SDHC card: Filesystem missing

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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jc2906
Posts: 3
Joined: 14 Jun 2016, 16:22

SDHC card: Filesystem missing

#1 Post by jc2906 »

Hi there,

I have a problem with my sdhc memory card. I use this memory card in my smartphone, but it eventually (presumably after a reboot?) was no longer recognized. There are some pictures on the memory card which have not been secured yet. I would like to restore those...

What I have tried:
I put the memory card into a sdhc/USD Adapter. Windows 7 recognizes the drive and shows 12.4 of 28.7 GB free memory which may be correct. Unfortunatelly there a no files listed on the drive.

I tried PhotoRec, but it doesn't find any files either. This image shows the partition PhotoRec recognizes:
Image

Then I used Testdisk to scan for lost partitions. I selected Partition type "Intel". My wife has the same smartphone and memory card and I've looked up the settings on that card (see below). Quick search and deeper search returned no results.
Image


At this point I stopped working with the original memory stick and created an image with testdisk (partition type "none" & Filesystem Utils). I noticed that the cylinders in the image differ from the original memory card(3758 instead of 3757) - is this a problem?
Image

Nevertheless I tried to manually add a partition to the table. I looked up the partition parameters on the 2nd memory card and tried to recreate the partition.
Working card:
Image

Image of the corrupted card after creating the partition entry:
Image

But I'm not sure I've done everything right and if that ever works that way with the image?
After a restart the partion table on the corrupted card shows as following. Why are there two identical entries?
Image


Unfortunatelly I couldn't access any data und the boot sector is still damaged. I tried to rebuild BS, but get the errors: "No FAT found" and "Can't find cluster size."
Image

I'm at a loss what to do now. Are there any chances to restore the data or is the memory card physically broken?

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cgrenier
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Re: SDHC card: Filesystem missing

#2 Post by cgrenier »

When testdisk shows the FAT32 partition, use 'p' to list the files.
If it's not ok, use Deeper Search and try again to list the files.

jc2906
Posts: 3
Joined: 14 Jun 2016, 16:22

Re: SDHC card: Filesystem missing

#3 Post by jc2906 »

Hi,

thanks for your reply. There is no option to list files for the corrupted card (picture 5). When I hit "Enter" to continue, testdisk searches for partions, but doesn't find any. Even the partition entry I manually added is gone after that (untill next restart).

jc2906
Posts: 3
Joined: 14 Jun 2016, 16:22

Re: SDHC card: Filesystem missing

#4 Post by jc2906 »

Hi do you have any last advice? Otherwise I would try to format the memory stick und see if it's broken...

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