SD card not showing up on my PC, help!

RonJacobi · 2025-05-14T05:43:34+00:00

Hello all, I’m having an issue with a SanDisk SD card that I normally use with my camera. When I insert it into my PC (Windows 11) using my USB card reader,...

RonJacobi

0neWire A quick update.
I ended up downloading a few tools: Disk Drill, Recuva, and the TestDisk/PhotoRec package.
I tried Disk Drill first, it recovered about 40 JPEGs. I was able to preview them before recovery and had no problem saving them to my system drive.
Out of curiosity, I also tried qPhotoRec (took a bit to figure out) and Recuva,
but neither found anything more than I already saved.
So looking back, I think those 40 pictures are probably all that were on the card, it adds up.
I believe the important files have been recovered.
At this point, it should be safe to reformat the card, right?
If so, is there a spedcific format I should choose?

0neWire

RonJacobi Glad to hear you were able to recover the photos.
Yes, now that recovery is complete, it’s safe to format the SD card.
To keep things simple and compatible, I recommend inserting the card into the camera you plan to use it with.
Then format it from the camera’s menu.
Most cameras will format the card properly (usually to FAT32 or exFAT).
In my opinion, that's the best option (tends to result in fewer issues later).
If you prefer to format on your PC, that works too. Use exFAT or FAT32.
Either way you should be good to go.

roman-demian

Thanks everyone for the solid troubleshooting and discussion here.
Marking this thread as [Solved].

📌 For anyone else landing here with a similar issue, if your SD card isn’t showing up on your Windows 10 or 11 PC,
we have a full guide that walks through data recovery, troubleshooting steps, and repair methods, including:

Recovering data from RAW or unreadable SD cards using data recovery tools.
Creating a byte-to-byte backup to protect a failing card during recovery
Fixes like assigning a drive letter, disabling write protection, updating drivers, and more
When to use tools like TestDisk or CHKDSK (and when not to)
How to safely format and reuse a card once the data is secured

If you still need help or your case is different, feel free to start a new thread.

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