Corrupt SD card won't mount in Windows

[BrianG35xr]

Hello,

I'm from Rhode Island and I'm surprised I was able to find a data recovery forum based out of RI for my issue. I have a 16GB Sandisk SD card that I was viewing pictures on my computer when suddenly the pictures got "glitchy" and stopped loading thumbnails and then Windows Explorer stopped responding. I had to eject the SD card to get Windows to unfreeze and now the SD card will no longer show up at all. The computer *dings* that it recognizes it but no drive exists and the SD card freezes explorer again until it's ejected.

I've used data recovery software to recover corrupt files but nothing like this where the SD card actually freezes the computer. I got it to unfreeze by using an OTG card reader through USB but Disk Management just shows it as Disk 1 (E:) - No Media and trying to click the drive letter will cause the computer to freeze again. I can't image it and no data recovery software recognizes the drive. Anyone have any tips for me? I do have Linux installed if needed. Thanks

[Jared]

Hi Brian, welcome to the forum.

If you go to Computer Management > Disk Management with the thumb drive plugged in, how does it appear? Does it show correct capacity of 16Gb?

It's likely that the thumbdrive has actually failed, but just want to be sure.

[BrianG35xr]

Hi Jared,

It's actually a 16gb Samsung Microsd that came out of an Android phone (not encrypted). From the 2nd paragraph I could not get the SD card to show up in Disk Management at all due to it freezing my computer and getting stuck on "connecting to Virtual Disk Service...". I treid to use a USB adapter to see if I got better results now Disk Management does load but for the USB drive it just shows Disk 1 (E:) - No Media. It does not show capacity, volume, partition, anything. I feel the SD card is corrupt since anytime Windows tries to access it such as right clicking on the drive it freezes "This PC" and any other explorer windows that are open.

[Jared]

My mistake, I misread the post (pre-coffee hours). Freezing up like that isn't due to corrupt data, it's definitely a hardware issue then. Nothing you can DIY here. Even professional recovery is likely more than you'll want to pay for the contents of an SD card.

[BrianG35xr]

Aw, really? I kept the microSD card permanently inserted into my laptop's card reader for years so every time I opened the computer Windows would ask me to fix errors in the drive. Now the first time I actually access it fails randomly and no longer gets recognized... lucky. Now as I'm typing I get this error:


I found this link on a different forum of people that had luck resurrecting their dead SD cards by cooking the microSD card in their oven for 15 minutes at 220-240°C.. https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads ... d.1351150/. People reported good results and I've got nothing to lose so I'll give it a shot.

[BrianG35xr]

More reports of resurrecting a dead SD card by baking it: https://forums.overclockers.com.au/thre ... ng.948602/

Any ideas on disassembling the microSD card without damaging the board or controller pieces?

[Jared]

Source of the post Any ideas on disassembling the microSD card without damaging the board or controller pieces?

In 99.999% of all micro SD cards, it's a monolith. There's nothing to "disassemble" it's a single microchip.

Windows asking you to repair that SD card was the warning sign you ignored. It probably started as bad sectors, then got worse as the NAND degraded.

You can try heating and/or cooling it. Occasionally that'll get it working for a minute. But, it's not likely to work.

Aside from that, you'll need professional recovery and can expect to pay between $1,200-2,500 for it. It's very tedious to have to sand down layers of a chip and microsolder into the tiny traces. And, half the time it turns out to have been all a waste of time anyway. I personally hate these cases.