Recovering info from SD card?

[Da Mail Man]

Greetings All,
Never have poscted in this forum before.....

I have a Trac-Phone (no current service as of a few years ago and believe uses Android OS) that I made sure was turned off and remained off for 15 minutes.... I removed the very small 32gb SD Card from the phone and, after about 30 minutes of time,
re-inserted it back into the turned off phone........HEREIN LIES THE START OF MY PROBLEMS...

The cell phone indicates that the sd card is EMPTY!........Yes, I do have the sd card to be "mounted" yet, is blank.....There is NO physical damage to the card and cell battery is charged up of course.

I have a few Windows Xp computers as well as a WIndows 10 (64bit) laptop I am using which does not have a "reader" slot/port in it.......I purchased 2 "flash drive looking" readers that 2 or 3 different size cards would slide into....This adapter/reader would in turn, slide into a USB slot on the computer....

I somehow got the comuter to recognize the "reader' BUT, when I slide the sd card into the computer, the drive icon disappears and "that's that"......I had even started out placing the card in the reader/adapter and THEN plugged it into the usb port and same thing happened with BOTH adapters-readers I have......It seems that I could not utilize any "recovery" software since the computer doesn't recognize the adapter WITH the sd card inserted.

What is going on and how do I retrieve the info (picts, etc) from the sd card if possible?......Again, the card has no physical damage and, was working fine when I removed it from phone....Thanks for any assistance!

 

[johnb35]

Unfortunately, SD cards don't last forever. The only thing you can try doing is using a different adapter and a different pc. Micro SD cards require putting them in the SD card adapter and then into a reader.

 

[Da Mail Man]

Yeah, I did that. first.........Think I will try getting another card reader and go that route.......Hardly used phone and just used it for reference material on the card....Just tried it on another XP computer and it didn't recognize the reader...Mayby both are $hit....Thanks for the reply!

 

[Da Mail Man]

UPDATE......

1).....Ordered a usb mico sd card reader and it was $hit and the computer(s) (both xp and 10) would not recognize it......

2).....Received a different one the other day and both the xp and "10" computer recognized it.

3).....I clicked on" properties" for the drive it "created" and attempted to scan for drive errors and it said windows could not do it....

Further research on utube yeilded more than a few "fixes" but, not sure whom is correct!.....

4)......Every way I screw around with this sd card (henceforth known as sd), the computer wants to format the card.......

Now, what I was taught or learned is that formatting wipes out everything howerer, utube vids say that I have to create a file system by formatting and then run scan disk (or similar...I am at a stand-still...

 

[beers]

What's the model of phone? Some android deployments utilized ext4 and other Linux file systems that Windows wouldn't recognize, that's why it is asking you to format it. It only knows NTFS, exFAT and FAT32

I think there's a Windows utility that reads ext4, or you could boot to a livecd to copy the contents between disks.

 

[Da Mail Man]

What's the model of phone?
I have no idea for the most part.....It WAS a tracphone that the carrier discontinued service on...I will make an attempt to open it or read it in the morning.

Some android deployments utilized ext4 and other Linux file systems that Windows wouldn't recognize, that's why it is asking you to format it. It only knows NTFS, exFAT and FAT32
I believe someplace that i saw that I could format in exFAT but, not sure where...Even if I had to format it, I wouldn't know what system to formati it in.

I think there's a Windows utility that reads ext4, or you could boot to a livecd to copy the contents between disks.
You mean tha there may be a utlity that could read the disc?...It is an android phone.

****FOUND THIS....IF INSTALLED IN A WINDOWS 10 COMPUTER, WIL IT "F" IT ALL UP? https://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader/

 

[Darren]

If you format it you're effectively wiping it.

That software looks viable.

Disks in this context is a more generic term. He's not referring to like CDs or Hard Disk Drives necessarily, but just storage media in general.

 

[Da Mail Man]

Thanks for the reply!

I will give this a chance today and let you know how I make out....I was concerned that it would, in some way, screw up my win 10 installation.

 

[Da Mail Man]

Doesn't seem to work....I mounted the drive but see nothing or, even where the drive went....It asked me where to mount drive and to play safe, said my documents.....Found where image went (see picts) and for a 32gb micro sd card, it shows 8mbs.....I am not even sure how to open it.

 

[beers]

Unsure then fam. Would you be able to use google cloud to upload the images from it? Or you might be able to zip the contents and email them to yourself from the phone or use gdrive.

 

[Da Mail Man]

Thanks for the reply...

Unsure then fam. Would you be able to use google cloud to upload the images from it?
I know nothing about "google cloud" whatsoever nor would I send data to someplace I knew nothing about....Anytung that needs "storage" is stored here....

Or you might be able to zip the contents and email them to yourself from the phone or use gdrive.
"contents" appear not visible as shown by pictures previously...I can mount drive but, see nothng...the sd card is 32gb's and the picts show only 8MB's.

 

[Da Mail Man]

What I will do sometime today, is post a few links where individuals indicate that the micro sd needs to be formatted...Still not sure I agree with that but, they indicate that w/out a paertition on the micro sd, no files will be retrieved or shown

 

[Da Mail Man]

UPDATE;

I ran AOMEI Partition Assistant and found that there is no partition on the sd micro card...It would seem to me that I would have to get a partition on there to be able to do anything with it.

 

[Darren]

I think it might just be blank...

 

[Da Mail Man]

Ya know....you may just happen to be right except for the fact that there were a few tech videos that I didn't pull off phone a few days ago....If I create a partition, I may lose all the stuck remaining files.

 

[beers]

If you format it you're effectively wiping it.

If I create a partition, I may lose all the stuck remaining files.

 

[Da Mail Man]

Yeah, I know...I have seen vids on utube where it is told to format the card and then use recovery software to retrieve files, to "restore" the patition and and and...damn, this is getting really frustrating!......There has to be some software to reco files on the card...I have quite a few but, haven't had the time to go through them all...Also, it was told here to use a "linux reader" (for lack of a better phrase) and I did with failure...I still have to track down links to the vids on utube to post here.....Will ck back to this tomorrow.....THANKS FOR THE REPLIES!

 

[Darren]

I think you're wasting your time and effort. Card could just as well be broken and have unpredictable behavior.

 

[Da Mail Man]

Anything is possible but, fact is the card is recognized and worked when I removed it....I can't give up in frustration because I haven't exhausted all my attempts yet.