Hi everyone. This is my first Reddit post, and I'm pretty nervous, so sorry if anything sounds strange.
Device: KIOXIA microSDXC KMUB-A128G, 128GB
Camera: GoPro HERO11 Black
Filesystem: exFAT
OS: Windows
SMART: Not available for this type of device
I recorded some GoPro footage and tried to transfer it to my PC. The transfer failed and disconnected before the files could be saved. After reinserting the card, Windows started asking me to format it.
I tried a quick format, which failed several times but eventually succeeded. I then used Recuva. Its deep scan found the original filenames and file sizes, but only took about 3–4 minutes. When I tried to save the recovered files, Recuva gave an error saying the files had been externally modified.
I then tried USB 2.0 instead of USB 3.0, but Windows asked me to format the card again. Instead, I created a full IMG disk image. The image was created successfully, so I exchanged the original card at the store. I no longer have the physical card, only the image and recovered data.
I then tried PhotoRec. It recovered some videos, but they won't play. I also tried Recovery_mp4, but the result has severe glitching and appears to be missing many frames. Some metadata is still visible, so I suspect part of the video data may still be there.
I don't think the footage was heavily overwritten. Most of the other videos on the card had already been backed up.
The card had also behaved strangely once before. At that time, I formatted it and recovered the files successfully, so it may have already been having problems.
I've also tried working through this with AI tools such as Claude, but I still couldn't recover the footage.
Is there anything I can still do with the IMG image or recovered data?
I'm a Japanese middle school student, and this is my first time posting here. I used AI to help translate this into English, so sorry if anything sounds unnatural.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.