How to Recover Photos from SD Card without Formatting?

SD Cards are very useful storage devices that allow you to extend the storage capacity of your digital cameras, mobile phones, and other devices. It makes our day-to-day task of transferring and storing data very simple. But like other storage devices, SD cards are also vulnerable to internal or external damage. These damages sometimes lead to data loss issues where all the data stored in your SD card gets deleted.

Are you facing problems accessing your photos, videos, or any other files from your SD card because they’re corrupted or damaged? If yes, don’t worry. We will help you understand why such issues usually occur and how to overcome them. To know how to recover photos from SD cards without formatting, keep on reading this post.

Why Formatting the SD Card Is Required?

There are many reasons why you should format your SD card. Before you learn SD card recovery methods, it will be helpful if you find out why formatting is necessary. Some of these include:

It is considered good practice to format the new storage device before saving data.
When you change the Operating system of your device, you may need to format its storage disk.

Sometimes, your SD card gets corrupted due to virus attacks, improper read/write processes, or any other reasons. You can uncorrupt your SD card by formatting it.
You can use different file systems employed by different operating systems after formatting your SD card and other storage devices.

How do I Recover Photos from SD Card without Formatting?

You need a professional photo recovery tool to recover data from an SD without formatting. Stellar Photo Recovery is the best tool for photo recovery from an SD card that you can use to recover your lost photos in a few simple clicks. It can recover data from almost all storage devices, including hard, external, and USB drives.

Some fantastic features of Stellar Photo Recovery tool that make it best for photo recovery from SD card without formatting:

This software recovers your photos deleted from corrupted or damaged SD cards and cameras, HDDs, SSDs, and other storage devices.
Recover photos, videos, and audio files of multiple formats with simple clicks.
It can even recover lost RAW image files of popular camera brands.

The software supports the recovery of photos in multiple formats, including JPEG, JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, etc.
It also lets you retrieve your deleted photos from an encrypted HDD, SSD, flash drive, or SD card.
It lets you preview the recoverable files before saving them on your device.

Now let’s go through the step-by-step instructions to recover photos from SD Card without formatting using this photo recovery tool:

Before you start the SD card recovery process to get your deleted photos, you need to download and install the Stellar Photo Recovery software in your system.
Connect the SD card to your computer using the card reader.
Launch the software and select the location from the Select Location to Scan window from where you need to get your deleted photos back. Click Scan to continue.

When the scanning process gets completed, preview the recoverable files.

Now, select all photos you want and click the “Recover” button to save them at the desired location.

That’s it! Once you are done with the above steps, selected photos will be saved at the location and after that, you will be able to access them easily.

Quick Methods to Fix Corrupted SD Cards

The SD mentioned above card recovery steps to get deleted photos back are quite easy to implement. But fixing your corrupted SD cards is essential to avoid such data loss issues. Some standard measures that you can try to fix corrupted SD cards are:

Method 01: Check Your Hidden Files In SD Cards

Sometimes, your photos are not completely deleted from your SD cards. They are just hidden. In such cases, you can unhide your photos by applying the following steps:

First, connect your SD card to your system.
Go to File Explorer and then click Tools.

Now, click Folder options and then go to the View tab.
Expand and click on the Hidden Files and Folder option.

After that, check if you can access the hidden files.

Method 02: Use CHKDSK Command

Windows CMD utility tool can also help you to fix corrupted SD cards. You can run the CHKDSK command to check the file system for physical errors. All you have to do is:

Type CMD in the search bar of your desktop and then select Run as administrator.

Type the command: chkdsk X: /f in the CMD screen. (Replace X with the letter assigned to your SD card)
Press Enter key and wait till the command gets successfully executed. The exact time to execute this process depends on the volume of data your SD card contains.

Method 03: Use Windows Troubleshooter to Fix SD Card Issues

You can even use Windows’ in-built troubleshooter tool to find and fix errors related to your device hardware. For this:

You need to connect your SD card to your device.
Open the Settings app and go to Update and Security tab.

Go to Troubleshoot from the left navigation pane and click the “Run the troubleshooter” button.

Tips to Avoid Photo Loss Issues Due to SD Card Corruption

Keep the following tips in your mind to avoid SD card corruption:

When you encounter that photos are deleted from your SD card, immediately stop using it.
Prefer formatting your SD card whenever you need to delete all its content rather than deleting it all.
Always disconnect your SD card using the “Eject” or “Safe Remove Hardware” options.

Make a habit to create a backup of your important data in case of loss.
Also, ensure that the version of your operating system and installed software programs are virus-free.

Wrapping Up

After reading this post, you must know how to recover photos from the SD card without formatting. Recovering data from an SD card is complex because of its small size. If you have essential data on your SD card or even any other storage device, always create its backup. However, you can use professional photo recovery tools, like Stellar Photo Recovery to get your deleted photos back from your SD card even without formatting it. Nevertheless, you can also try other methods mentioned in this article to fix your corrupted SD cards to avoid data loss issues.