tick the checkbox before the files you want to restore, and click the Recover button to save them to another destination. Do not save recovered files back to your SanDisk SD card, as it will overwrite the existing files.

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How to fix a corrupted SanDisk SD card?

After getting all the needed data off of your SanDisk SD card that is corrupted, you can now fix it with the solutions provided in this part. Without further ado, let's get started!

Run CHKDSK command to fix corrupted SD card

All Windows versions come with the common-line tool CHKDSK, which can be used to identify and fix bad sectors and SD card file system corruption errors. Here's how to check and fix your corrupted SanDisk SD card using CHKDSK:

  1. Connect your SD card to your PC, go to Start on the Windows taskbar and click Computer.
  2. Click on Devices with Removable Storage and search for your SD card, and note its drive letter.
  3. Again, go to Start and enter cmd in the search box. Command Prompt will pop up, right-click on it and select Run as administrator.
  4. Run the following command in the Command Prompt. Remember to replace * with the drive letter of your corrupted SanDisk SD card.       
    chkdsk *: /f /r /x CHKDSK repair corrupted SanDisk SD card
  5. Wait until the whole process is over and check if your SD card is fixed.

Reinstall the SD card drivers

Generally, Windows automatically downloads and installs the latest drivers along with Windows updates. Your disk driver might be outdated if your PC has not been updated for a while. An outdated SD card driver would not make your SanDisk SD card show up on the PC, which may mislead you into thinking your card is corrupted.

Follow these steps to reinstall the SD card drivers on Windows:

  1. Search for Device Manager and open it on your Windows PC.
  2. Expand the Portable Devices section, and scroll down to find your SanDisk SD card.
  3. Right-click on the SD card and click on Update Driver Software.
  4. Select Search automatically for updated driver software.
  5. Select Update Driver to confirm the operation. 
  6. Disconnect the SD card and restart your PC.

Repair corrupted SanDisk SD card with Windows error checking tool

If your SanDisk SD card gets corrupted due to some unknown file system errors, you can use the Windows error-checking tool to verify and fix these errors, thus repairing the faulty SD card. Here's how to do it:

  1. Make sure the corrupted SanDisk SD card is connected to your Windows computer.
  2. Press Windows + E keys to open Windows Explorer on your PC.
  3. Find and right-click on your SD card and select Properties.
  4. Go to the Tools tab, then click on the Check button.repair corrupted SanDisk SD card with Windows error checking tool

Format your SanDisk SD card

If you've tried all the above solutions, but still your SanDisk memory card remains corrupted, then your best shot is to format it. Formatting will erase all your SD card files, so make sure you've recovered them with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Windows already.

Here's how to format an SD card on Windows:

  1. Connect your SanDisk SD card to your Windows computer.
  2. Open This PC/ My Computer and click Manage, then choose Disk Management.
  3. Select your SanDisk memory card and right-click on it, then select Format.
  4. Choose a file system for your SD card (NTFS is recommended), tick the checkbox next to Quick Format, then click Start.format corrupted SanDisk SD card on Windows

If you've successfully fixed your corrupted SanDisk SD card, please share this article with more people who need it!

 

Conclusion

In this article, we offer you four solutions on how to fix a corrupted SanDisk SD card. More importantly, tell you how to perform SanDisk corrupted SD card recovery with a professional data recovery tool - iBoysoft Data Recovery for Windows. Hope this article can solve your problem!

FAQ about SanDisk SD card corrupted

A

Always safely remove your SanDisk card after using and don't pull it out from your devices directly. Also, when you find there are some signs indicating that the card is corrupted, immediately stop using it and do not add any new information to it, then fix the corrupted card with the methods mentioned in this post.

A

Download, install, and launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Windows with the corrupted SanDisk SD card connected to your PC. In this software, choose the Data Recovery module, select the card in the Drives list and click Next to start scanning, preview the scanning results, then recover wanted files to another location.