So I was wrapping up my last 2 video shops of the weekend today. After each of the two, I checked my video to ensure it recorded, angles, etc...the normal. Everything was fine. I get home to report and upload and all of the sudden my card is not reading on any devices....am I screwed? Any help is GREATLY appreciated LOL

What kind of card is it?
What kind of devices are you trying to read from?

16 GB MicroSD (that came with my PV EVO). Tried reading off my laptop (PC) with my card reader and off the EVO, which it's not even recognizing there is a card inserted.

Oh. That doesn't sound very good at all.
Does the card physically look ok?
Does the laptop recognize there is a card?
Do you happen to have an external card reader as well?
I have noticed sometimes on my laptop the internal SD card will not read microSD Cards in an adapter. I have an external reader and it works fine in it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/2018 12:48AM by bgriffin.

Physically it looks fine. I have an external card reader that I used frequently and it's not recognizing it either I emailed my scheduler...just makes me mad because I checked the darn thing after each shop. Maybe the 110 degrees weather did it LOL. Just wondering if there was any way to recover the data or if I need to chalk it up to the video gods hating me today

There are some data recovery tools available, you can google sd card data recovery and find some things. While I have used data recovery tools for physical hard drives I have no experience with SD card data recovery.

Thanks, I will look into that!

How are you connecting the SD card specifically?

I have an Anker card reader that uses my USB drive

@Lauraphx wrote:

I have an Anker card reader that uses my USB drive

A couple of things that should be simple to try without complicating the troubleshoot.

Try connecting it to other USB ports on your computer.

If you have another reader, that would be even better, whether finding a device such as a camera to connect via USB, or another device such as a tablet or laptop with a dedicated reader to check the USB card.

I did try the other ports and my EVO camera. I'll try my digital cam too, didn't even think of that

@Lauraphx wrote:

I did try the other ports and my EVO camera. I'll try my digital cam too, didn't even think of that

If there's something wrong with your reader, hopefully it's just that. If there's indeed nothing wrong with the card, connecting the reader to your computer will only 'read' the card, not 'write,' which is a good thing.

On an SD card, there is a tiny "sleeve" that covers the notch for data recording. Is it open or closed?

I have accidentally covered that notch in the past with my thumb when inserting an SD card, and it didn't read.

Try that.

Thanks ColoKate, I tried that to no avail.....my last option I think is software (Recuva was recommended to me). I tried the free version, which didn't work....I am going to shell out the $19.95 tonight for the paid version and if that doesn't work, I am, regretfully, chalking up the loss

That's a bummer. Hope it works. If so let me know. I have an NAS that died that had every photo I've ever taken on it. I need to buy something to recover it with but haven't gotten around to it yet.

@bgriffin wrote:

That's a bummer. Hope it works. If so let me know. I have an NAS that died that had every photo I've ever taken on it. I need to buy something to recover it with but haven't gotten around to it yet.

That's my worst nightmare!! No RAID setup for your NAS setup, off-site backups, etc.?

It was a mirrored RAID inside the NAS. One HD and the NAS failed. Odd I know. I have 2 of the boxes and even moving the good drive to the other box didn't work. I plugged it directly into my PC and ran a trial recovery program on it. It showed what appears to be the entire file structure but wouldn't recover it without paying $150 or something. Knowing it was there and recoverable made me feel a bit better so haven't been in a rush to get it done. $29.99 might make me be rushier, lol.

2TB of data, so no, no cloud backup.

@Lauraphx wrote:

Thanks ColoKate, I tried that to no avail.....my last option I think is software (Recuva was recommended to me). I tried the free version, which didn't work....I am going to shell out the $19.95 tonight for the paid version and if that doesn't work, I am, regretfully, chalking up the loss

Not sure if this will help you, but what my girlfriend and I do while on the road is set up the file for an immediate transfer to either the cloud or a laptop when we leave an assignment. This then gives you 2 copies in case something happens to your sd card. You may not have data to upload to the cloud, but moving to a chromebook or laptop is definitely doable without internet and is worth the peace of mind. It only takes a few seconds to start that and you can start driving to your next shop.

Losing shops sucks Sorry this happened to you!

@jrossetti wrote:

Not sure if this will help you, but what my girlfriend and I do while on the road is set up the file for an immediate transfer to either the cloud or a laptop when we leave an assignment. This then gives you 2 copies in case something happens to your sd card. You may not have data to upload to the cloud, but moving to a chromebook or laptop is definitely doable without internet and is worth the peace of mind. It only takes a few seconds to start that and you can start driving to your next shop.

Losing shops sucks Sorry this happened to you!

DEFINITELY learned my lesson on this and will be backing up right after the shops from now on. I normally do, but these were a couple quickies not too far from home

Do the videos still play on the EVO?

I used to do IT support for 7+ years... Do not waste your money purchasing recovery software. (Recuva's free version works amazingly well, anyway.)

I would go out and purchase a cheap SD card reader before I purchased any recovery software.The primary issue you're having is the card itself is not being read. This does not mean the data is gone on the card itself. Most likely, the controller (which lets the computer and SD card's storage space "talk" to each other has failed or is acting up.

Before any of these suggestions, find an eraser from a pencil and rub each of the contact sensors... That's resolved issues with several chargers, ink cartridges, SD cards, and more that I thought had failed forever...

Some other ideas:

(1) Try to go into your Device Manager and uninstall anything related to USB ports. Restart.

(2) Go to Computer Management (right-click on Computer > Manage). Pick disks on the side. Insert it; see if anything pops up. If it shows, but doesn't actually show a number for the storage space, there may be no hope.

It's extremely unlikely to fail... I do photo shoots on the side and even though there's hundreds of dollars on the line after each shoot, I never think to back stuff up right away. They're highly reliable and most likely, it's just the contact sensors or the reader slot, not the card itself. Most built-in card slots are @#$%&.

@TroyHawkins wrote:

Do the videos still play on the EVO?

No, the EVO is not reading the card either

I did IT support for IBM for several years as well, although that was 8 years ago and things have changed A LOT lol. I think you're pretty much spot on, just wanted to add that according to earlier posts both the internal slot, the external reader, AND the DVR all have stopped reading the card. I would guess if something works it'll be the pencil eraser, I had forgotten that trick.

@thefoxbox wrote:

Before any of these suggestions, find an eraser from a pencil and rub each of the contact sensors... That's resolved issues with several chargers, ink cartridges, SD cards, and more that I thought had failed forever

Just tried this and nope LOL The IT guy at my day job said it sounds like the files got corrupt. I also tried to read the card on my work comp today and I get the error message that it can not read the file type and then asked me to reformat. He basically said my only hope would be to try some sort of recovery tool.

Quick update - I downloaded a program called PhotoRec (free) and it was able to retrieve one of my shops....with no audio though GRRR, working on trying to find that other file LOL

Sidenote - thank you all for your responses, I really appreciate it!

@Lauraphx wrote:

Sidenote - thank you all for your responses, I really appreciate it!

Try VLC Player to play the file.

@bgriffin wrote:

It was a mirrored RAID inside the NAS. One HD and the NAS failed. Odd I know. I have 2 of the boxes and even moving the good drive to the other box didn't work. I plugged it directly into my PC and ran a trial recovery program on it. It showed what appears to be the entire file structure but wouldn't recover it without paying $150 or something. Knowing it was there and recoverable made me feel a bit better so haven't been in a rush to get it done. $29.99 might make me be rushier, lol.

2TB of data, so no, no cloud backup.

Yikes. Makes me tempted to purchase another NAS to backup my current NAS setup now....

@bgriffin wrote:

That's a bummer. Hope it works. If so let me know. I have an NAS that died that had every photo I've ever taken on it. I need to buy something to recover it with but haven't gotten around to it yet.

And FYI, I paid the $19.95 for Recuva, it was unable to read the SD Card and find any files. Needless to say, I got a refund PhotoRec was free and able to find and recover files that Recuva could not find. It also found 3 other shops from April LOL

Thanks! I might download that today!