SD Memory Card & Digital Photo Data Recovery

R3 Data Recovery is a digital photo recovery service provider who specialise in the recovery of digital pictures from failed and damaged SD memory cards. We also provide services from other digital picture storage media such as xD Cards and Compact Flash Cards.

With ever increasing memory use by digital cameras, mobile phones, etc, tiny storage devices are increasingly popular. Unfortunately, errors often occur, these include:

• Internal Chip Failure
• Accidental Format
• Malicious Format
• Water Damage

SD Card Data Recovery

An SD (Secure Digital) Card is possibly the most popular form of digital photo storage and can be found most commonly in your digital camera or camcorder as an external storage option or photo transfer utility. With ever increasing storage capacities the SD card is an ideal option to take on holiday and fill with several hundred photos.

Typically the internal circuit of the SD card will contain two chips, the Flash NAND (on the left of the image) and the controller (smaller chip). The controllers writes data to the Flash NAND via the use of Wear Levelling Technology which allocates data to specific areas of the device, ensuring it is evenly spread to ensure that specific areas of the chip to not receive continuous data writing thus reducing it's life span.

It is worth noting that all Flash Media are designed to be able to withstand several thousands and (potentially) hundreds of thousands read / write cycles before the device eventually permanently fails. Very often indicators that this type of failure has happened occur when you get the following:

• "I/O card error" message on your camera
• "Device not recognised" message when the card is inserted in a reader
• "Card requires formatting" message appears when the card is inserted in a reader
• The card appears either full or empty when showing the device properties.

SD cards are also susceptible to physical damage due to their lightweight design and casing. Our Recovery expertise can assist with:

• SD Card Requests to be formatted when attempts are made to access it from within your operating system
• The SD does not show up at all when inserted into a card reader, digital camera or computer
• Bent, snapped or physically damaged devices can normally be fully recovered.
• Deleted Files or formatted SD devices are normally fully recoverable

MMC (Multi-Media Card) Data Recovery

The MultiMedia card was launched in 1997 and is a NAND based flash memory type. Their main use since the launch has been for the storage and transfers of digital photos from Camera to PC. Variants of this card include the RS-MMC (Reduced size MMC) and the Dual Voltage (DV-MMC) card.

Due to it's small size (approx the size of a postage stamp) these cards were extremely popular but were also prone to suffer from damage - typically being bent or snapped when trying to remove from a reader or camera. Due to their small size they are extremely brittle and should be handled with care.

Our recovery services include:

• Recovery of images from devices that have been formatted
• The device appears completely dead and does not show up when attached to the camera or card reader

xD Card Data Recovery

An xD (extreme Digital) Card is a card made exclusively for use in Digital Camera and Voice Recorders and is designed and produced The Toshiba Corporation and Samsung Electronics for Olympus and FujiFilm. They are increasingly popular due to their compact size. Their capacities are limited to 8GB although presently their capacity on the general market appears to be no larger than 2GB.

These devices are again less susceptible to physical damage due to a more rigid casing but if these cards snap in two it is impossible to recover any images from them.

Our recovery services include:

• Images or Device Data does not show up or accessible
• The device storage capacity shows up as an incorrect size e.g. 512KB as 2TB!
• The device appears completely dead and does not show up when attached to the camera or card reader
• Accidental or Deliberate deletion of images from the card

SmartMedia Card Data Recovery

The SmartMedia card is now no longer manufactured but was a popular storage option for digital cameras and digital audio players. for many years. They consisted of a Flash NAND chip embedded into a very thin and lightweight plastic card. They lacked the controller chip which was a feature of the latter produced SD and xD card. The lack of a controller meant that Wear Levelling was not possible and this caused incidence of failure.

These devices are susceptible to physical damage however due to their delicate design and casing.

Our recovery services include:

• Recovery of images from devices that have been formatted
• The device appears completely dead and does not show up when attached to the camera or card reader

Compact Flash Card Data Recovery

A Compact Flash Card is a common form of portable storage from digital camera but it is now being super ceded by either the SD card or the xD Card which are smaller in size and are now outstripping the Compact Flash card is storage capacity.

Original CFC cards were based around Intels NOR, but they have now become NAND based. Like most other flash cards they use wear levelling technology and they write data to a specific area or block on the card ensuring these blocks are spread out so as not to reply on a specific area on the device. Again they are only able to withstand a limited number of write cycles.

Some Compact Flash Cards in issue are in fact mini hard disk drives with miniature internal rotating platter - these are often referred to as MicroDrives and are often mistaken for a Compact Flash Card.

These devices are less susceptible to physical damage due to a more rigid casing than SD or the xD cards and very often failure will be due to internal chip failure.

Our recovery services include:

• Images or Device Data does not show up or accessible
• The device storage capacity shows up as an incorrect size e.g. 512KB as 2TB!
• The device appears completely dead and does not show up when attached to the computer
• A burning smell or smoke emitting from the Compact Flash Card

Sony Pro Duo Memory Stick Data Recovery

Sony celebrates more than ten years of their Pro Duo Memory Stick Range. Their design allows for greater storage capacity and also faster data transfer speeds and they now provide devices up to 16GB in capacity allowing for images and also videos to be stored from either a digital camera or Sony Camcorder, even the PSP.

These devices are susceptible to physical damage due to their delicate design and casing.

Our recovery services include:

• Recovery of images from bent or snapped devices
• The device storage capacity shows up as an incorrect size e.g. 512KB as 2TB!
• The device appears completely dead and does not show up when attached to the camera or card reader
• Accidental or Deliberate deletion of images from the card

MicroSD & MiniSD Card Data Recovery

The MicroSD card is commonly used in Mobile Phones and handheld GPRS devices, portable media players, digital camera and also Nintendo DS games consoles. These cards are the smallest on the market and are often damaged trying to either remove them or if they become lodged in the camera or phone. Please note that if these cards suffer from any form of damage such as being bent or snapped it is unlikely that any pictures or information can be recovered from them.

The MiniSD card shouldn't be confused with the MicroSD card which is a smaller variation although the micro card may be used in a MiniSD via the use of an adaptor.

Our recovery services include:

• Recovery of images from devices that have been formatted
• The device appears completely dead and does not show up when attached to the camera or card reader