Need help

[caano]

Hello all, hope you're doing well, would really appreciate your help. I have an SD card on my android phone that corrupted(images became black and won't load). I quickly took it out from my phone and backed it up with ddrescue, I now have a .dd file. After examining the sd card through test disk and r-studio no partitions show up. I've also tried to scan the .dd file and also no partitions show up. I do not know what else to try at this point. Hope you could point me to the right course of action to take.
Many thanks.

[fzabkar]

Is the card encrypted?

Can you show us the contents of the first sector with a hex editor such as HxD (freeware)?

[caano]

Is the card encrypted?

Can you show us the contents of the first sector with a hex editor such as HxD (freeware)?

Hello, I'm not really sure if the card was encrypted. Okay I will do it right now.

[caano]

Output of HxD, for both the actual card and the backup image

Hello here's the output of HxD both from the actual card and the .dd image.

[fzabkar]

That's what you would expect if the card had been erased. If you drag the vertical scrollbar from top to bottom, do you see anything that looks like data?

If you select Analysis -> Statistics, do you see anything other than a large spike at the RHS (FFh)?

If you compress the dd image with 7Zip, what size is the compressed image?

[caano]

Hello again sorry for the late reply.
1. Nope, all I see is FF FF FF and so on...
2. It's still analyzing. Will follow up on the result.
3. I compressed the dd image with 7zip to sbd.7z format and the compressed size is just 4,618 kb.

[fzabkar]

Your card appears to have been totally erased, or is in a state where there is no data access.

[caano]

Thank you so much for your help. I guess I'm just out of luck and will just have to live with the loss of my data

[fzabkar]

Try another card reader just to be sure.

[caano]

Try another card reader just to be sure.

I've tried it on two different laptops, doesn't read it at all. No partition shows up.

[caano]

Hello again sorry for the late reply.
1. Nope, all I see is FF FF FF and so on...
2. It's still analyzing. Will follow up on the result.
3. I compressed the dd image with 7zip to sbd.7z format and the compressed size is just 4,618 kb.

Just finished analysis, nothing shows up there at all, just a plain blank white screen.

[arvika]

There is still chip-off method recovery which can give good result even if now you see only FF.

[caano]

Is that something I could do or would I need a professional to do that? If it's the latter how much do those kinds of services cost? I'm not that rich at all

[caano]

There is still chip-off method recovery which can give good result even if now you see only FF.

Is this something I could do or would I need a professional for this? Also if it's the latter how much do there types of services usually cost?
Thanks a lot.

[arvika]

For such job you need data recovery company (not all can do this). Cost depends on capacity, controler type, monolith or standard construction etc.

[Lardman]

@arvika - Somewhat surprised to see you post that considering the situation. It's a microsd out of the phone. It's going to be monolithic, potentially ldpc and highly likely to encrypted. I would have thought problems with the translator/controller would be the least of the concerns. Chip off in this case appears to be somewhat of a very long shot.

[arvika]

Lardman, I miss info that it is from phone. So it is monolith for sure. But why you assume that it is LDPC? We do not know what is the model. I meet many cards looks erased, filled by FF, but chip-off give very good result. One model of PNY card have such problem quite often.

[Lardman]

Just based on what gets dumped on my desk - all be it nowhere near the volumes you see. It wasn't just the lpdc I was referring to as encryption but also that of the android phone itself. Feels rather a long shot for useable data to be recovered.

[arvika]

Many scenrio is possible. Thats why it is worth make an expertise. Than client decide what to do

[caano]

Thank you for all your replies, I've just decided to live with the fact that I've lost years worth of data.