Delkin · BLACK · POWER · PRIME · SELECT · CFexpress · CFast · SD UHS-II · Advantage · Hyperspeed
Delkin Devices memory card recovery. A Californian professional brand with a tier for every body, and drives in the top tiers.
Delkin Devices has sold cards to photographers for decades and its current lines are tiers rather than names: BLACK at the top, then POWER, PRIME and SELECT, across CFexpress Type A and B, CFast 2.0, SD UHS-II and microSD, with the older Advantage and Hyperspeed CompactFlash cards still in bags. The CFexpress and CFast cards are solid-state drives in a card's shape and are recovered on the SSD bench; the SD and microSD cards are recovered as cards. Delkin's warranty replaces the card. A Delkin SD card a reader still sees is £149 + VAT after the free look, fixed in writing; a CFexpress or CFast card from £449 + VAT.
Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
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Lines and models we see.
Which card is it →| Line | Models and markings | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| BLACK and POWER | CFexpress A and B; CFast; SD V90 | The fast tiers; from £449 + VAT on the PCIe cards |
| PRIME and SELECT | SD V60 and V30; microSD | Everyday camera cards |
| CompactFlash | Advantage, Hyperspeed | Older DSLRs; chip-off work |
What tends to go wrong on Delkin cards.
Delkin Devices symptoms, and how long each gives you.
Not listed? Describe it on the form →What you see on Delkin cards, and what it means.
Describe yours to us →| What you see | The usual reason | What the bench does |
|---|---|---|
| Body no longer recognises the card | Firmware on one side changed | Read on the bench in the controller's own modes |
| Card halted during a long take | Thermal limit | Image when cool; rebuild the cut clip |
| Formatted in the body | Tables rewritten | Image; carve; checked for a trim |
| Not recognised in any reader | Controller or firmware failed | SSD-class recovery |
From the envelope arriving to your files going back.
Work we have closed →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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
From the bench
- Say the body and both firmware versions. It is the first question on an unrecognised card.
- Send a reference clip from the same body at the same settings if you have one on another card; it is how a cut clip is rebuilt.
- The warranty replaces the card and does not touch the data. Claim it after.
What helps, and what harms.
Do this much first
- Take the card out and let it cool
- Note the body, the card and the firmware versions
- Say which clips matter
- Send it tracked; the first look is free
What sets us back
- Updating the card's firmware again to see
- Formatting in the body to get it recognised
- Trying it in every reader on the set
- Running a repair tool on it
Questions answered before you commit.
My camera stopped recognising my Delkin CFexpress card after an update. Is the footage gone?
No. The handshake failed and the data is unchanged; the bench reads the card in the controller's own modes.
Does the maker recover data?
No card maker does. The warranty replaces the card and does not touch the data; recover first and claim after.
What does it cost?
£149 + VAT if a reader still sees the card after the free look; £299 + VAT if none does, or if it is snapped, locked or counterfeit. Fixed in writing, and on most jobs no data means no bill.
How long does it take?
3–5 days at the bench for a card a reader sees; 5–10 days at the bench for monolith or SSD-class work.
Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.
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.