How to Fix Damaged SD Card and Recover Data

Use chkdsk to fix a corrupted SD card without data loss

"chkdsk" command is your first choice for damaged SD card recovery. Requiring no format, it allows you to fix a corrupted SD card without data loss. Now let’s look how it works. (I'm using Windows 7 for this demonstration)

1. Plug in your SD card to your computer with a card reader.

2. Go to the start menu, type in "cmd" in a search bar, hit enter and then you can see something named "cmd. exe" under a list of programs.

3. Right click "cmd. exe" and then you will get the following command windows that allow you to fix your corrupted SD card without format.  

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

Finishing all the steps, Windows will check and fix the file system of the SD card. It usually takes several minutes. After that, if you see "Windows has made corrections to the file system" in the command window, then congratulations! The damaged SD card is successfully fixed and you can access your data with ease. If not, you should try a third-party data recovery software to fix the damaged SD card and get back your data with an efficient damaged SD card recovery.