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SDC / Brands / Kingston

Kingston · Canvas Select Plus · Canvas Go Plus · Canvas React Plus · SDCS2 · SDCS3 · SDG3 · Industrial · DataTraveler · IronKey

Kingston memory card recovery. A long-established name that buys its flash from others and says plainly where to send a dead card.

Kingston has sold memory cards for as long as there have been memory cards, and its current lines are the Canvas family: Canvas Select Plus, the everyday microSD with its A1 rating and SDCS2 and SDCS3 part numbers; Canvas Go Plus, faster, with its SDG3 numbers, for GoPros and drones; Canvas React Plus, the UHS-II camera card; and alongside them an industrial line and an endurance line for cameras that record all day, plus the DataTraveler and IronKey USB drives. Kingston does not make flash of its own and its cards carry controllers from the common makers, which puts them squarely in the recovery trade's databases. Kingston's own support page on its cards is more direct than most about what happens when one dies: it tells customers who have lost data to contact a company that specialises in data recovery services, and names two, and it adds that for commercial-grade equipment it recommends only its industrial-grade SD and microSD cards, which is Kingston's way of saying what Samsung's warranty says about dashcams. Retailers list the Canvas cards with a limited lifetime warranty, and the warranty replaces the card. A Kingston card a reader still sees is £149 + VAT after the free look, fixed in writing; one no reader sees, or one snapped, locked or counterfeit, is £299 + VAT.

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.

Lines and models we see.

Which card is it →
Line Models and markings Notes
Canvas Select PlusmicroSD SDCS2 and SDCS3, 32GB to 512GB; A1; V30 on larger sizesPhones, Switch, Pi; the budget card
Canvas Go PlusmicroSD SDG3, up to 170MB/s read; SDGoPro, drones, action cameras
Canvas React PlusSD and microSD UHS-IICameras
Industrial and endurancemicroSD rated for temperature and continuous writesDashcams, home cameras, commercial equipment
DataTraveler and IronKeyUSB drives; IronKey encryptedOffices; IronKey needs its password

What tends to go wrong on Kingston cards and drives.

Kingston's own adviceIts support page for the Canvas Select card tells customers who have lost data to contact a company that specialises in data recovery services and names two large ones. It is the frankest statement any maker gives, and the practical reading is that Kingston will replace the card and will not read it.
Commercial and continuous useThe same page says that for commercial-grade equipment Kingston recommends only its industrial-grade cards. A Canvas Select in a dashcam or a shop's camera recorder is outside what Kingston built it for, and it arrives here worn out, locked read-only or erroring on write. The industrial cards last longer; the recovery is the same.
Third-party controllersKingston buys flash and controllers from the common makers rather than making its own, which means its cards fall within the schemes the recovery trade has already documented. A Kingston microSD that no reader sees is read through its test pads and its controller's scrambling undone in software, as routinely as any.
IronKey and encrypted drivesKingston's encrypted USB drives are built so that nobody reads them without the password, and that includes a laboratory. A drive with its password is recovered like any other; a drive without it is not, and the drives that destroy themselves after too many attempts do what they say.

Kingston symptoms, and how long each gives you.

Not listed? Describe it on the form →
Camera or phone says format, or card errorTorn tables. Say no; the pictures are there.Do not delay
Not seen by any readerThe controller. Monolith or chip-off work.Everyday job
Suddenly read-onlyThe card locked itself. Copy everything off now.Do not delay
Bought online, now losing filesA counterfeit. Everything on the real flash is recoverable.Everyday job
Snapped or crackedIf the die is whole, it reads.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 you see on Kingston cards and drives, and what it means.

Describe yours to us →
What you see The usual reason What the bench does
Worn out in a dashcam or recorderOutside what Kingston built the card forCopied off now; imaged in passes if slow
IronKey asks for a password nobody hasHardware encryptionNothing without the password; said plainly
Needs formatting, or card errorTorn file tablesImage; rebuild the tables on the image
Not detected anywhereThe controller has stoppedChip-off on a board; test pads on a monolith
Write-protected with the switch openThe end-of-life lockCopy off now; image in passes if it is slow
Shows the wrong size, or loses files past a pointA counterfeit under this labelThe real flash recovered; the rest was never stored

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 job3–5 days at the bench

From the bench

  • Say the part number on the card; SDCS2 and SDCS3 are different generations inside.
  • Say what it served in. Kingston's own page says its consumer cards are not for commercial equipment.
  • Put the password on the form for an IronKey or an encrypted DataTraveler. Without it, there is nothing to send.
  • The warranty replaces the card and does not touch the data. Claim it after the recovery, not before; the maker will not send the card back.
  • Say where the card was bought. The big names are the counterfeited ones, and a marketplace card under this label may not be this brand inside.
  • The free recovery software is a fair first step on a card that reads cleanly, and the wrong one on a card that does not.

One job, followed all the way through.

UK · SDC-2026-0727JOB LOGGED ✓

A Kingston Canvas Select Plus 64GB from a Raspberry Pi running a village hall's booking system, corrupt after a power cut and refusing to boot, with the bookings database and no backup newer than a year

The card read cleanly on the bench; its ext4 file system had been damaged by the interrupted write and the Pi's own repair had been refused at boot. The volume was repaired on an image, the database file copied out and checked, and the card returned with the image on fresh media and a note that a card from a Pi is a card to back up.

100% of the database recovered2 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 every format and repair
  • Note the line, the capacity and where it was bought
  • Send it tracked; the first look is free

What sets us back

  • Formatting to get the device working again
  • Claiming the warranty before the data is off
  • Running the maker's format tool
  • Forcing a read-only lock off

Questions answered before you commit.

Does Kingston recover data from its cards?

No. Its own support page tells customers who have lost data to contact a specialist laboratory. The warranty replaces the card.

My Kingston card was in a dashcam and has stopped. Will the warranty cover it?

Kingston's support says its consumer cards are not recommended for commercial equipment and points to its industrial cards. The card is recovered here regardless, while it still reads.

Can you get into an IronKey without the password?

No, and neither can anyone. Put the password on the form and the drive is recovered like any other.

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.

Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.

USB flash drives and pen drives →Dashcam and security camera cards →microSD →Card not recognised, or not showing up →SanDisk →

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.

0800 6890668

Price my jobPacking and posting