Dead SD card

[Freedom Kira]

So I know this is completely unrelated to BakaBT, but since there are a few of you people who are good with electronics, I figured I might as well ask and see if you guys can help more than Google can.

I removed the MicroSD card (Kingston 2GB) from my cell phone (Nokia 6300/6301) to do some maintenance on it. As far as I know it's hot-swappable, and hot swapping never caused any problems before.

Anyway, when I tried to put it back in, the phone picked up the card but couldn't read it. It ended up freezing up the phone for a minute or so, and then when I regained control, I tried to open it and it gave me the error message "card not formatted, operation failed" or something similar.

So then I took the card out of the phone and put it in an adapter (Sandisk MicroSD/SDHC to SD/SDHC), and shoved that into a USB card reader (Rosewill). The computer (XP SP3) could not detect the card, but recognized that the reader was there, thus giving the error message "Please insert a disk into drive H:".

After that, I took the card back out, and put it back into the phone. At this point, the phone did not detect the card at all. I turned the phone off and back on, and the card showed up again, but it still can't be read.

I then took the card and shoved it back into the adapter, and this time put that card into my laptop (XP SP3). For the heck of it I also slid the write lock on the adapter into the locked position. Explorer froze for a good two minutes. Regained control, opened "My Computer" and tried to access the card. Froze Explorer for another 30 seconds, and then an error message pops up saying that the disk cannot be accessed because of an I/O device error. Tried a few times, no luck.

At this point I've kinda given up on the card, but I still want the data that is stored on it. I have another MicroSD card lying around that I can use, but all the useful data on the dead card I can't seem to access.

So here's my question. Does anyone know a way to force read/mount a dead MicroSD card? I've run into results on Google about people trying to recover actual functionality of the card by reformatting it, but at this point I just want the data on it, so of course I don't want to reformat it.
I've been lucky enough to recover data from a dead HDD and even restore its functionality, but a flash card is different...
I haven't tried anything on Linux yet, because, to be honest, I'm not sure what to do...

I have access to:
A desktop computer running XP SP3 as mentioned above, with a P4 3.0GHz, 4GB RAM, 200GB/320GB HDDs.
A desktop computer running XP SP3 (another one), AMD (not sure about the processor but it's older), 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD.
An HP laptop (model 6830s) with an SD card reader, running XP SP3 as mentioned above, Core 2 Duo P8400, 3GB RAM, 250GB HDD. It's got dual boot with Ubuntu 9.10, which I haven't bothered to keep updated because I prefer running Ubuntu in a virtual machine in XP, which is kept updated with 10.04.
A desktop computer running Ubuntu 10.04, which I use for seeding, Intel Atom (not sure about the exact model), 1GB RAM, 500GB HDD aside from four RAID drives used for storage.
An old desktop computer I use at work, runs a Celeron. Not sure of the RAM, but HDD is 80GB and it's a Dell. Runs Ubuntu 10.04.

[Soryon]

Im thinking this shoulda been in the technology threads.

[Freedom Kira]

Im thinking this shoulda been in the technology threads.

Hmm, it kinda fits into both... I dunno. Frustration got the better of me this time, heh.

[Southrop]

Moved to Technology.

[vuzedome]

Format it, it's the only way. Then use a disk recovery tool to get the data back.

[Lupin]

Format it, it's the only way. Then use a disk recovery tool to get the data back.

A recovery tool won't get any data back. It's flash memory.

You can try dumping the contents of the drive in linux using dd

[costi]

Lexar includes some very good recovery tools with their cards, may look for it via google.

Also, take a look at photo recovery software - there programs are geared specifically towards cards and usually can recover all types of files, not just photos.

[Freedom Kira]

Thanks for the replies.

Format it, it's the only way. Then use a disk recovery tool to get the data back.

I wasn't aware there was disk recovery technology available for flash memory... I wish I could though.
Edit: I take that back. I had no idea there were actual recovery tools available for deleted data on flash cards. I didn't think it would be possible because of how flash memory works compared to HDDs.

You can try dumping the contents of the drive in linux using dd

Hmm, that's if I can mount it, right? I guess I can try it and see if Linux can even see the card.
BTW what would the "of" be if I'm using dd? An .iso file?

Lexar includes some very good recovery tools with their cards, may look for it via google.

Also, take a look at photo recovery software - there programs are geared specifically towards cards and usually can recover all types of files, not just photos.

Hmm, that's interesting. I wonder if a recovery tool made by Lexar would work with a Kingston card though; maybe a Lexar card is manufactured slightly differently. I'll take a look around.

[costi]

The software is called Lexar Image Rescue 4 and it supposedly works with all cards. Lexar products are aimed at professionals, so I don't think they'd include such stupid limitations in their software.
I'd upload mine, but I can't find the CD that came with my card, sorry.

EDIT: try this: http://lexar.com/drivers/files/ImageRescue_2.0-u(b16).zip It's an older version from Lexar site, but maybe it'll work.

[Lupin]

Hmm, that's if I can mount it, right? I guess I can try it and see if Linux can even see the card.
BTW what would the "of" be if I'm using dd? An .iso file?

dd will dump all the contents of the drive into a binary file which you can then mount.

BTW, Have you tried reading the drive using another card reader?

[Freedom Kira]

The software is called Lexar Image Rescue 4 and it supposedly works with all cards. Lexar products are aimed at professionals, so I don't think they'd include such stupid limitations in their software.
I'd upload mine, but I can't find the CD that came with my card, sorry.

EDIT: try this: http://lexar.com/drivers/files/ImageRescue_2.0-u(b16).zip It's an older version from Lexar site, but maybe it'll work.

That's awesome. I'll give it a try later and report back.

Let me know if you can find the CD, haha. The newest version would probably be best.

Hmm, that's if I can mount it, right? I guess I can try it and see if Linux can even see the card.
BTW what would the "of" be if I'm using dd? An .iso file?

dd will dump all the contents of the drive into a binary file which you can then mount.

BTW, Have you tried reading the drive using another card reader?

Hmm. I read a Wikipedia page on dd and it seemed that it was necessary to specify an of. No extension needed, then?

And nope, don't have one available... actually I do. Highly doubt it'll work because it's an older reader though. It doesn't even seem to support SDHC from the label on it. Trying it right now.

... Doesn't seem to work. Explorer's been frozen for about four minutes now. The reader does seem to acknowledge that there's something inserted though.

Edit: Unfroze after 18 minutes with the same error - not accessible, I/O error.

And now I'm almost positive I don't have another card reader to try.

[costi]

Okay, I checked this older version and it's just some sort of updater... sorry.

[Freedom Kira]

Okay, I checked this older version and it's just some sort of updater... sorry.

Dang. I haven't downloaded it yet, but I was about to.

Time to check some... other sources.

[vuzedome]

Flash cards, SSD, HDD, all the same, there are those miracle recovery tools out there that can recover nearly anything, unless if it is in a bad sector.

[fohfoh]

in the past I used PCInspector or something along those lines to recover pics from an MSPD card. (Had deleted them and then my HDD died).

On the other hand, it wasn't a reformat? Dunno. I'll go home later and double check the software.

I had problems getting anything using recuva though.

[Freedom Kira]

in the past I used PCInspector or something along those lines to recover pics from an MSPD card. (Had deleted them and then my HDD died).

On the other hand, it wasn't a reformat? Dunno. I'll go home later and double check the software.

I had problems getting anything using recuva though.

Hmm. So that was a recover from a working card that had deleted files, right?

Biggest problem for me is that the computer can't even communicate with the card...

Anyway, I got Image Rescue 3 off TPB (hope saying that here isn't disallowed). With the SD card inserted, I'm trying to start the program. It starts up very fast without the card inserted, but it's taking forever when it is inserted. I guess I'll leave this for an hour or so...

[fohfoh]

Try waiting a time period before trying. Sometimes the cards will "work" after a wait. My HDD was like that (I thought it was dead). Strangely enough, after a long period of time (several months) I decided to try again and see what would happen. The enclosure was pretty much fucked but the HDD was responding to direct plugging to a computer. So I tried that. The info is fucked. I tried several times. I got random stuff, but not the stuff I actually wanted. (Didn't even know my bro's stuff was on it).

Tried PCInspector, recuva and one other which I forget the name. (The last one was shitty as hell). I seriously got like 3GB Of worthless shit from a 500GB HDD.

But yes, a recover from a card that had deleted files. Did you ever consider finding a new card reader to try?

[Freedom Kira]

Try waiting a time period before trying. Sometimes the cards will "work" after a wait. My HDD was like that (I thought it was dead). Strangely enough, after a long period of time (several months) I decided to try again and see what would happen. The enclosure was pretty much fucked but the HDD was responding to direct plugging to a computer. So I tried that. The info is fucked. I tried several times. I got random stuff, but not the stuff I actually wanted. (Didn't even know my bro's stuff was on it).

Tried PCInspector, recuva and one other which I forget the name. (The last one was shitty as hell). I seriously got like 3GB Of worthless shit from a 500GB HDD.

But yes, a recover from a card that had deleted files. Did you ever consider finding a new card reader to try?

Though that's a HDD you're talking about. It's a mechanical device, so there's some hope there. A flash card isn't mechanical, so I doubt leaving it for a while would help.

I might give PCInspector a try though, because you were able to recover stuff from a failed drive, rather than deleted files on a working drive, which sounds more like my situation.

And well, the card can't be read on three different readers (phone, laptop, desktop card reader), and while I keep using the same adapter I don't think that makes a difference (because the phone takes microSD, while the laptop and desktop readers take SD). So I don't think getting another card reader would help unless it is specifically designed to force read cards and perhaps advertised as such.

Oddly enough, I notice a bit of excess heat coming from the card when I remove it from the computer when it's frozen (which effectively unfreezes the computer). I hope that's not a bad sign...

[vuzedome]

Give R-Studio a shot, and I'm pretty sure you know where to look for it.

[Freedom Kira]

Give R-Studio a shot, and I'm pretty sure you know where to look for it.

Heh, gotcha. Will try it after PCInspector. No luck so far though.

Edit: Giving up on PCInspector. When the card is not inserted, its disk detection system finds all the drives within 2 seconds. With the card inserted, it takes half an hour to an hour, and the card is not detected in the end. R-Studio, here goes.

Edit: So, I'm running version 5.2 portable. It's not picking up the card either, but it at least acknowledges that the card reader is there.

Edit: Gave up on portable and installed version 5.2. It's the same interface so it might be the same program, just running off the system drive. Also doesn't work. From here I think I'll try dd in Linux.