Repair Not Working SanDisk Memory Card without Losing Data

Are you faced with the problem of the SanDisk SD card not showing up or recognizing by phone or PC? Try the methods here to fix it and recover data.

Problem: SanDisk SD card not found by phone or PC

"My SD card was working flawlessly in the past few days. Suddenly, I went into the media on my phone today, and it showed nothing. I go into my phone settings, and it says there is no memory card detected. I tried SD cards from three other friends, and they all registered fine on my phone, so that isn't the issue. I then tried my SD on my laptop, and the laptop won't even recognize I inserted a memory card. What could I do? This is a pressing matter because I need one of those videos off of my SD card by next week."

This is a snippet we picked up on forums.sandisk.com, one customer's SD card has a seriously malfunctioning problem, and soon this post was followed by other old and new customers. They all have this common question: why is my SanDisk memory card not working as it was? And mostly, they are using types like SanDisk Extreme Pro/Plus micro SD/SDHC/SDXC card, and a small Digital camera group is using XQD card. 

No matter how large capacity you're using, the minimum 2GB/4GB to medium 32GB/64GB/128GB to maximum 256GB/512GB, it's the same consequence when the memory card is reading, detected or recognized by a device.  You cannot take pictures, install apps, transfer files to the computer, or simply cannot open the SD card.

Fix SanDisk SD card not working or detected in Windows 10/8.1/8/7

To repair not working or undetectable SanDisk memory card, you have two choices here. You follow either one to restore the SanDisk memory card to reusable status again.

Method 1. Run a disk checkup to repair the SanDisk memory card failed error

You can try CMD to run a disk check to fix all internal errors on the SanDisk memory card to repair the card. Or you can directly run a free partition manager software for help.

Option 1. Use free partition manager software to check and repair SanDisk memory card

If you prefer simple methods, you can apply EaseUS Partition Master Free with its Check partition feature to repair your SanDisk memory card now:

Option 2. Run CMD command to check and repair SanDisk memory card

Note that the CMD CHKDSK command will erase all data on the SanDisk memory card. So make sure that you recover data from the SD card first with reliable Sandisk recovery software.

Step 1: Press the Windows + X keys to bring up a dialogue, and click Command Prompt (Admin)

Step 2: Type: chkdsk /f c: (replace c with a drive letter of your external hard drive). Hit Enter to let the checking process run.

Step 3: When it's finished, type: exit and hit Enter to finish the process.

Most of the time, checking and repairing bad sectors and file system corruption on the SanDisk SD card will revive the memory card and make it appear on the phone, camera, or PC normally. If it's still not working and it's invisible in Windows Disk Management or Windows command prompt, move on to the next method.

Method 2. Update SanDisk memory card driver and format it into NTFS

Step 1: Update the SanDisk memory card driver

• Open "Computer" and choose "System Properties".
• In the taskbar on the left, click "device manager" and next to "USB controller" click "+".Then, you'll see a yellow exclamation mark.
• Right-click and choose "update driver software", then click "automatically search for driver software online".

Step 2: Format and reset the SanDisk memory card to NTFS/FAT32

If updating the driver makes it appear in Disk Management but shows invalid, unallocated, or something else wrong, you can try to format it into NTFS or FAT32 so that the computer can recognize it eventually. (You can RECOVER DATA before or after performing a quick format)

• In Windows 10/8.1/8/7, press the Windows + R keys and type diskmgmt.msc to open Disk Management.
• You can then right-click on the SanDisk memory card and select "Format".
• Then, you can set file system NTFS or FAT/FAT32 for your SanDisk memory card.

Video Tutorial of Repairing Not Working or Undetectable SD Card

Here is a video tutorial guide that you can also follow to repair the not-working or not-detected SD card on your own. Let's see:

How to Recover data from not working SanDisk memory card free

When your SanDisk memory card, USB drive, external hard drive SD card, etc, storage devices become inaccessible, undetectable, or unrecognized, don't do anything to your device. Keep it safe, and then follow the steps below to recover important data.

Download professional data recovery software

Professional recovery software - EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is highly recommended for you. Activate the full version to restore unlimited data from SanDisk memory cards or other storage devices. You can download it for free right here.

Recover data from SanDisk memory card

When the SanDisk memory card is not working or not detectable, don't worry. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard can help you scan, display, and restore all data with ease.

Step 1. Select the SD card to scan

• Download and install EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard on your Windows PC.
• Use the proper way to connect your SanDisk/Lexar/Transcend SD card to the computer. 
• Open EaseUS SD card recovery software and choose SD Card Recovery on the left panel. All connected drives will display here. Select your SD card and click "Scan".

Step 2. Check for scan results

• Wait for the scanning process to complete.
• Specify one or several file types to show up, like Pictures or Videos.
• Click "Preview" to check if they are the wanted files.

Step 3. Recover SD card data

• Preview the recovered files and click "Recover".
• Choose a different location to save the recovered files instead of the original SD card.