I'm reaching out for some urgent help. Two years ago, I lost my brother, and I had around 3000 precious photos of us on my phone. To free up space, I moved those photos to a 128GB SanDisk SD card, but now I can't see them. The card shows that it's using up space, implying that something is there, but all the folders are empty. I live in a remote village in the Himalayas, where access to repair services is nearly impossible. I haven't formatted the card or added new files since I discovered the issue. Any advice on tools or steps I can take to recover these photos would mean a lot to me. Thank you for any help you can provide!
4 Answers
First things first, you should really reach out to the person who transferred your files to the SD card and find out exactly what he did. It might give you some clues on how to recover your photos. Also, try connecting the SD card to a computer or using a card reader—sometimes they can hide in there!
First, check if you can read any data on the card. It’s a good idea to connect it to a Linux machine and use 'dd' to create an image file of the SD card. This way, you can do your recovery from this image without risking further damage to the original data.
So sorry for your loss. If you're using a computer or card reader to access the files, let us know the device type—like, which phone you have. There are tools like Recuva that might help recover the data, but it might be best to wait for more suggestions since other users might know more advanced methods.
Have you tried checking your SD card on your camera? If it doesn’t show up on a Windows PC, make sure the files aren't hidden. You can do this by going to File Explorer, then View > Options > View tab, and select "Show hidden files, folders, and drives." Also, consider running an antivirus scan on the card to rule out malware. It can help!
Yes, checking for hidden files is a good idea! If your files are hidden because of a virus, you’ll need to use the command prompt to remove those attributes. The command is: attrib -h -r -s /s /d X:*. * (replace X with your SD card letter). I’ve had success with that before.