If you have important or sensitive data on the microSD card of your smartphone or tablet, it’s important to make sure that data is backed up immediately. You could store it in the cloud or on another device without paying a dime.
If it’s too late for that, there are still a few things you can do to try and recover the data off of your microSD card. Keep in mind that nothing is a guarantee when a microSD card malfunctions, has physical damage or can’t be read by the computer. It’s quite possible that critical components for the microSD to work have stopped functioning.
Hardware failure
If your smartphone has just started sending you warnings that it cannot read the microSD card, restart your device. A lot of the time a simple restart of your phone will fix the problem. At least, that’s the hope in most scenarios. If it doesn’t, there are other options, but not many.
There’s a small and rare possibility that the contacts on the microSD card are dirty. While this rarely shows results, get a swab or cotton ball damp with Isopropyl alcohol. Take that swab and gently rub the contacts of the microSD card. If that doesn’t work, that’s nearly all you can do to try and fix it at home.
The worst case scenario is that the flash chip went bad on the microSD card. At that point, there’s no way you or professional help can recover the data. Let’s hope that didn’t happen.
The best case scenario is that the controller is damaged or that the controller and flash chip are intact, but something else isn’t functioning properly. There’s still nothing you can do on your own, but if you feel your data was sensitive or important enough, such as photos of your child’s first step or that close friend or family member that passed away, you can seek assistance from a professional. Unfortunately, professional data recovery services aren’t known to be gentle on your budget.
For instance, if you were to ship your shattered iPhone to DriveSavers, a professional data recovery service, it could cost you anywhere between $500 and $1400 to retrieve your data. Rates change for different types of hardware, but that gives you an approximation of what you might be looking at spending.
Luckily, the problem doesn’t always have to deal with hardware failure.
Software Recovery
Aside from hardware issues with the microSD card, sometimes you inadvertently delete data. Luckily, there is a way to recover that data rather easily with Recuva, a data recovery program you can download to your computer. You can get it for free here.
Once it’s finished downloading, grab your microSD card and throw it in a SD card adapter (like this). Then, put that SD card adapter in your computer. Next, load up Recuva. From there, the software should have a wizard to take you step-by-step in recovering your lost files. It’s quite helpful in guiding beginners through the process until they are able to learn how to do it on their own.
One of the awesome things about Recuva is that it’ll let you recover data off of your smartphone, too. It’s extremely helpful for popular devices that don’t sport external storage anymore, such as the Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 Edge.
Keep in mind that sometimes Recuva isn’t going to be able to recover every lost file. It has an indicator that will show you how probable the file recovery will be. You can usually try the recovery no matter what, but it won’t always turn out successful. If that doesn’t work, this turns into a hard lesson on backing up your files.
A lesson on backing up files
While these two options will help you get your files back, the best course of action is to never lose your important data again. Backing up your data is a simple way to combat this. It sounds like hard work at first, but there are free or cheap tools available that help you easily backup your data.
We recently put together a comprehensive guide on how to backup your data, whether that be in free cloud solutions, on other devices, and etc. This guide is especially helpful for those that don’t have the luxury of external storage or for those of you that often inadvertently delete data.
To give you a quick summary, backing up to the cloud is important because of the peace of mind it gives you. If you have important data on your smartphone or tablet, whether it be financial documents for your company or a precious photo of your child, you don’t have to worry if your device experiences a fatal crash on the concrete. You’ve already either backed up all that data in the Cloud or another device at home. So, not only can they be easily accessed by you, but when you get that new device, transferring those files over is an easy task.
Obviously it’s hard to keep constantly backing up your devices as you continuously accumulate files. There’s a phenomenal way to automate that process without you having to worry about it at all, besides the initial setup, of course.
Wrap Up
Photo credit: Ben Harrison
After these helpful steps, hopefully you’ll never have to deal with lost data again. It’s difficult to deal with, especially if you have critical files on a lost microSD card. Letting go of those precious moments of your children in their young age isn’t easy. You’ll never get those photos back. That’s why it’s good to make backing up data a habit to get into.
Since we accumulate data so rapidly, I like to create a new backup every few weeks. Depending on how much content you create, you may not need to do that. Making it a habit to create a new backup every few months would be a wise and risk-free decision, though.
Have you lost data on a microSD card before? How did you solve the problem?
Come comment on this article: How to recover data off of your microSD card: a valuable lesson in backups
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