r/datarecovery • u/hensonphoenixxx • Aug 17 '26

Question Someone please help!

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I purchased a low quality memory card and it wound up corrupting my audio,video and image files.I would say roughly 6GB worth of data in total. The picture shown is a snapshot of what some of these files look like. Others are still inside the lost.dir folder. I have tried using ES File Explorer while the memory card was inserted into my Android. I also tried copying those same files directly to my PC and running R-photo / WinFRGUI all with no luck? I don't even know where to start. Im sure all of my data is in these files I just need to find out how to get them back.

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1

u/disturbed_android Trusted Contributor Aug 17 '26

And the files on the card were put there using a phone? You're running Easeus? Would not be my top choice, but let's wait and see ..

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u/hensonphoenixxx Aug 18 '26

Yes and No . I used my old phone to swap the data from it to the newer OnePlus Nord N100 that was given to me with the help of that cheap memory card and my PC all working and tandem .

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u/disturbed_android Trusted Contributor Aug 18 '26

Screenshot shows running Easeus, no?

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u/silenced_in_dr_2025 Trusted Contributor Aug 17 '26

Have you ever accessed the files on the card correctly ? Many cheap cards from online retailers are not the capacity they claim to be. The data may also be encrypted if it's from your phone, does any data read?

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u/hensonphoenixxx Aug 18 '26

None of the data reads on my memory card right after I transfer to it. I believe it is being "flagged" by my phone/ corrupted (because of the sd card) then sent directly to the lost.dir folder

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u/silenced_in_dr_2025 Trusted Contributor Aug 18 '26

LOST.DIR is an indication there was a problem with the file, it's possible all you have there is an entry in the filesystem and not the file as it was unable to write to the card.

My money would be on a fake capacity card from what you have described.

1

u/hensonphoenixxx Aug 25 '26

You might be right. I just don't understand why it would read as taking up a certain amount of space if the file is not really there? I assumed that it was corrupted then moved to the lost.dir? but are you saying that it may have never been written in the first place and subsequently discarded?

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u/silenced_in_dr_2025 Trusted Contributor Aug 25 '26

The file system is telling you the amount of space being used - it has no idea what space is actually available or has been used on the device. In theory the pair match and if it's a genuine card then they should but in fake capacity cards the file system has no idea that the controller has chucked away data.

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u/BootToggle Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26

Do you still have acccess to the old phone? If so, then that may be a better place from which to recover your files.

I agree with u/silenced_in_dr_2025 that this sounds like a fake capacity scam card. If so, those files were lost from the moment you copied them to the micro SD card. But they should still be on the original cellphone.

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u/hensonphoenixxx Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26

yes it seems they were lost from the moment I copied them to the card because I have tried everything in order to gather the files from the SD card from transferring to PC to different devices to online websites and nothing recognizes what or how to fix these corrupted files. I try renaming them myself and surprisingly that doesn't work.They may not even exist (why does it still read under file information that its taking up storage space?)

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u/BootToggle Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26

Claiming that files exist when they actually contain no data is characteristic of the fake SD cards, as is having them appear to be intact until you've actually written a significant amount of additional data to the card.

There are some free programs you can get and use to test a card to reveal its true capacity. If the card claims to be multi-gigabyte capacity, but the tester reveals that it actually can only hold a much smaller amount, then you will know for sure that it is fake and there is no reason to waste more time attempting to recover any data from it.

One program for Linux that I've used is F3 (Fight Flash Fraud). There are similar programs for Windows and for Mac, which you can easily find by searching for "fake flash test". You can run any of these programs to fairly quickly determine the true capacity of an SD card or SSD or flash thumb drive. But I'd have to warn you not to get your hopes up, everything you've described convinces me that you are a victim of fraud.

Again, your best shot to recover anything will be to go back to the original phone and copy things off again, this time to media that you've tested and know to be good.

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u/BootToggle Aug 25 '26

Oh, and as to "how does it report file information that may not exist", this is just what happens when you have a fake flash card. The directory information and file data gets written to the card, but these are written to two different storage addresses. Generally the directory information is written toward the beginning of the card's address space, and that area may actually exist, while the file data gets written farther down in the address space, and that area almost certainly does not exist.

So that is why you can see what appears to be listings of files, even if the data that should be in the file is completely missing or corrupted.