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SD Card Corrupted


help890

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Thanks for that, and I wish I'd spotted that capacity anomaly earlier. My bad on that one.

 

I was expecting the screenshot to show a 30mb partition and the missing capacity as unallocated space, but sadly that's not the case. I'm gonna have to study this one a while, but you could provide some more info for me via other screenshots.

 

Depending upon which part of your card you click on, there will be a different menu to the left ...

 

Click and highlight the outside, which is the actual volume (or drive) and you get this ...

 

 

 

Click and highlight the inside, the partition, and this menu is available ...

 

 

 

Can you do two screenshots like this? Thanks.

 

Up until now, I've seen flash drives and memory cards (my own included) showing the wrong capacity, but the missing space has showed up in a partition manager like MiniTools, but I haven't seen one with the missing space being just that. Completely missing.

 

This is why we couldn't scan for a lost partition containing your files. There's nothing to scan.

 

OK, get the screenshots for me, and I'll see what I can find on resurrecting drive space which doesn't show up at all. My thoughts at the moment are to maybe do something with the 30mb of "unallocated space".

 

It should be easy to create a new partition on that 30mb of space, and that would fix the bootsectors, but would that make the missing gb's show up? I have no idea, but I may be able to find a man who does.

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OK, thanks.

 

I've found lots of examples of drives, flash drives and cards showing a capacity way below their actual size, but in all cases so far, the missing capacity has been "unallocated space". I haven't found one example of there being no indication at all of the missing space.

 

I'll keep looking for a while, and in the meantime, have you ever had anything out of the ordinary installed on that card, such as a U3 installation ...

 

http://kb.sandisk.co...unchpad-on-a-pc

 

I was hoping to be able to try a search for a lost partition by running the MiniTools "Partition Recovery" option on your card, but it looks like only the 30mb would be searched. Give that a try for me just to see what does happen with MiniTools.

 

And also can you hit the "Show Disk Properties", and the "Show Partition Properties" buttons and show me what they come up with?

 

Thanks.

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Is it possible that this SD Card was fabricated with many RAM chips bonded to a substrate,

and due to thermal or mechanical shock the bonds have failed and / or interconnects have broken,

and there is only one chip still doing its job ?

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OK, thanks.

 

I've found lots of examples of drives, flash drives and cards showing a capacity way below their actual size, but in all cases so far, the missing capacity has been "unallocated space". I haven't found one example of there being no indication at all of the missing space.

 

I'll keep looking for a while, and in the meantime, have you ever had anything out of the ordinary installed on that card, such as a U3 installation ...

 

http://kb.sandisk.co...unchpad-on-a-pc

 

I was hoping to be able to try a search for a lost partition by running the MiniTools "Partition Recovery" option on your card, but it looks like only the 30mb would be searched. Give that a try for me just to see what does happen with MiniTools.

 

And also can you hit the "Show Disk Properties", and the "Show Partition Properties" buttons and show me what they come up with?

 

Thanks.

 

No, I have only ever had photos/videos on the card. Never had any unusual files on it.

 

Here are the screen shots for ''Show Disk Properties'' and ''Show Partition Properties''

post-63634-0-76512200-1348223398_thumb.jpg

post-63634-0-09133500-1348223478_thumb.jpg

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I haven't forgotten about you help890.

 

Had a busy weekend but managed to do some research into your problem, and I think it's gonna be more a case now of trying to get your 4gb card back to it's proper capacity and hopefully your images may be recoverable somewhere along the way.

 

You could use Minitools to create a new partition on the recognised 30mb, but I don't think that will make the missing capacity visible, although it wouldn't do any harm to have that 30mb recognized by windows.

 

I'll get back to you.

 

 

EDIT: Thanks for the pics. They confirm that it's 30mb whichever way you look at that card.

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Is it possible that this SD Card was fabricated with many RAM chips bonded to a substrate,

and due to thermal or mechanical shock the bonds have failed and / or interconnects have broken,

and there is only one chip still doing its job ?

 

I'm thinking that it's either physical damage Alan or a chip/controller problem, which is stuff I haven't encountered before, but I'm looking at the moment at software which, if it's not physical damage, may be able to do something with this.

 

You sound like you know more about this stuff than I do, so any suggestions welcome.

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My career started in electronic equipment design.and construction involving "glow-in-the-dark" valves and transistors.

Then came integrated circuits with perhaps 8 transistors.

After 10 years there were 8 bit processors and I built my own computer hardware and software,

planting 32 off integrated circuits on a printed circuit board to create a 4 Kilo Byte memory card :rolleyes:

 

Eventually I focused on software and hardware design, and others did the construction.

For over 40 years I worked in factories that have used state of the art production equipment for mounting components on printed circuit boards,

I have been aware of techniques by which integrated circuits have included several dies on a substrate.

I have been retired and out of that environment for the last 6 years - I do not know what the current state of art might be.

 

I now have a 60 GB SSD from OCZ and understand that my particular model has several different builds.

It could use any one of several suppliers of 0.5 GB or perhaps 1 GB Flash chip,

as determined by the best prices at the time of building..

I do not know how OCZ put the parts together in the package - but it works.

 

I guess that SanDisk use related techniques for their SSD and SD Card product lines,

hence my suggestion that perhaps only one out of many Flash Chips is still connected/working.

 

I am sorry, but if it is such a physical problem, I have no feasible solution.

To be honest - whatever the problem I have no solution :(

 

If the card was cooked at the "right" time and temperature then solder might re-flow and re-bond the chips,

but I doubt the charges in the Flash Chip cells would retain the user data they were holding.

 

I think the only realistic hope for this situation is if this is a non-physical defect for which you can find a software solution

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I personally think that the exact cause of failure should be determined before attempting repair & recovery procedures. Then the correct tool can be applied and recovery effected. If this cannot be determined then it should be left to an established professional to do the work. Of course you may get lucky and achieve a full recovery without scrambling "stuff" further.

 

There have been times when I've recommended to people that they put the device in question into a baggie for safekeeping till they could afford a pro-service. And some months later I got a nice thank-you letter from somebody who did just that.

 

On the other hand there are folks who, of course, know more than I do about this sort of thing. So in that case I say, Have at it!

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I've got something else for you try first, and again it's something I've ran on my own memory card with no issues. I've been deleting the partition from my 1GB SD card to test my suggestions with "unallocated space".

 

Just to confirm, I wouldn't ask you to try anything that I haven't first ran on my own stuff without issue. And I've just realised that the bookmarks for this utility are on my laptop, and I'm on my desktop at the moment.

 

I'll get back to you.

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i've got something else for you try first, and again it's something i've ran on my own memory card with no issues. i've been deleting the partition from my 1gb sd card to test my suggestions with "unallocated space".

 

just to confirm, i wouldn't ask you to try anything that i haven't first ran on my own stuff without issue. and i've just realised that the bookmarks for this utility are on my laptop, and i'm on my desktop at the moment.

 

i'll get back to you.

 

ok thanks :)

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I'll mention first that you do have, and have always had, the option of going down the road mentioned by Keatah in post #34 above ...

 

http://forum.pirifor...ndpost&p=221376

 

You may have already considered that option.

 

----------------------------

 

I think this is possibly my last shot at this help890, as I'm just about out of fresh ideas (fresh out of ideas as well), although I do have a a little hope with this one.

 

Before I link to the software, a program called "RMPrepUSB", a little explanation of the testing I've done before posting it for you, and all done as before with my SD card plugged directly into the card reader, to mirror your situation. As opposed to using my USB adapter, which I always use for accessing and transferring files from my SD cards.

 

Preparation:

 

I took my 1GB SD card and erased all the contents with "Eraser 5.7".

 

With CCleaner I also carried out a "Drive Wipe" with a one pass secure delete.

 

I then carried out a full format of the card.

 

And finally deleted the partition and created a new one with Windows Disk Management.

 

This was to try and ensure that the card was devoid of any other files to recover before doing my tests.

 

Testing:

 

The purpose of this test was to ascertain as to whether deleting a partition containing files, thus creating "unallocated space", and then creating a new partition with RMPrepUSB would wipe all traces of the files possibly remaining in the "unallocated space".

 

I did this to replicate the 30mb of unallocated space showing on your card, just in case the photographs you want are by chance on that section of your drive.

 

1st: Copied 37 jpgs onto the card, and verified their integrity.

 

2nd: Used Mintools Partition Wizard 7.5 to delete the partition, leaving me with a "raw" drive containing "unallocated space". (again, as per your 30mb)

 

3rd: Created a new partition with RMPrepUSB

 

4th: Used Windows Disk management to assign a drive letter.

 

5th: Scanned the card with "PhotoRec".

 

 

Result:

 

All 37 jpgs were recovered intact by PhotoRec. I tested all of them.

 

Creating a new partition with RMPrepUSB does not delete any jpg files still residing in the "unallocated space" after the partition and file system has been lost.

 

So following my suggestions below will not lose any jpg files which may still be on that recognized 30mb section of your drive.

 

-------------------------------------

 

Download "RMPrepUSB Portable" from here ...

 

http://www.rmprepusb...nts/release-2-0 (Scroll halfway down the page and select the 3rd of the first 3 download options)

 

Extract from the zip to a folder because the zip contains multiple files.

 

To run it double click the "RMPREPUSB.exe" file, and set it up as shown here ...

 

 

 

The reason I'm using this tool is because there isn't anything I've seen or tried which will do anything other than create a partition on the recognized 30mb of your card.

 

With the different options available here, there's an outside chance that the full size of your drive may be picked up, and if that doesn't happen with the "Max" size option set, there's the alternative option of setting a larger number in that box to more reflect the size of your card.

 

That may do absolutely nothing other than recognize the 30mb, but as I've nothing to test that with, I have no idea.

 

At least I know that the first time you use this, it will create a partition which doesn't delete any files which may be residing within the "unallocated space", which you can then scan with PhotoRec. I tried Recuva and other recovery tools, but only PhotoRec found them.

 

Run it as shown, and if it just creates a partition on the 30mb, then scan that new partition for files.

 

Here's some screenshots of my recovery with PhotoRec, which I'll show for the benefit of others ...

 

Select Drive and Proceed:

 

 

 

Search:

 

 

 

Choose File System (Other - Fat etc):

 

 

 

Press "c" without changes to save in TestDisk "Program Files" folder (This is where PhotoRec resides and is less complicated than changing the "save" directory.)

 

 

 

Recovery process:

 

 

 

Any files will be in a directory called "recup_dir.1" in the TestDisk "Program Files" folder

 

----------------------------------------

 

Short of finding another software which will find or restore your missing space the only option left that I know of is to re-program the controller chip of your card providing it isn't damaged.

 

This will involve using a utility called "ChipGenius", which will scan your card and list what's called the "VID" and "PID" numbers along with the "Chip Part-Number" ...

 

 

 

You would then need to find the programming software dedicated to that "part-number".

 

Just in case you want to go down that road, the info is here ...

 

http://www.rmprepusb...usb-flash-drive

 

If it was my card, and was now a useless 30mb, I would have a look at this option, carefully, but would probably sling the card and call it a day. The option exists which is why I mention it.

 

Some folk out there may enjoy experimenting.

 

Good luck, and just ask if you need any info or clarification and I'll help if I can.

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Thanks for all this info! Really glad to have some help with this!

 

I am just trying to use the RMPrepUSB Portable tool... I have selected everything that you have shown but I get the following error. Do I need to try again, selecting FAT16 instead? Even though the actual card is 4GB?

post-63634-0-34384600-1349338576_thumb.jpg

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That's a new one on me.

 

I knew the recommended maximum sizes for the various FAT versions, but I didn't know there was a minimum restriction. I do now.

 

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc938432.aspx

 

Yes, select FAT16 as sadly the 30mb is all that's being picked up. If that works OK, then scan with PhotoRec.

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Guest Keatah

Just wondering if you tried imaging this card yet? And what does RMPrepUSB say if you try to use its "built-in" imaging tool. How many blocks does it see?

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Just wondering if you tried imaging this card yet? And what does RMPrepUSB say if you try to use its "built-in" imaging tool. How many blocks does it see?

 

Thanks for your advice...but I'm not sure what 'imaging means? I'm ok doing things on a pc as long as I'm given step by step instructions!

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That's a new one on me.

 

I knew the recommended maximum sizes for the various FAT versions, but I didn't know there was a minimum restriction. I do now.

 

http://technet.micro...y/cc938432.aspx

 

Yes, select FAT16 as sadly the 30mb is all that's being picked up. If that works OK, then scan with PhotoRec.

 

Ok thanks, I'll try it now...fingers crossed!

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Guest Keatah

Imaging is a process where all the raw sectors/blocks are copied to another device and typically put into one large file. Usually with the extension of .IMG or .RAW or .BIN.. Oftentimes a pro will image a device and then work from the .IMG file. If any mistakes or inadvertent writes are performed during the recovery process it is no big deal, just abandon the freshly "corrupted" file and start again. This helps to ensure the safety of the user's data. It lessens the chance of mistake erasing or overwriting the only copy of the information.

 

There are several kinds of imaging programs available, both payware and freeware. And some are of course better than others in terms of capability and grabbing devices with errors. RMPrepUSB has a basic capability for doing just that. It is similar to the USB IMAGE TOOL you tried earlier, but it works just a bit different internally. It's worth a try.

 

This is how you do it.

 

You can click on DRIVE -> FILE and then select a filename and destination (someplace on your C: drive). Type in a name of your choice and "open". Something like test.img will do fine.

 

Next box is a DRIVE SECTOR START POSITION, typically this is "0", select ok.

 

And the third dialog is LENGTH (NOTE: NUMBERS ARE IN BYTES - E.G. 512), try "PALL".

 

And next is DRIVETOFILE: FILE START BYTES POSITION (0,P1), select "0".

 

To start the imaging click ok when you see USB ---> FILE.

 

This should take about 5 or 10 minutes. And if this file is about 4GB in size, then that's great! We can then work from this. If not, then you can try another form of imaging through Linux. If you have WD drives or Segate drives you are entitled to a "LITE" edition of Acronis 2012 backup and imaging software. Get it and use the sector-by-sector copy. Pretend you're backing up the card.

 

If these two methods fail then you will need to use professional grade software, some of which is proprietary to the manufacturer of the SD card in question. This can cost upwards of $100.00 or more. Perhaps even mechanical repair is required. Yep, these cards can be repaired, controller chips can be swapped out, the bare flash chip can be read by other devices designed to do just that. This will have to be done in a professional lab.Your best bet will be to seek out a data recovery company. They typically charge a diagnostic fee of $75.00 and a couple of hundred more for the job - if it can be done at all.

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Guest Keatah

What I just talked about is basically a variation on post #10 -- http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=36678&st=0&p=220748entry220748 -- we're basically trying to image the card, again, from a slightly different angle with RMPrepUSB. I really do not know if the LITE version of Acronis True Image will do anything with removable media. Perhaps, perhaps not. Just trying to consider all ways to grab the data without going the pro-route (expensive).

 

It is also noteworthy that many flash-based memory devices (especially full-sized SSD) revert to a read-only mode when they detect an internal failure. This is a fail-safe feature designed to protect what's left on the device. And this could explain why you can't format it, which is a good thing. It is one possible explanation. There are other reasons for not being able to write as well.

 

In the race to get the most capacity from the smallest size at the cheapest cost, a lot of "backup" capability is lost, spare blocks reduced, CRC and error checking and repair routines are skimped on. When you pay for a premium SD card, there's more of this "stuff" built-in. Yep, even a top mfg. like SanDisk makes various levels of quality. And if it weren't for cost-cutting these days we'd see a lot more redundancy inherent in stuff like this.

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Guest Keatah

As a 3rd (and final for now) post, it's probably not worth it to spend money on purchasing a quick recovery tool for $50.00 or similar from the net unless you can try before you buy. This is because the fine print will say "Our software works on all devices recognizable by Windows." By this, they mean all the sectors and blocks are available, and that the device can be imaged. They also imply that their stuff works around common errors. To their credit though, you get a free trial where everything works except the save/recover function. A little ransom never hurt anyone now did it? CardRecoveryPro is an example, and so is SanDisk, and many others.

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Tried it, said that it had completed...then tried PhotoRec...no joy, it didn't find any files! :(

 

Can you be a bit more specific?

 

Did you give the card a drive letter, and is it now being picked up OK by windows? Can you open it OK although it will only be a 30mb card?

 

If the creation of the partition went as it should, and your card can be opened as normal, albeit only 30mb, then the suggestion by Keatah has merit in that imaging software will now recognize it.

 

As well as the USB Image Tool, and RMPrepUSB, TestDisk can also create an Image of a memory card.

 

Whether it will just Image the 30mb or not is unknown until it's tried.

 

Successfully creating a back up Image opens up other possibilities. As long as the Image is created with for example the .img file extension, then that image can be mounted as a drive, which means it can be opened as a drive and explored.

 

You can also extract files from an Image with a free software like 7Zip.

 

help890, this all sounds good, but all these processes fail if a card or drive is damaged in a way which windows won't accept. They're all worth a try, but with your card, we have to accept that they are really long shots.

 

The other option, which has only been touched upon, is a professional company.

 

But we would never recommend someone go down that route, because we could be steering them into losing what could be, for an individual, a substantial sum of money. All we can ever do is point out that the option exists, at the same time making very clear that the end result could well be a very expensive negative one.

 

First of all confirm as to whether your card now has a drive letter, and can be accessed as normal, regardless of it's size. After that, we'll see what last throws of the dice we can try, and don't forget that absolutely anything your not sure about, or don't understand, no matter how daft you think your question might be, please ask. We're all ignorant of stuff until someone explains it to us.

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Guest Keatah

Typically, a pro service, like I said, will charge a small evaluation fee and then quote you the regular price to do the job. You often get a list of files that they "will be able" to recover. It is accurate. Why? Because if it's a logical recovery they will already have done the job in the process of "preparing your quote" and evaluating the media. If you say yes, then BAM! Almost instant service! The next day your stuff in on secure FTP server awaiting you to download it. If you reject the quote, they wipe your job and call it a day.

 

And expensive they are, ranging from $300 up to $1700. They are also pretty honest about what can and cannot be done. And many outfits offer a no recovery = no fee policy. So you won't get taken for a ride. Been there, seen it, done it.

 

Now, about where we're at here.. If I may..

I'm becoming concerned at the amount of time this card has been (is) powered up. And if the internal controller believes it has only 30MB out of 4GB, then the "unallocated" 3.99GB space could be internally designated as "garbage collection" and "wear leveling" areas. Which means the controller is now using the blank space as maintenance and could be doing write operations there of its own accord.

 

I'm hoping imaging can grab the entire card. Because, if it does, THEN you plug that file into data recovery software and work from there. 7Zip might see some stuff. But I would not expect it to. I would expect to find a bunch of scattered file headers and hundreds of file fragments all over. Keep in mind that flash memory doesn't store data contiguously and you can't defrag it like a mechanical hard disk. At this point we'd need file carving tools to rebuild each file. This can become complex very quickly.

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