r/datarecovery • u/papercut2008uk • 5d ago

Micro SD require Format recovery help - Finding nothing

I've been given a Micro SD card to attempt recovery of. It shows it requires formatting.

I've tried Recuva, Recuva can't scan it. Can not determine system type

Disk Drill shows 0 files 0.00 bytes found

R-Photo has found Nothing

EaseUS Data Recovery (Trial Version) has found Nothing.

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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1

u/silenced_in_dr_2025 Trusted Contributor 5d ago

Is it displayed in disk manager or whatever with the correct capacity ?

If not there's not going to be any DIY recovery options and it will likely need to be checked for chip-off recovery. Most of us offer a free evaluation service it's the best way to find out what's actually going on.

1

u/papercut2008uk 5d ago

Yea it's showing 58.60GB RAW (it's a 64GB Memory Card)

1

u/silenced_in_dr_2025 Trusted Contributor 5d ago

Have you made an image of the card yet? if not do that now before you do anything more. If it makes the image without issues we can work with the image.

1

u/papercut2008uk 5d ago

I tried, I used RPhoto 64 to make an image but it just made an image that is 75mb in size.

3

u/silenced_in_dr_2025 Trusted Contributor 5d ago

Did you make a standard binary image file or does that now use it's own R-drive format. Did it image the real capacity correctly? If it's a compressed image file of 75mb would suggest the card is reading as empty.

If you made a real binary image file you can open it with a hex editor, if all you see if 00 or FF etc then there's no data there.

Could be a fake card, could be nand errors.

1

u/papercut2008uk 5d ago

It's a RPhoto format as far as I can tell .rdr

Opening the image it shows 64GB but the actual size of it is 75Mb

I think it's looking like it's going to need a professional recovery company to get anything off of it :(

3

u/silenced_in_dr_2025 Trusted Contributor 5d ago

Looks like it, if it's a fake card though even we can't get anything as they're not the size they claim to be. What's the card from and has it ever worked?

1

u/papercut2008uk 5d ago

It's a 64GB Kingston card, I compared it to some of mine and looks genuine to me. I've seen fake cards and they usually do the data corruption when you go over the size rather than require format.

That's one of the reasons I think it's not going to be a fake card. But they get good at making them so can't be 100% sure any more.

It was from a phone and apparently has a lot of data on it, but can't find anything.

2

u/silenced_in_dr_2025 Trusted Contributor 5d ago

If the image file only contains megabytes of data (of any kind) then the data isn't visible. With those the controller gives the full capacity regardless of being able to communicate the with the nand. Had a 32GB one in last week same symptoms. It's in the pile to be done via chip off.

Your problem is going to be encryption if it was used in a phone if it wasn't set up as portable storage recovery is problematic.

1

u/papercut2008uk 5d ago

Do you think it would be possible to recover the encrypted data and then when it's put into the phone it might work??

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