How to Fix Damaged SD Card Without Losing Data

Secure Digital card is a flash memory card which is design to provide high capacity memory in a small size. SD cards are easy to handle and used in many small portable devices such as digital video, camcorders, digital cameras, handheld computers, audio players and mobile phones. But these cards also get corrupt and it may get damaged due to certain reasons. Therefore, this write-up will serve you the reasons related to corrupt memory card and solution to fix damaged SD card without losing data.


Whenever the card get corrupt data become inaccessible and you are not allowed to open it. If you try to open it on laptop or computer, it displays an error message, “card is not accessible”. To understand the issue and error deeply let us consider a scenario then we will move forward with the solution to retrieve data from compact flash card.


fix corrupt sd card



“A couple of hours ago while uploading some pictures through my mobile phone to Instagram, I have received an error message, “SD card is damaged try to reformatting”. When I clicked in, Android reminds me that after formatting the card all data will be lost. I have thousands of images, a playlist of my favorite songs, collections of movies, documents, therefore, I did not format it. I want to restore data from corrupted SD card, is there any solution to retrieve data from compact flash card without formatting it? ”


Fix Damaged SD Card Without Losing Data Using CHKDSK Commands


The first choice is CHKDSK command to repair corrupt SD card. Best thing is that it does not require any formatting and allow you to restore files from CF card.

1. Insert the CF card to computer with a card reader

2. Go to start menu >> type "cmd" in a search bar >> hit enter

3. In a list of programs, you can see “cmd.exe” right click on it

4. A window will display with the following command allow to fix damaged SD card without losing data

repair corrupted sd card

5. Type "chkdsk sd card letter: /f " or "chkdsk /X /f sd card letter:", for example,"chkdsk /X /f G:" or "chkdsk h: /f".

 chkdsk Commands

After completion of all the steps, Windows will check and fixed the file system of the Secure Digital card. It usually takes several minutes whenever the damaged SD card is successfully repaired you will able to see a command that is "Windows has made corrections to the file system". Now, you can access your data again.

To retrieve data from damaged SD card CHKDSK is most preferred command but one should aware of the causes related to the error message to avoid loss of data.

Most Common Causes of SD Card Corruption


damaged sd card

SD card is inaccessible

Bad sector of memory card

Imporoperly insertion and removal of sd card

Virus attack

SD card can't format

Manufacturing defect


Bottom Line


Whenever an SD card is get damaged or corrupted due to any of the above reason, the data will become unreadable. At this point, one can proceed with any of the two recovery solutions. One is using CHKDSK and another one is data recovery service to fix damaged SD card without losing data. But one should keep in mind that whenever the memory card gets damaged, stop using the damaged card until you fully retrieve data from compact flash card, or it may suffer data recovery failure.