Anyone got any good tricks for SD cards?

From a digital camera.

Windows won't see card, in fact when you insert it into card reader, the PC won't do anything.

DE will not see it.

DOS based apps (i.e. Media Tools Pro), will not even boot with this card inserted.

Do we think this card is toast, or possible to recover pics?

Many thanks in advance

Sean

The reader may be damaged as well. Did you try another reading device?

Regards,
weaker

Hi my friend!

already I had a problem seemed, tries to clean the metallic contacts

Good lock

_________________
Нет ничего невозможного

Hi,

I unsolder the flash from it, then read the contents (I use a reader I built myself) and restore the logic structure by software afterwards.
I am currently working on how to restore the card itself after such damage.
So this is not an easy issue.
U can try Xeltek's SP3000U programmer, but I had difficulties using it, and now it is damaged, so I built my own.

regards,
pepe

Yeah, I tried another reader. Both readers work with another SD card, but not this one

And cleaned the contacts.

No Joy

Looks like the card is password protected. When a password protected SD card is explored the windows status is set to busy and it do nothing.

You can unlock this via Treo 600 or Unlocker systems that come with latest mobile unlocking boxes.

may be I am wrong

Hmm, can these cards get accidently passworded?

Maybe I'll give it a go, my friend has all the latest mobile phone unlockig stuff.

Cheers

Sounds very complicated!

I was kind of looking for an easier solution.

I don't mind doing a bit of soldering, but building a flash reader seems a bit overkill to retrieve one card.

But Pepe, many many thanks for your input. Intelligent and helpfull as always, respect!

Thx,

Sorry I cannot suggest anything easier.
Except one this has just came to my mind.
U may try to solder the flash IC onto a similar card, if the problem was in the controller IC, this should solve it.
I had a case when the card had a bath in the sea, then tried several times in several readers and cameras, obviously with no success, then I did this process and recovered the full data easily using a card reader.

Yes, these processes require many overhead and doesn't worth it for one card.
But we are hoping many cards will get bad, aren't we?

regards,
pepe

Can this process also be used for recovering bad usb's ?

Hi,

yes, but that's a bit more complicated since there can be more than one memories and the data is scattered between them because of speed considerations.
and besides it is scattered within one memory as well, since there are blocks writeable in paralel.
that causes some trouble we have to cope with

regards,
pepe

What software do you use to change the structure? Wouldn't that be real tricky, depending on how many flash chips there were, and how each control chip decided to arrange the data?

Sorry for posting kinda off topic but I need help with my Memory Stick Pro Duo, which I low level formated (with some errrors) and now it isn't even discovered by my PSP or my PC

What can I do?

Thx in advance
adark

to rchadwick

I use what I write
First I have to analyze the structure, then write some code to put everything in place.

to adark:
buy a new one?

pepe

They are real cheap no need wasting time on it .