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SDC / Every card, and where it came from / XQD and CFast 2.0

XQD · Sony G series · Lexar 2933x · CFast 2.0 · SanDisk Extreme PRO CFast · Lexar 3500x · D850 · 1D X Mark II · Alexa Mini

XQD and CFast 2.0 card recovery. The two cards CFexpress replaced, still carrying work in the bodies that took them.

XQD and CFast were the two answers to the same question, what to use when CompactFlash ran out of speed, and they went different ways. XQD, from Sony and Nikon and Lexar, put a PCIe interface in a small thick card and went into Nikon's D4, D5, D500 and D850 and the first Z6 and Z7 bodies and into Sony's professional camcorders. CFast kept the CompactFlash shape and put a SATA solid-state drive inside it, and went into Canon's 1D X Mark II, C300 Mark II and XC10, into Arri's Alexa Mini and Amira, and into Blackmagic's URSA cameras. CFexpress Type B replaced XQD in the same slot, and most XQD bodies took it after a firmware update, but the cards themselves are still in bags and still in use, and they arrive here as drives rather than cards: a card the body no longer recognises, a card formatted with a job on it, a card that stopped mid-take, and a card whose controller has died. Both are small solid-state drives, PCIe inside the XQD and SATA inside the CFast, recovered with the SSD bench's tools and priced in the top band: from £449 + VAT after the free look, fixed in writing.

Free first lookOne fixed figure in writingNo data, no bill on most jobsReturn postage paid

Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
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Take the card out and leave it out. Do not format it, however politely the computer or the camera asks. Do not run chkdsk, First Aid, a repair tool or a recovery program that offers to fix the card. Do not keep trying it in reader after reader, and do not put it back in the camera to see. A card that reads a little tonight may not read at all tomorrow; whatever is on it is recovered from an image, and the image comes first.

XQD and CFast symptoms, and how long each gives you.

Not listed? Describe it on the form →
Body says the card cannot be used, or needs formattingFile tables torn mid-write. Do not format.Do not delay
Formatted in the body by mistakeTables rewritten; data left where it was.Do not delay
Not recognised in the body or the readerController or firmware. SSD-class recovery.Everyday job
Recording stopped mid-takeThe card halted; the clip is cut short.Everyday job
CFast works in the camera, not the readerA reader bridge that does not like the card's SATA firmware.Everyday job
Shows the wrong size, or 0 bytesThe controller's translation table lost.Everyday job
Packing it and posting it: take the card out of the device and leave it out; do not format, do not run a repair, and do not keep trying readers. Put the card in a small anti-static bag or a card case, tape that to a piece of card so it cannot shake loose, and post it in a padded envelope or a small box; a snapped microSD travels with every piece. Send the adapter or the reader only if the card has never worked without it. Use a tracked service and insure it for what the pictures are worth, and know that the posting address is not printed anywhere on this site; it arrives by email in reply to the form, with a booking sheet to print; the sheet inside the envelope is what matches it to your enquiry when it is opened. Or hand the envelope in at one of ten drop-off points, your name on the outside and the sheet inside. We pay the postage home either way. The whole of it is written up on the guide to packing and posting.

What is inside, what fails, and what the bench has to do.

XQD is PCIeAn XQD card is a small PCIe drive with its own controller and flash. Readers for it are now scarce, and a card that reads in no reader you own may be fine in the right one. When the controller has failed, it is read in its own firmware modes or the flash is read and the translation rebuilt.
CFast is SATAA CFast 2.0 card is a SATA SSD in CompactFlash clothing. It has a SATA controller, firmware, a translation table and the same failure modes as any SATA drive, and it is recovered on the SSD bench with SATA tools. It is not a CompactFlash card and does not fit a CompactFlash slot.
The cameras that stayedMany XQD bodies accept CFexpress Type B after a firmware update, and many owners carry both. A card that was fine for years and is suddenly unrecognised after the body was updated for CFexpress is a firmware handshake, not a dead card.
Formats in the bodyA format rewrites the file tables and leaves the footage where it was, unless the body also issues a trim to the drive inside, which some do. The free look reads what is left before anything is promised.

What you see, and what is usually behind it.

Describe yours to us →
What you see What is usually behind it What the bench does
Cannot be used, or formatTables tornImage; rebuild on the image
FormattedTables rewrittenImage; carve and rebuild, if not trimmed
Not recognised anywhereController or firmware failedFirmware modes, or flash read and rebuilt
Reads in camera onlyReader bridgeRead on a native interface on the bench
Wrong size, 0 bytesTranslation table lostRebuilt in software from the flash

From the envelope arriving to your files going back.

Work we have closed →
01

Logged the day it lands, and the first look costs nothing Free

A case number goes on the envelope and a number on the card the day it is opened, with both sides photographed. The card goes into a reader on a hardware imager that controls how long each read may take, never a laptop slot, and what it presents is read first: its capacity, its identity registers, its file system. That decides whether it is a card a reader can see with a fault in the data, or a card whose controller has stopped, and which band it falls in. The first look is free, and you can stop there owing nothing.

Nothing to pay for lookingA single figure, put in writingNo formats, no repairs, nothing written
02

Imaged, sector by sector, before anything else

A card that answers at all is imaged in full on hardware that limits every read and retries on its own terms, weak areas last, with a map kept of what could not be read. A card that is slow, that drops out, or that has locked itself read-only is imaged the same way, in short passes with the power cycled between them. Nothing is written to the card at any stage, and every later step happens on the image.

Sector by sector, weak areas lastNothing written to the card
03

The flash read through the test pads when the controller has stopped

A card no reader sees is a monolith job. The coating is removed to expose the internal test pads, the pinout is matched against a database or mapped by hand, a needle adapter is fitted, and the raw flash is read out around the dead controller. The scrambling, the error-correction layout and the page and block order are then solved in software, and a virtual image of the card assembled from the raw dump.

Pinout, needles, raw dumpDescrambled and reassembled in software
04

The file system rebuilt, or the files carved, on the image

On the image, the FAT or exFAT tables are rebuilt where they are damaged and read where they are not, deleted entries are brought back, and where the tables are gone the photographs and video are carved out by their own signatures. Video files cut short by a dead battery are rebuilt from a reference clip from the same camera. Every photograph is opened before it goes on the list; a file that will not open is not counted.

Tables rebuilt, or files carvedEvery file opened before it is listed
05

You see the file list before you pay

What was recovered is listed for you first, and only then does a bill exist. Approve the list and it is invoiced; turn it down and it is not, and where nothing has come back, most jobs carry no charge at all. The files go home on fresh media with the card, tracked, with the postage paid here, and your case stays open until you have opened them yourself.

No charge until you accept the figureFresh media, supplied with the job5–10 days at the bench

What arrives most often

  • Say the body and whether it was updated for CFexpress. It is the first question on an unrecognised XQD card.
  • Say which make the card is. Sony, Lexar and the Nikon-branded cards differ inside.
  • Send the card only, unless it has only ever worked in one reader.

One job, followed all the way through.

UK · SDC-2026-0705JOB LOGGED ✓

A Sony G-series 128GB XQD card from a Nikon D850, formatted in the body by a second shooter who thought it was the spare, with a day's wildlife commission on it

The card was imaged whole; the body's format had rewritten the exFAT tables and left the NEF files where they were, and the drive inside had not been trimmed. The files were carved by signature and their names and dates restored from the camera's own records inside each file. Every frame opened.

100% of the frames recovered5 days here, and back by post
Illustrative example — replace with a genuine case

What helps, and what harms.

Do this much first

  • Take the card out and leave it out
  • Say no to formats in the body
  • Note the body and its firmware
  • Send tracked; the first look is free

What sets us back

  • Formatting to make the body accept it
  • Shooting on it after a mistaken format
  • Buying readers to try
  • Running a repair tool on it

Questions answered before you commit.

My camera no longer recognises my XQD card. Is it dead?

Usually not. Many bodies updated for CFexpress change how they talk to the slot. The data is unchanged and the bench reads the card directly.

Is CFast the same as CompactFlash?

No. CFast is a SATA solid-state drive in a CompactFlash shape; it does not fit a CompactFlash slot and it is recovered with SSD tools. It is priced in the top band for that reason.

What does it cost?

From £449 + VAT after the free look, fixed in writing. On most jobs no data means no bill.

Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.

CFexpress Type A and Type B →CompactFlash →Formatted, or deleted by mistake →Sony →Lexar →

Nothing gets worse while the card is out of the device.

Looking at it is free. Back comes a list of what opened and what did not, together with a single price to finish, set down in writing while you are still free to say no. On most jobs an invoice only follows the data. Until that list reaches you, leave the card in its bag and format nothing.

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Price my jobPacking and posting