How to Recover Photos from SD Card without Formatting?

Written by Lucy John on February 14, 2023

Is there any way to open a SD card without formatting even when it prompts us to format it before using? usually, when the file system of an SD card is corrupted severely, it prompts an error message saying "The disk in the drive is not formatted, do you want to format it now?" when connected to a computer or a laptop. In such scenario, formatting is the only option left out to make further usage of the SD card. But formatting the SD card erases all the files stored in it. So, is there any way to fix the issues without losing data? It is possible to recover photos without formating. To find out how to recover photos from SD card without formatting, read the complete article.

Why do we Need to Format the SD Card?

You need to format the data oftenly, but sometimes we are forced to format the data because of virus infection, system file corruption, incompatibility etc.

How to Recover Data From Micro SD Card Without Formating?

Before fixing your SD card without reformatting, you should recover data you have on the card in case anything goes wrong and the data is permanently deleted or overwritten.

To recover SD card data without formatting, we’ll be using Yodot Photo Recovery which is an excellent card recovery software that has potential to recover images off SD cards without formatting. It automatically identifies the actual size of data even when there is no file system or when you are recovering data from foreign file system that is unknown to computer operating system.

How to Recover Photos from SD Card without Formatting using Yodot?

• Connect your SD card to the Windows computer through USB cable or card reader
• Download and install the Yodot Photo Recovery application to the SD card connected computer
• Select the “Deleted Photo Recovery” option to retrieve erased pictures from the SD card
• The software will scan the entire computer and displays all the logical drives present, including your SD card that is connected to the system
• Choose the SD card drive from which you need to retrieve photos and click on “Next” option
• Preview the recovered images by using “Preview” option and save them to your desired destination location on the system

When the recovery is finished, you’ll find all of the recovered photos inside the specified folder. Prior to moving on to the next section involving fixing the SD card, make copies of the data for safety.

Quick Ways to Fix Corrupted SD Card Without Formatting

The methods which are listed below will allow you to recover photos from the memory card without formatting.

Method 1: Try USB Port to Recover Photo Without Formatting Micro SD Card

Before attempting to fix anything, you must first understand where the problem originates. The problem may not be with your SD card, but instead, with the SD card reader or USB port, you’re using.

• Remove your card reader and connect it to a different USB port.
• If the problem persists, try connecting the card reader to another computer.
• Now, try plugging the SD card into a different card reader.

Method 2: Change the Drive Letter to Recover Images Without Formatting

When a storage device is connected to your PC, Windows automatically assigns a drive letter. If the assigned drive letter conflicts with another device that already has that drive letter, problems can arise as Windows doesn’t know which device the drive letter actually belongs to.

Adding a drive letter or changing the existing one can fix the issue

1. Right-click Start and select Disk Management.
2. Right-click the SD card volume and click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
3. If you don’t have a drive letter, click Add. If you do, click Change.
4. Select a drive letter from the dropdown list and click OK, then OK again.

Method 3: Make Use of CheckDisk to Recover Photos Without Formatting

CheckDisk is a utility inside Windows that can scan your storage media for file system-related issues and fix them based on the parameters that you use.

Type chkdsk D: /r. Replace D: with the drive letter assigned to your SD card. Press Enter.

Method 4: Update/Reinstall Drivers

Every device you connect to your computer requires drivers to function properly. The drivers are designed to establish communication between the device you connect and your operating system. If they’re corrupted you won’t be able to use or access your SD card correctly.

1. Right-click Start and click Device Manager.
2. Expand the Disk drives dropdown. Right-click your SD card and click Properties.
3. In the Driver tab, click Update Driver.
4. Click Search automatically for drivers.
5. If there were no updates available, click Close.
6. Click on Uninstall Device.

Method 5: Windows Repair Tool

You can use the error checking tool to scan any attached storage media for immediate problems. It actually uses the CheckDisk command we used earlier, but using an interface rather than a terminal.

Use the steps to scan your SD card for errors:

1. Make sure your SD card is connected and open File Explorer.
2. Right-click your SD card and click Properties.
3. In the Tools tab, click Check.
4. Click Scan and repair drive.

Method 6: Make Use of DiskPart to Recover Images From SD Card Without Formatting

In some cases, your SD card may be inaccessible because it’s marked as read-only. When in read-only mode, you cannot write new data to the SD card or edit the existing data.

Follow the below mentioned steps to remove the read-only mode from the SD card using DiskPart:

1. Right-click Start and select Windows PowerShell (Admin).
2. Type diskpart and press Enter.
3. Type list volume and press Enter.
4. Type select volume 4. Replace 4 with the number of your own volume.
5. Type attributes disk clear read only and press Enter. Once you do, the read-only attribute will be removed.

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