Image files in micro sd card unable to open - any way to recover?

[Karling]

So recently I have found myself unable to open some files from my phone in the micro sd card. I'm not sure what has happened to these files so I'll try giving as much detail as possible.

These files are either a few photos I have taken with my phone or files that I have transferred from my internal storage to my micro sd card (files of which are either JPEG, PNG or GIF images).

While I can still see that the files are clearly present in the sd card, I am unable to open and view any of these files (either a 'no thumbnail' or a blank image is shown). Looking at the details of these files shows that they have a 0 x 0 resolution, yet however still takes up memory space.

When I connect my phone to the computer and try opening these files from there, they still cannot be viewed ('windows photo viewer cannot open this file because either photo viewer doesn't support this file format'). When I try transferring these files from one folder to another through the computer, it simply says 'cannot copy <file name>, this device has either stopped responding or has been disconnected'.

What's funny is that only a few of these files seem to have 'corrupted' in that sense, yet the rest of my image files in my phone seem to open perfectly fine. And all these problematic files seem to have just screwed up at around the same time.

I've looked all over the internet for solutions but nothing seemed to fit my description! So I would really appreciate if anyone could give some advice to this problem? Maybe how I could recover these files?

 

[Karling]

Hi Karling,

First of all you should try connecting the sd card to your computer using a standard adapter/reader, not your phone. If you still can't access the files your best free option would be to download a program called TestDisk which is available for download here:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

It's an ugly dos like terminal program, however is very powerful at recovering known file types such as images. After you download the program, run the one called "photorec.exe" inside the TestDisk folder, point it to the sd card drive letter, and the rest should be pretty self explanatory.

Your next best option would be to mail it to a data recovery lab. I don't know where your located but I work at one such lab in the Rhode Island, USA. That sort of recovery shouldn't cost more than $75 - $100 if the card is still functional and just has some file system corruption. If the card itself has failed the price is astronomical, so you really don't want to go there.

Hope this helps,
Jared Palmer
www.data-medics.com

Thanks for the reply, Jared. I followed your advice and downloaded photorec.exe but it didnt seem to detect my sd card. I guess it could be because I don't have any a standard adapter or reader? Is there any other way to deal with this problem?

 

[popatim]

I would search the original system for the files as there is not a whole lot you can do to correct corruption aside from restoring from your backups without spending a chunk of change only to get so-so results with image fixers.
OfficeRecovery is free and much better then other truly free ones but Stellar Pheonix Jpeg repair is probably still the best. It has a demo to show you it can work but will leave a watermark until you buy it.

 

[Karling]

Thanks for the replies guys. As soon as I get my hands on a SD card reader, I'll try out the different softwares and get back to ya'll about it

 

[RohitJain296]

guys can anyone help me to recover my sd card

 

[1888persona]

Thanks for the replies guys. As soon as I get my hands on a SD card reader, I'll try out the different softwares and get back to ya'll about it

hi, do u managed to recover those files? I am also having the same issue as you.
if yes,mind sharing. thanks

 

[Marcelo_11]

I'm having the same issue with my memory card, some pictures I can open and others I can't. Did you guys solved the problem? Thanks!!