How to make a Corrupt/Damaged USB/SD card Work

Now a days, all of us keep our data in external memory such as SD cards or USB’s. Some of the data is of high importance that we don’t want to lose. But what will happen if our SD card or USB get corrupted. A NIGHTMARE for us. But hold, here I have some tips by which we can make our corrupted USB or SD card to work. I have discussed methods below:

Formatting USB/SD card

Sometimes, this method works and it is much easier than by other methods. So I recommend you if you hadn’t try this method then format your USB/SD card before doing other methods. So here are the steps

1.  Locate your USB/SD card in file explorer.
2.  Right-Click on your USB/SD card
3.  Select Format option.
4.  Below window will appear
   
5. Select File System of your type or if you don’t know what to choose then click here.
6. Otherwise, recommended is NTFS format.
7. Select NTFS and then uncheck Quick Format and click on start.

It will take some time, when completed successfully you are ready to use your USB/SD card.

Changing Drive Letter

If above method not works, then by changing letter of your USB/SD card drive letter make them to work again. For this method follow these rules

1. Right-Click on “this PC”.
   
2. Click on “Manage”.
3. Then go to Disk management.
   
4. Find your USB/SD card and right click on it.
5. Select change letter or path.
   
6. Click on “change...”
7. From drop-down menu select a letter and click Ok.
   

Re-plug your USB/SD card and it will work.

Using Command and Prompt (My favorite)

This is the third method for recovery of corrupted USB/SD card. This method is powerful than previous but more cautious than others. Follow each step carefully because by mistake you can format your primary partition (huge loss).

1. Press Win+R on your keyboard.
2. Enter “cmd” (without quotes).
   
3. Command and Prompt will open. In it, type diskpart.
4. It will ask administration rights, give it rights a new window of cmd will appear.
5. Enter list disk(with space).
6. From list of disks remember Disk### of your USB/SD card.
7. Now Enter select disk (number of your USB/SD card.)
8. Your disk will be selected.
9. Now enter clean.
10. Success message will appear.
11. Now enter create partition primary.
12. Now type active.
13. Type select partition 1.
14. Now type format fs= (Enter your wanted partition method FAT32, NTFS or exFAT or if you don’t know click here.) recommended is NTFS (as shown in the figure below).
15. It will take some time, when completed successfully you will be ready to use your USB/SD card.

Methods to save your USB/SD card from corruption

Always insert your USB/SD card in a non-virus PC. After using your USB/SD card safely remove it from your PC or laptop. All of these are precautionary steps that will prevent USB/SD card from corruption but like all other things USB/SD card also has lifetime. (Lifetime for USB/SD card very much high so don’t worry.)

 I hope these methods will recover your corrupted USB/SD card. If you like my article please comment and like my page on facebook here for more tips. Thanks!