How we do file recovery on SanDisk Micro SD Card that does not mount using recovery software tools

[@fookingsog]

So I'm guessing the files are there, and the directory structure got borked?! I've had that happen before and had to do a complete data scrape of all readable sectors and usually a forced mount of the drive. I used to be in the copy machine business and for formatting SD Cards we'd always use "fat32formatter" by TOKIWA (I'm guessing a Japanese guy by the name!) to format for machine firmware updates. I've even used it on large hard drives!!! I've probably got 50 Lbs. of hard drive pulls from junked copiers that I formatted with "fat32formatter" and most of those drives have an IDE interface!!! Thanks for the update vid!!! BTW, do you do any data recovery for Louis Rossmann's "Rossmann Repair Group"? 🤔

[@Datarecoveryguru1]

The files are there, but the card does not mount normally because the NAND Flash Chip hosting the files is degraded with bad sectors. This a form of the file system being borked due to bad sectors. In advanced data recovery, we almost never want to mount a drive on a computer. The goal is the opposite, namely to work with the device unmounted, so that the computer's operating system (e.g. Windows, MacOS, Linux, etc) does get to interfere with the damaged device. Formatting could be done with any basic utility, even natively on any computer. In your specific case concerning copying machine, they have more basic operating systems, where FAT32 is the norm. For example, if I go to printer machine with USB Flash Drive to print something, it only recognizes and mounts a FAT32 formatted device. Perhaps that Japanese utility was very easy and convenient to use to format such machines. We do not provide data recovery service for them. They recently have diversified their business offering, where they now also offer traditional data recovery service on hard drives, cards, and so on. They started a few years ago. With that in mind, we do get customers who have go them first and then look for second opinions, etc. This is just how it works, when a recovery is unsuccessful for any company. Customers sometimes search for a 2nd opinion.

[@fookingsog]

@Datarecoveryguru1 As far as I know, most if not all copy machines run a *nix (Unix/Linux) operating system and probably have EXT4 drive formatting. FAT32 is just the best format for removable memory devices as it is platform agnostic and recognizable by just about every operating system out there!!! Thanks Again for your unique and informative videos!!!

[@Datarecoveryguru1]

@@fookingsog That makes a lot of sense, as Linux is very customizable. Thank you. And you are welcome.