“Last
night we returned from our holiday trip. We had clicked lot of
pictures and today morning while trying to transfer the photos from
my SanDisk micro SD card, the drive showed empty. While putting back
the SD card in the camera, the camera showed “"card not
formatted - format card?" message.”
Such
incidence happens, and you are stuck in the middle and think what to
do? That is whether to format the card or not. And even if you make
our decision to format the card, you get the message that Card cannot
be formatted.
An
SD card stands for Secure Digital Card. It is a small size flash
memory card and is specially designed to provide high capacity
storage.
When
a Sandisk micro SD card throws “card not formatted error” the
reason could be many. May be that no file system is installed on the
card or the card has become corrupt. When someone formats the card, a
new file system is installed on the card with which it is able to
store new files. It is better to format the micro SD card, as if you
do not format, you are unable to access the files stored on it
either.
How
a memory card format error can be fixed.
You
can try few simple steps to get out of the situation, when you face
such error message.
STEP 1: Connect the Micro SD card to another computer, through a card reader or a USB cable. If the card drive becomes accessible, then your card is all right. Otherwise your card has become corrupt.
STEP
2: IF your Micro SD card
is still unrecognized then, try to install and download a Photo
recovery software. Connect your micro SD card to the computer, where
you have downloaded a recovery software and then start recovering
your important photos.
STEP 3: After recovering your lost photos files, try to format micro SD card
STEP 3: After recovering your lost photos files, try to format micro SD card
Go
to- My computer -> Management -> Storage -> Disk
Management -> select the
problem memory card and then format it here.
STEP 4: At last step, you can again re run the recovery program to recover any data which had been missed to recover before format.
STEP 4: At last step, you can again re run the recovery program to recover any data which had been missed to recover before format.
After
formatting, the data is not completely erased from the SD card. One
can make the use of recovery software to recover their lost files.
However one important point to keep in mind is that not to store any
new files on the formatted memory card as the old data could be
overwritten and hence no data will be recovered.
Few
Situations when SD card gets formatted.
- Formatting the SD card accidentally
Sometimes
you accidentally press the format option. Intentionally or
unintentionally, you format the SD card by chance.
- System prompts us to format the card
Sometimes
the system prompts us to format the Sd card. “Card not
formatted-format it now” option, prompts us to format the
card. Even if you format or don’t format the card, the data stored
in the card is inaccessible.
- Micro SD card corruption:
Due
to improper handling, virus attack, improper shutdown, irregular
power surges, micro
SD
card gets corrupt resulting in format error.
- Format an SD card to erase
Formatting
is the easiest way to erase the contents of the card. Sometimes, the
format option is used intentionally to erase the content of the
card.
- SD Card Cannot Be Formatted
Sometimes
after choosing the format option, windows gives a message that :
Windows cannot complete the format.
.Go
to Properties Tools -> Check Now -> Tick "Automatically
fixes file system errors" and "Scan for and attempt
recovery of bad sectors".
Perform check disk if still the SD card is not recognized. Type chkdsk H:/F (H: is the drive letter of your SD card).
