SD Card Partition Recovery: How to Recover SD Card Partition

If you accidentally deleted a partition on your SD card, or if the partition has stopped showing up in File Explorer, you’re not the first. It’s a tricky situation, but it’s often possible to fix it without any bad consequences like data loss. We’ll show you exactly what steps you can take to recover a lost partition on your SD card and restore access to your files. Stick with us—we’ll make it simple.

Is it Possible to Recover Lost or Deleted SD Card Partitions?

Yes, it’s absolutely possible to recover lost or deleted SD card partitions.

SD card partitions can be more prone to corruption or deletion because they are often used with multiple devices. Some common reasons for partition loss are virus attacks, abrupt ejection, sudden device crashes, accidental formatting, etc.

The partition table is like a map that helps your device locate files on the card. When you delete a partition, you’re erasing the map, but the files themselves are still there. Without the map, your device can’t see or access the files, but they’re not erased.

To give your SD card the best chance of recovery, keep the card untouched until you’re ready to use our recovery method.

4 Steps to Recover Lost Partition on SD Card

We’ll walk you through the entire memory card partition recovery process in four steps. We’ve structured it to start with the simplest things you can try—who knows, maybe you’ll fix the problem in step one! If not, the later steps go into more advanced methods to recover your lost partition and restore access again. Let’s get started.

Step #1: Check the SD Card Drive Letter in Disk Management

The first step is to check if your computer recognizes the SD card and assigns it a drive letter. A missing or incorrect drive letter might be the reason your partition isn’t showing up. This is a simple fix and could solve the problem right away.

To check your SD card we’ll need Disk Management, it’s Windows’ go-to tool for anything related to drives. It shows drive status, drive letters, partitions, and more, this tool is where you should start.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Press Windows + X on your keyboard, and from the menu that appears, select Disk Management. This will open a tool that displays all connected drives and their status.
2. Look through the list of drives to locate your SD card. If it doesn’t have a drive letter assigned, it’s why the card isn’t visible in File Explorer.
3. Right-click on your SD card and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths.
4. If no drive letter exists, select Add to create one. If there is a drive letter but the card isn’t accessible, click Change to assign a new letter. Choose a letter not currently in use, like “Z,” and confirm your choice.
5. Open File Explorer to check if the SD card now appears and is accessible. If the card works, your problem is solved.

If your SD card shows up as an Unallocated space or as a RAW, this means the partition is deleted or corrupted. In this state, you’ll need recovery tools to restore the lost partition or recover the data. Proceed to the next step to back up your files and prepare for recovery.

Step #2: Back Up Your SD Card

If that didn’t work, the second step is to back up your files. This is especially important because the next method uses TestDisk, a recovery tool that often fixes partitions and restores access to your files without any trouble. But there are times when things don’t go as expected, and data can be lost during the process. A backup gives you a safety net just in case.

But you can’t access your files in File Explorer, how to make a backup? That’s where data recovery software comes in. These programs don’t require the SD card to work perfectly—they just need it to be detected in Disk Management. If Disk Management recognizes the card, even as unallocated or RAW, recovery software can make a backup image of your SD card, and, if something goes wrong, can scan and retrieve your files from this image, including existing, deleted, and hidden ones.

In our opinion, Disk Drill is one of the best tools of its kind because of its powerful recovery capabilities, impressive performance, and user-friendly interface. It doesn’t matter if you’re tech-savvy or not—with Disk Drill recovery takes just a couple of clicks.

Here’s a how to make a backup of your SD card with Disk Drill:

1. Download and Install Disk Drill from their official website. Once the download is complete, you can go on to the steps required for installation.
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   Beware: We strongly advise against downloading the software from third-party websites. Harmful malware can latch onto your system from these installers.

2. To begin the process, connect the SD card to your computer. You can either do this with a card reader or use your laptop or PC’s built-in card reader.
3. On Disk Drill’s main screen, select the Byte-to-Byte Backup option.
4. Choose your SD Card and click on Byte-to-Byte Backup button.
5. Disk Drill will prompt you to pick a location to save the backup file. Choose a storage device with enough free space to hold the entire card image.

Once the backup is complete, you can move on to the next step in the recovery process. This backup will give you a safety net in case anything goes wrong. If your SD card loses its data during recovery attempts, you can return to this step and use the backup image to recover your files.

Step #3: Restore the SD Card Partition with TestDisk

Now, it’s time to use TestDisk. TestDisk is a powerful, open-source tool that can recover lost partitions. We’ve used it many times in situations exactly like this, and more often than not, it gets the job done.

Here’s what TestDisk can do:

• Recover lost or deleted partitions.
• Rebuild damaged partition tables.
• Repair FAT, NTFS, and ext2/ext3 file systems.
• Fix boot sectors on FAT and NTFS volumes.

That said, TestDisk isn’t as user-friendly as tools like Disk Drill. It requires a command-line interface and manual input, which makes it a bit tricky for beginners. You’ll need to follow this guide closely and double-check each step. Be extra careful to select the correct storage device—choosing the wrong one could lead to irreversible data loss.

You can follow these steps to recover a lost SD card partition with TestDisk on Windows:

1. Download the TestDisk recovery software from the official site. Once you’ve downloaded the folder, extract it. In our case, the folder was named “testdisk-7.2”.
2. Open the folder and navigate to the testdisk_win application. Now, launch it. A terminal home screen will appear on your screen. Select the Create or No Log option and hit Enter. TestDisk will now scan your computer for connected devices.
3. Select the SD card from the list of devices and Proceed. Select the partition table on the next screen and press Enter again.
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   TestDisk will usually detect this automatically, so you can confirm the selection and move forward.

   

4. Now, TestDisk will present you with various options. You can select the Analyze option and initiate a Quick Search to begin the SD card partition recovery process.
5. Once the detected partition appears on the screen, you can press Enter to continue. When you navigate to the next screen, you can select the Deeper Search option to scan the lost or deleted SD card partition.
6. After the scan is complete, you can select the partition you wish to recover and follow the prompts on the screen. You can press P to list all the files and C to copy the selected files. Once the selection is made, TestDisk will copy the files to your selected folder, and the “Copy Done!” message will appear on your screen.

If TestDisk doesn’t fix the problem, that’s okay—we’re prepared for this outcome. Since we created a complete backup earlier, your data is safe and it’s time to get it off the SD card.

Step #4: Retrieve Your Files From the Backup

To get your files from the byte-for-byte backup, the first step is to mount the backup image in Disk Drill. It’ll make a backup image look like a real drive on your computer, so you’ll be able to scan it just as if it were the original SD card.

Here’s how you can retrieve your files from the backup image:

1. Open Disk Drill, click Attach Disk Image at the bottom, and select the backup file.
2. After the image loads select it, and use the Search for Lost Data button to scan it.
3. Disk Drill will organize the files it finds into categories like Pictures, Videos, Audio, Documents, and so on. You can filter through the results.
4. You can click on Review found items to see a list of all found files.
5. Disk Drill will show a list of recoverable files, grouped into categories like existing files, deleted files, and hidden files.
6. You’ll see the success rate indicator provided for each file. Disk Drill uses markers like low, average, or high to estimate the likelihood of successful recovery. This is particularly useful for deleted/lost files, as not all data can be recovered in perfect condition. Since you’re after your existing files, they should recover just fine.
7. Preview the files you want to recover. Just hover your mouse over the eye button to the right of the file name.
8. Select the files you wish to retrieve and select the Recover button.
9. Choose a location to save the recovered files.

Step #5: Format the SD Card

The last step is to get your SD card back to normal so you can use it just like before (especially if TestDisk didn’t fix your card). To do that, we’ll need to format it.

Formatting is a sure thing—it wipes your SD card clean and creates a new partition structure, which makes it work like it’s brand new. This process will erase all the data on the card, but since you’ve already got your files off of it, it shouldn’t be a problem.

To format your SD card, we’ll need to head back to Disk Management. Look for your SD card in the list of drives. It might show up as unallocated or RAW, formatting will fix this and make the card usable again.

Scenario 1: Here’s how to format your SD card if it shows as RAW:

1. Right-click the SD card and select Format.
2. In the Format window, choose a file system like FAT32 for compatibility or exFAT for larger SD cards.
3. Keep the allocation unit size at the default setting.
4. Check Quick Format for faster formatting, then click OK.
5. Disk Management will reformat the card and create a new file system.

Scenario 2: Here’s how to format your SD card if it shows as Unallocated:

1. Right-click the unallocated space on the SD card and choose New Simple Volume.
2. The New Simple Volume Wizard will open. Click Next to proceed.
3. Follow the wizard to assign a drive letter to the SD card (e.g., “E” or “F”).
4. Now format it with a file system (such as NTFS or FAT32).
5. Leave the allocation unit size at the default setting.
6. Check Quick Format, then click Next and Finish.

Formatting is a solution for many problems with SD cards and usually works without any issues. Whether your card showed up as RAW or unallocated, this step should resolve the problem.

Summing Up

After these four steps, your SD card should now be fully functional. You should now see your SD card in File Explorer, ready to use. Simply transfer the files we backed up in Step #2 back to the card, and it’ll be as if nothing ever happened. Your SD card is now fully functional and ready to go!

When it comes to recovery, it’s important to stick with trusted tools. We highlighted Disk Drill and TestDisk because they’ve been around for years and have proven themselves reliable.

We’ve heard from people who Googled “SD partition recovery” and downloaded the first app they saw, only to make things worse. Using random, unverified tools can lead to more problems, corrupt your data, or make recovery impossible later.

Take your time, rely on proven tools, and you’ll avoid unnecessary problems. With tested SD card recovery tools like Disk Drill and TestDisk, you’ll keep your SD data safe.

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