SD and CF Card Data Recovery

If you’re in need of SD and CF Card Data Recovery, trust Desert Data Recovery. As Certified Data Recovery Professionals we can recover data from physically damaged Secure Digital and CompactFlash Cards, cards with deleted data and inaccessible file systems.

Most SD and CF Cards are very similar to Flash Drives in their make up, consisting of a circuit board, controller chip and one or more NAND memory chips. In many instances, most commonly when the controller chip has failed, the memory chips need to be removed from the circuit board and the ‘raw’ data downloaded using specialized flash recovery equipment. Once the raw data has been read, we recreate the actions of the Controller Chip algorithms using special software that enables us to reconstruct, decrypt and recover the data.

Typical problems with SD and CF Cards include:

• ​Cracked case
• Card not recognized
• Zero or wrong capacity shown
• Accidental deletion
• Asking to be reformatted
• Unresponsive

Micro SD Cards

​A Micro SD Card is made up of the same basic components as a standard memory card but they are all encased in plastic epoxy. While this makes them smaller and lighter, it presents a far greater challenge to recover data when the device fails.

​Data recovery from a Micro SD Card is a delicate, difficult and time-consuming process as access to the memory chips is not possible until the epoxy coating is painstakingly removed to expose the minute electrical contacts hidden within. Once the contacts are exposed, fine wire traces need to be soldered to the intricate web of circuitry in order to access the data stored on the memory chip.