Reading Data Recovery — the UK’s No.1 Memory Card Specialists (25+ years)

We provide professional, engineering-grade recovery for all memory card types, brands and failure modes—from legacy xD/CF/Memory Stick to modern SD/microSD (UHS-I/II), CFexpress (A/B), XQD and CFast used in today’s cameras, drones, dashcams and mobile devices. Our methodology is clone-first, controller-aware and forensically sound.

Top 30 memory-card brands in the UK (with main card types & best-selling ranges)

1. SanDisk — SD/microSD (Ultra, Extreme, Extreme PRO), CFexpress Type B, CFast

2. Samsung — microSD/SD (EVO Plus, PRO Plus, PRO Endurance)

3. Kingston — microSD/SD (Canvas Select/Go/React/React Plus), High Endurance

4. Lexar — SD/microSD (Professional GOLD/SILVER), UHS-II 1800x/2000x, CFexpress Type A/B, CFast

5. Transcend — SD/microSD (High Endurance/Ultimate), CFast; industrial SLC/MLC series

6. PNY — SD/microSD (Elite/Pro Elite/High Performance), XLR8 lines

7. KIOXIA (Toshiba Memory) — EXCERIA/EXCERIA PRO SD/microSD

8. Toshiba (legacy consumer) — Exceria SD/microSD (still in channel)

9. Sony — Tough UHS-II SD, CFexpress Type A, XQD; Memory Stick (legacy)

10. Panasonic — SD/microSD (consumer & broadcast), microP2 (pro)

11. Delkin Devices — SD UHS-II (Power/Black), CFexpress Type B, CFast

12. ProGrade Digital — SD UHS-II (Gold), CFexpress Type A/B (Cobalt/Gold)

13. Angelbird — AV PRO SD UHS-II, CFexpress Type A/B, CFast

14. Integral (UK) — SD/microSD (UltimaPro, High Endurance), microSD for CCTV

15. Verbatim — SD/microSD (Premium/Pro), industrial variants

16. Patriot — microSD/SD (EP Series, Viper), high-endurance lines

17. ADATA — microSD/SD (Premier/Premier Pro), UHS-I V30

18. TeamGroup (T-Force/Xtreem) — microSD/SD (GO/PRO), endurance cards

19. Silicon Power — microSD/SD (Superior/Elite), high-endurance

20. Goodram (IRDM) — SD/microSD IRDM, industrial cards

21. Netac — SD/microSD (Pro/UHS-I), budget and endurance

22. Swissbit — Industrial microSD/SD (pSLC/MLC), extended temp

23. ATP Electronics — Industrial microSD/SD (SLC/pSLC), wide-temp, high endurance

24. Apacer — Industrial & consumer SD/microSD (SLC/pSLC/MLC)

25. Hikvision — microSD High Endurance for CCTV/dashcam

26. Dahua — microSD High Endurance (surveillance)

27. Emtec — SD/microSD (SpeedIN/Power Plus)

28. Kodak (licensed) — SD/microSD (Select/Extra)

29. Polaroid (licensed) — SD/microSD (Hi-Speed/Pro)

30. Greenliant — Industrial microSD/SD (endurance, security features)

Main card families supported: SD/SDHC/SDXC/SDUC; microSD/HC/XC; UHS-I/II; CFexpress Type A/B/C (NVMe/PCIe); XQD (PCIe); CF/CFast (PATA/SATA); Memory Stick PRO/PRO-HG (legacy); xD Picture Card/SmartMedia/MMC/RS-MMC/miniSD (legacy); UFS cards (rare, supported case-by-case); microP2/SxS (pro media workflows).

Our professional workflow (memory cards)

1. Forensic intake — Identify controller/NAND, interface, file system; log symptoms; original media is write-blocked.

2. Clone first — Hardware imaging (for SD/CF/XQD/CFexpress) with error-aware retries; for failed controllers/monoliths we perform ISP or chip-off NAND acquisition.

3. Controller-aware reconstruction — Rebuild FTL (L2P), ECC (BCH/LDPC), interleave, XOR/scrambler, spare area, die/plane/channel order using PC-3000 Flash, Rusolut VNR, Flash Extractor, etc.

4. Logical recovery — Repair exFAT/FAT32/NTFS/HFS+/APFS/EXT/XFS; recover RAW/NEF/CR3/ARW/ORF, MP4/MOV (moov rebuild), and fragmented GoPro/DJI streams.

5. Verification & delivery — SHA-256 manifests, sample-open tests, and secure transfer.

Top 75 memory-card recovery faults — symptoms & how we fix them

Format: Problem summary — Lab resolution (technical details)

A. Logical & user-action issues (1–12)

1. Accidental deletion (camera/phone/PC) — Card imaged read-only; exFAT/FAT directory and allocation tables analysed; carve file types (RAW/MP4/JPG) with footer/entropy checks; avoid writing to source to prevent FTL garbage-collection overwrites.

2. Quick format in-camera/PC — Rebuild previous volume from backup boot sector/superblocks; deep signature sweeps map prior directory trees and extents; reconstruct moov atoms for MOV/MP4.

3. Partition table wiped (MBR/GPT) — Locate FS headers (exFAT boot region, FAT BPB) and rebuild partition map virtually on the image; mount read-only for export.

4. File system corruption after improper removal — Replay FAT/exFAT allocation coherently; fix upcase table; repair directory entries; orphan recovery via signature/cluster coherence.

5. Unsupported FS message on camera/phone — Identify true FS (often exFAT on PC-formatted media); build virtual FS on image; normalise cluster size; export files.

6. Camera says “Card needs formatting” — Assume damaged boot area/FAT; reconstruct using backup boot sectors; recover directory tree + files; preserve timestamps from EXIF.

7. Read errors only on specific folders — Cluster chain breakage; rebuild chains from FAT, verify with file footers; carve adjacent clusters when metadata is lost.

8. Corrupt thumbnails but full images missing — Extract full-res from RAW sidecars/embedded JPEGs; carve contiguous RAW sectors using camera-specific headers (CR3/NEF/ARW).

9. GoPro/DJI files won’t open — Rebuild QuickTime container (moov from mdat); stitch fragmented fragments by PTS/DTS and GOP patterns; fix atom lengths and indices.

10. Dashcam cyclic overwrite — Map loop segments; carve from unallocated tails not yet overwritten; extract LRF/THM/preview artefacts; note overwritten content is unrecoverable.

11. Bit-rot on archival cards — Multiple-pass reads with majority voting; ECC-assist using spare area; fill gaps with partial-frame salvage for images/video.

12. Card write-protected (switch set or flagged) — If mechanical, replace adapter; if controller-flagged (WP bit), vendor command clear where supported; otherwise clone then repair FS on image.

B. Physical connector, mechanical & environmental (13–22)

13. Bent CF pins / damaged SD socket — Micro-rework pins or use donor camera/reader; if pad damage on monolith microSD, perform ISP to test pads for direct NAND access.

14. Broken SD write-protect tab — Replace shell/adapter; for embedded sensors reading WP pin, spoof logic high/low at reader; proceed to image.

15. Cracked microSD after drop — Re-encapsulate with epoxy fixture; microscope alignment; ISP to internal pads; if die fractured, chip-off and partial dump of surviving dice.

16. Salt-water / liquid damage — Decontaminate; halt corrosion; if controller unstable, chip-off NAND; per-die dump; ECC+XOR reconstruction to virtual image.

17. Heat/UV exposure (dashcam on windshield) — Thermal-cycle while cloning; reduce clock rates; majority reads per page; salvage using LDPC soft-decode if available.

18. ESD event — Replace TVS/regulators on reader path; if controller dead, chip-off; rebuild FTL; export data.

19. Seized or jammed in slot — Mechanical extraction; inspect for delamination; migrate to clean shell; image natively.

20. Delamination/warped PCB (microSD) — Edge-bond repair; expose pads; ISP to DAT0/CLK/CMD/VccQ; ONFI read via adapter; dump then reconstruct.

21. Contaminated UHS-II second-row pads — Clean pads; fall back to UHS-I single-row mode to stabilise; clone with reduced bus width.

22. CFexpress shell damage — Transplant to donor shell; ensure proper grounding; image via PCIe carrier; if controller fails, NVMe mode or chip-off (if feasible).

C. Controller & bridge failures (23–31)

23. SD controller not enumerating — Attempt vendor test mode; otherwise chip-off; parse spare data for ECC scheme; reconstruct interleave and page order to build a correct image.

24. Monolith pad map unknown — Microscopy to trace pad topology; continuity mapping; consult pinout DB; wire-up ISP; dump NAND via ONFI/Toggle protocols.

25. Controller firmware soft-brick — Vendor-specific test commands; if unstable, capture short imaging windows; fallback to chip-off; rebuild translation tables.

26. Controller remaps on the fly (wear-levelling events) — Use deterministic imager with tight timeouts; capture snapshot image; any instability → chip-off to bypass FTL dynamics.

27. Hardware encrypted controller (rare on SD) — If present (secured cards), require keys to decrypt; without keys only plaintext carving from host caches/sidecar remains feasible.

28. USB reader bridge faults — Use known-good UHS-II readers; force SPI/1-bit mode for marginal cards; or direct ISP to avoid reader path.

29. XQD/CFexpress controller crash — Reduce queue depth; admin-command imaging (NVMe) to capture stable windows; if not viable, remove controller and attempt raw dump (model-dependent).

30. CFast SATA bridge resets — Lock link to Gen1/Gen2; long timeouts; image sequentially; rebuild exFAT afterwards.

31. Oscillator failure on card — Inject external clock (lab fixture) long enough to enumerate and clone; otherwise chip-off.

D. NAND / FTL / ECC problems (32–45)

32. Retention loss (long-stored cards) — Temperature-assisted reads; multi-sample per page; majority voting; LDPC/BCH soft-decode to recover marginal bits.

33. Read-disturb after heavy playback — Distribute reads across blocks; throttle; refresh only on the clone; retry with adjusted reference voltages.

34. Program/erase wear exhaustion — Prioritise strong planes; per-die isolation; accept irrecoverable wear blocks; logical gap handling in FS.

35. Bad block table (BBT) corruption — Rebuild BBT from spare markers; re-map physically to a coherent virtual address space before FS repair.

36. Interleave/channel unknown — Entropy and pattern analysis to infer die/plane/channel; reconstruct XOR/scrambler; validate by file checksum alignment.

37. XOR/scrambler not identified — Brute-force dictionary & reverse-engineering of controller family; verify by known footer checksums (JPEG EOI, MP4 atoms).

38. Spare area/ECC layout unknown — Heuristic parsing; compare parity syndromes; tune BCH/LDPC parameters until codewords correct; reconstruct full logical pages.

39. Partial die failure — Dump healthy dies; ignore unreadable planes; fill holes via file carving; accept partial recovery for files spanning dead regions.

40. Toggle-mode timing instability — Drop to ONFI SDR; lengthen tR/tPROG; improve stability for marginal cells while dumping.

41. Pseudo-SLC cache incoherence — Priority-dump SLC cache pages first; then TLC area; reconcile duplicates by newest LBN.

42. FTL mapping loss — Extract mapping tables from reserved area; if missing, derive sequence from page headers and temporal order; build virtual device.

43. Wear-levelling metadata corruption — Use secondary/tertiary copies; if all fail, infer from block age counters and sequence numbers.

44. Die-to-die XOR (striped) — Determine stripe size via correlation; reconstruct by de-interleave then XOR removal.

45. ECC exhaustion (too many bit errors) — Multiple thermal/voltage passes; soft-decode LDPC with increased iterations; accept residual bit flips and validate via file-level checksums.

E. File-system–level damage (46–58)

46. exFAT boot region corrupt — Recreate boot sector & BIOS Parameter Block; validate cluster heap; rebuild allocation bitmap.

47. exFAT allocation bitmap damaged — Regenerate from directory hints + file sizes; carve for gaps; reconcile with slack space.

48. FAT32 FAT chain corruption — Reconstruct cluster chains by heuristics; repair root directory; compare to filenames from camera metadata.

49. NTFS on SD (phones/dataloggers) — Fix $MFT/$MFTMirr, replay $LogFile, rebuild $Bitmap/indexes; recover orphaned files.

50. HFS+/APFS on SD (Apple devices) — Rebuild catalog/extents (HFS+) or OMAP/spacemap (APFS); enumerate snapshots; export read-only.

51. EXT/XFS/Btrfs on embedded devices — Use backup superblocks; journal replay on image; btrfs restore for degraded metadata copies.

52. Corrupt directory indexes (LFN loss) — Recover 8.3 names + carve headers; rebuild LFN via EXIF and sidecar XMP where available.

53. Massive fragmentation (4K/8K video) — Non-linear extent mapping via temporal/GOP heuristics; rebuild container indexes and interleave.

54. Mixed media (RAW+JPEG) — Pair RAW and JPEG using timestamp/sequence; reconstruct missing sidecars from RAW embedded previews.

55. Photos show but won’t open — Footer missing: stitch based on DCT block structure (JPEG) or tile/IFD (TIFF/RAW); salvage partial images.

56. Corrupt MP4/MOV moov atom — Rebuild from mdat; reconstruct track tables (stco/co64, stsz, stsc, stts, ctts), re-index to playable state.

57. Unknown proprietary metadata (action cams) — Reverse-engineer custom boxes; align by frame cadence; rebuild minimal playable file.

58. Time-shift/clock errors causing mis-pairing — Normalise EXIF/UTC; match by shutter count and file size proximity; rebuild shoot sequences.

F. Security / encryption / privacy (59–63)

59. Camera-level encryption (rare) — Requires camera/card password/keys; decrypt on cloned image; without keys only plaintext carving of caches/thumbs is possible.

60. Phone App encrypted payloads (WhatsApp/Signal backups) — Obtain keys from handset/cloud (client-provided); decrypt databases on image; export media.

61. Hardware write-protect fuse tripped — If controller supports, clear via vendor command; otherwise chip-off to acquire raw NAND then rebuild.

62. Deleted + TRIM/ERASE executed by host — TRIM/ERASE is destructive; only pre-existing copies (thumbnails, proxies, sidecars, cloud sync) can be salvaged; expectations set accordingly.

63. Secure erase issued by camera — Confirm by checking erased block pattern; recover only from untouched regions or secondary storage (PC imports).

G. Host/usage interactions (64–69)

64. “Card not recognised” on camera but OK on PC — Check bus width/UHS signalling; read in 1-bit mode; image then correct FS mis-set created by PC format.

65. Adapter faults (microSD→SD) — Replace adapter; inspect WP pin & DAT lines; re-test; image with a lab-verified reader.

66. Different devices alternating formats — Map dual layouts; export both file trees from separate volumes; standardise to camera-recommended format post-recovery.

67. Interrupted file transfer — Reconcile partial writes; recover temp files and allocate missing clusters; rebuild containers for video.

68. Cluster size mismatch to workload — Realign/extract on image; rebuild with correct allocation unit to avoid fragmentation corruption.

69. Firmware update on camera mid-shoot — Journal/metadata anomalies fixed at FS level; rebuild directory indexes; verify media integrity.

H. Professional media specifics (70–75)

70. CFexpress Type A/B logical failure — NVMe admin imaging via PCIe carrier; rebuild exFAT; for controller instability, small QD with long timeouts; chip-off feasibility varies by model.

71. XQD metadata corruption (Nikon/Sony) — PCIe capture; rebuild exFAT; repair container indexes; stabilise with reduced link speed.

72. CFast power-loss corruption — SATA clone with long timeouts; replay write journal if present; rebuild exFAT and MOV atoms.

73. microP2/SxS directory loss — Rebuild P2/SxS clip structure (XML/CIF/SMI); relink MXF essence & metadata; restore spanned clips.

74. High-frame-rate RAW video dropped frames — Recover partial frames; reconstruct sequence using frame headers; deliver playable proxies + raw frameset.

75. Broadcast card worn to endurance limit — Identify failing erase blocks; prioritise key rushes; controlled retries; document unrecoverable spans transparently.

Why choose Reading Data Recovery

• 25 years of successful memory-card recoveries for consumers, creatives and broadcast teams.

• Multi-vendor, controller-aware expertise: NAND/FTL/ECC reconstruction, ISP/chip-off, NVMe/XQD/CFast/CFexpress workflows, and deep file-system repair.

• Clone-first, read-only methodology with advanced imagers and a large donor/tools inventory to maximise success.

Next step: Place your card in an anti-static bag inside a padded envelope or small box, include your contact details, and post or drop it in.
Contact Reading Data Recovery for a free diagnostic today.