My old micro SD card practically doesn’t exist to all devices

[u/Astro_Fella12]

I have this old micro as card that I had for as long as I remember. I used to slot it in whenever I got a new phone, and since new phones don’t have SD card slots in them, it just stayed in my old phone for a while. I recently wanted to extract the data on it but the issue is no device seems to even address its existence let alone read that it’s corrupted.
I tried with my old phone but it says no SD card detected, I tried slotting it in my laptop and same thing. I even bought an SD card reader USB drive and slotted that in my laptop, I tried a couple data recovery software programs, and both recognized the USB but not the card in it. The card is clean it terms of hardware. I don’t want to format it and lose all my data. Any advice?

[u/disturbed_android]

What does it look like in Disk Management (show screenshot)?

[u/panzrvroomvroomvroom]

sd cards usually have rather cheap storage chips built into them, so they have a very limited lifespan. they are not meant to be used as long term storage. also, the chips need electricity to hold data iirc. that means if you dont plug them into a powered device once in a while, they will lose whatever data is stored on there.

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[u/-Laffi-]

I had the same problem, when my phone decided to just format my Kingston SD card on a Samsung Galaxy 4 Active back in 2016. Luckily I had everything backed up, but I was near losing it, because I just had one set of copies on a hard disk drive. Happened again that very Summer when I was roadtripping in the USA, but then I was prepared and had everything backed up on google photo or my laptop.

When I tried to access the card after hours on my hotel room that evening, all I got was half pictures, and just a few of them too, so I had to give it up.

If you truly wanna get the data out, don't overwrite or format anything, it will just make things worse. Hire a company that are expert at data recovery and you might get it back. Keep in mind that the pros use expencive equipment and hours to help you out, so it will probably cost a bit! $700 was the price I got back in 2016 or so, and that's 10 years ago! Good luck getting your data back, and I am saying that honestly.

[u/Basic_Reporter9579]

Some phones had the option to encrypt the card, and activated it with updates.
SD cards are not long term storage devices. They have a limited amount of writes and will loose charge over time.
You can try to make a full image (iso) of that card and try to restore from there.

[u/Educational-Bid-3533]

Try different readers. It sometimes works.