SD cards are everywhere. Digital cameras, camcorders, and all kinds of portable devices rely on them because they’re compact and easy to use.
If you’re having trouble getting to your favorite videos or photos on an SD card, corruption is probably to blame. Corruption can also leave your card showing up as RAW or just plain unreadable. So how do you tell if your SD card is actually corrupted? Keep reading, the next section walks you through the warning signs and explains how they end up blocking you from your own data.
Quick Navigation:
- How do I know my SD card is corrupt?
- Recover data from the corrupt SD card
- Fix a corrupt SD card without formatting
- Repair a corrupt SD card by formatting
- How to fix a corrupt SD card on a Mac?
- Frequently Asked Questions
Indications of a Corrupt SD Card
Here are a few signs that your SD card might be corrupt or damaged. If you run into any of these, back up your data before you attempt a fix.
You see a black screen along with an error message like SD card is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable. That message points to a bad sector, which in turn leads to file system damage.
You might also see errors like a read or write error on the SD card. This shows up once the card is corrupted, and it means you can no longer read data from it or write anything new to it.
Sometimes your SD card cannot be recognized by the device at all. That error pops up when your device simply can’t read the card. If you see this, fix your corrupt SD card right away so you don’t lose data.
Then there’s the case where your SD card turns RAW or unreadable. This happens when there’s a problem with the drive’s file system. It could mean no file system was detected at all, or that the existing one is damaged or corrupt.
If you keep running into any of these error messages, stop using the SD card right away. Our advice: recover your data from the corrupted card first, then work through the methods below to repair it.
Recover Data from the Corrupt SD card showing RAW Disk
CHKDSK won’t help you fix a corrupt SD card if you’re getting the error CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives. This comes up once your SD card has turned RAW. In that situation, formatting or reformatting the card is really your only path to repairing it. And until you resolve this, you won’t be able to access the drive or recover files from the SD card.
The catch is that formatting or reformatting wipes your data. So if there’s anything important on that SD card, back it up first. And if your card is badly corrupted, you might not even be able to create a backup. Wondering how to pull data off a corrupt SD card anyway? Here’s your answer.
An automated SD card recovery tool can get your important files back without losing any of them. The SFWare SD card recovery tool is built to retrieve files from severely corrupt or damaged drives. It works across all kinds of SD cards, compact flash drives, microSD cards, digital SD cards, SDHC, SDXC, and Extreme Digital Picture cards.
Once you’ve safely pulled your data off the corrupt or damaged SD card and tucked it away somewhere safe, you’re ready to move on and actually repair the card.
How do I check if my SD card is corrupted?
Run CHKDSK first. Open Command Prompt as administrator, type chkdsk X: /f (swap X for your card’s drive letter), and press Enter. If it reports bad sectors or an unreadable file system, the card is corrupted. CHKDSK will refuse to run at all with the message “CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives” if the corruption has gone that far, which is itself a diagnosis.
On Mac, open Disk Utility and run First Aid against the card. It will flag errors in the directory structure even when Finder shows the card as empty or unreadable.
A few symptoms are worth checking by eye before you run any tool. Open the card in File Explorer or Finder and look for file names that have turned into garbled characters, folders that show a size but will not open, or a capacity reading that does not match what the card is rated for. I have seen a 32GB card report 0 bytes free with nothing visibly stored on it. That mismatch alone is corruption, even if CHKDSK comes back clean.
How to Fix a Corrupt or Damaged SD Card Without Formatting?
Before jumping into any repair method, try reading the card with a different card adapter or card reader. It’s also worth testing the SD card on another device, just to confirm whether the problem is really the card or your computer. Below are a few ways to fix SD card corruption without losing your data.
6 Methods to Repair Corrupt SD Card without Losing Data
- Change the drive letter
- Reinstall the SD card drivers
- Update the SD card drive
- Fix corrupted SD card using CMD or CHKDSK
- Repair the SD card using the Disk part Command
- Fix SD Card Using Windows Repair Tool
Method 1: Change the Drive Letter to Fix Inaccessible SD card
Your SD card turns inaccessible when your computer can’t assign it a drive letter. The fix is to assign it a new one yourself.
1: Right-click the start button and open Disk Management
2: Find your SD card in the list and right-click on it
3: Pick Change Drive Letter and Paths… from the menu
4: Click Change… and choose a letter from the list.
Check whether the SD card reads properly now. Still stuck? Try reinstalling the driver using the steps in the next section to fix the corrupt SD card problem.
Method 2: Reinstall the Drive to fix the SD card undetected
If your computer won’t detect your SD card at all, try uninstalling the driver and reinstalling it. Here’s how:
1: Right-click the start button and click Device Manager.
2: Expand Disk Drives, right-click the name of your removable drive, and click Uninstall.
3: Click OK. Disconnect the SD card from your computer.
4: Restart your computer, reconnect the SD card, and check whether it’s now being detected.
Windows should automatically install the latest driver and make the SD card detectable again. If reinstalling the driver doesn’t fix things, try updating the driver instead to resolve the issue on the SD card.
Method 3: Update the Driver if the SD Card is Unrecognized
To update the driver, repeat the first two steps from Method 2, then select update driver. Once it’s updated, your computer should be able to detect the SD card on its own.
Still no luck? Try repairing the corrupt SD card with the Diskpart command instead.
Method 4: Diskpart Command to fix Corruption on the SD Card
The Diskpart command line lets you manage your computer’s drives without tripping system errors.
1: Connect the SD card to your computer, type “cmd”, and choose Run as administrator
2: Type “diskpart” -> press Enter -> type “list disk” -> press Enter
3: Type “select disk
4: Type “recover” -> Enter. This refreshes the state of the SD card.
The Diskpart command makes it fairly easy to fix corruption and recover your data, as long as the damage isn’t too severe.
Method 5: Windows Repair Tool to Fix SD Card
Windows comes with a built-in tool for checking drives for system errors. When you plug in a corrupt drive, your computer usually detects it automatically and launches the tool to scan for damage. But if that scan got skipped, here’s how to run the Windows repair tool manually.
1: Open My Computer or This PC.
2: Right-click your SD card and select Properties.
3: Click Tools -> select Check -> click Scan and Repair drive.
If you get a warning that Windows can’t repair the drive while in use, save whatever work you have on the SD card, then go ahead and choose to repair it.
Method 6: Fix Corrupt/damaged SD Card Using CMD /CHKDSK
CHKDSK can clear up logical errors on the device and check the file system’s integrity. Here’s how to use the CHKDSK command to fix a corrupt SD card:
1: Connect your corrupted SD card to your computer so you can repair it.
2: Type “cmd” into the search bar and press Enter.
3: Right-click Command Prompt/ “cmd.exe” and choose Run as administrator.
4: Type “chkdsk G: /f” into the command prompt, swapping in your SD card’s actual drive letter for G.
The /f parameter tells CHKDSK to go ahead and fix any bad sectors it finds on your memory card.
Once the repair finishes, restart your computer and plug the SD card back in. No error message? Then you’ve successfully repaired your corrupt SD card.
How to Fix Corrupt SD card by Formatting?
- Fix corrupted RAW SD card by reformatting
- Format the error causing the SD card
Method 7: Fix the Corrupted SD Card by Reformatting the drive
If your SD card has gone RAW, reformatting it with the NTFS or FAT32 file system is really the only fix left.
1: Connect the corrupted SD card to your computer.
2: Right-click the Start button and select Disk Management.
3: Find your SD card using the disk information shown, then right-click on it.
4: Select Format, then pick the file system you want to use to repair the corrupt SD card.
5: Click OK to wrap up the reformatting.
Reformatting gives your corrupted SD card a fresh file system your computer can actually read.
Method 8: Format the Error Causing SD Card to Fix Corruption
Formatting is a fast, effective way to rebuild a damaged file system and fix an SD card. Just head to This PC, right-click your SD card, and select Format.
Note: Make sure you uncheck the Quick Format box, quick format only clears the files’ addresses. Unchecking it switches on Full Format, which also scans the drive for bad sectors.
Didn’t manage to back up or recover your data before formatting or reformatting? Don’t stress. SFWare SD card recovery can still pull data off formatted SD cards.
SD card corrupted and unreadable, how to fix it without formatting on Android
Pull the card and try a computer before you touch anything on the phone itself. Android’s own repair options are limited, and on many phones the only on-device choice Settings gives you is to format the card, which is exactly what you are trying to avoid.
If you want to try fixing the SD card corrupted Android issue without formatting, start here:
- Reboot the phone first. A surprising number of “corrupted” cards are actually a mounting glitch that clears on restart.
- Go to Settings > Storage (on Samsung’s One UI this is under Device care > Storage) and check whether the card shows as mounted but with 0 bytes available. That points to a file system issue rather than hardware failure.
- Remove the card, clean the contacts with a dry cloth, and reinsert it. Dirty contacts cause read errors that look identical to corruption.
- Move the card to a USB card reader and connect it to a Windows or Mac computer. From there, run CHKDSK or Disk Utility’s First Aid, the same way you would for a camera card. This is how to fix corrupted SD card using phone data without losing it, since the phone itself cannot run either tool.
If none of that gets the card readable again and Android keeps prompting you to format it, back up whatever you can first using SD card data recovery software, then format as a last resort.
How to Fix Corrupt SD card on Mac OS?
Disk Utility, Apple’s built-in app on the Mac, lets you verify a disk’s integrity, check for logical errors, and repair a damaged disk.
You can open Disk Utility in any of these ways:
1: Click Launchpad in the Dock -> type “Disk Utility” in the search bar -> click the Disk Utility icon.
2: Choose Go -> Utilities in the Finder, then double-click the Disk Utility icon.
3: Open the Disk Utility app from the Utilities menu.
4: Select your SD card and click the First Aid tab.
5: Click Repair disk to kick off the repair process for your corrupt SD card.
If any of these methods got your corrupt SD card working again, let us know in the comments below.
Can I repair a corrupted SD card online?
No, not really. There is no website that can read your SD card remotely and fix its file system, because repair requires direct, low-level access to the drive hardware through your computer’s own drivers. Anything claiming to “repair your SD card online” by uploading a file or running a browser scan is either doing nothing or asking you to download desktop software anyway.
What does exist online are guides and SD card repair tool downloads, which is a different thing. The actual fix always happens locally, through CHKDSK, Disk Utility, or dedicated recovery software installed on your machine. If a site asks you to upload your SD card’s contents to “check for corruption,” close the tab. That is not how file system repair works, and it is a good way to hand your photos to a server you do not control.
Frequently Asked Questions
1: How do I Uncorrupt a Corrupted SD Card?
Your best bet for uncorrupting or repairing an SD card is to use CMD or CHKDSK to fix bad sectors, run the Windows Repair Tool to clear up errors, and use the Diskpart command to repair the SD card.
2: How do I fix a Corrupted Micro SD Card on Android?
To repair an SD card from an Android phone, just remove it, pop it into a card reader, and connect that to a computer. From there, you can try any of the methods in this article to fix the corrupt or damaged SD card.
3: What happens if my SD Card gets Corrupt?
Once an SD card is corrupted, you can’t get at any data on it. Your PC won’t read it or even recognize it’s there. You might also notice signs that the SD card has turned RAW. If you run into any of these, you’ll need to recover your data from the corrupt SD card and then fix the drive.
4: Why is my SD Card Corrupt?
SD cards can become corrupt for a number of reasons. The usual suspects are bad sectors on the drive, virus intrusion, and using the same SD card across multiple devices, which can end up damaging the files.
