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SDC / Brands / ProGrade Digital

ProGrade Digital · Cobalt · Gold · CFexpress Type A · Type B · CFast 2.0 · SD UHS-II V90 · V60 · Refresh Pro · 2018

ProGrade Digital card recovery. The professionals' brand, started by the people who ran Lexar, on cards that are drives.

ProGrade Digital was founded in 2018 by former Lexar executives, after Micron closed Lexar the year before, to make cards for professional photographers and cinematographers and nothing else, and its press release of that February said so under the heading that former Lexar executives had started a new company. Its lines are two tiers, Cobalt at the top and Gold beneath it, across CFexpress Type A and Type B, CFast 2.0 and SD UHS-II at V90 and V60, with readers and a program called Refresh Pro that checks a card's health and sanitises it between jobs. The cards live in the bodies that write fastest, the Nikon Z8 and Z9, the Canon R5 and R3, the Sony Alpha and FX line, and the cinema cameras, and they arrive here with the faults of drives rather than cards: a CFexpress card the body no longer recognises after a firmware update on either side, a card that halted in a long take and cut its last clip short, a card formatted in the body with the job on it, and a card whose controller has failed. The CFexpress and CFast cards are solid-state drives in a card's shape and are recovered on the SSD bench; the SD cards are recovered as SD cards. ProGrade's warranty, like every maker's, replaces the card. A ProGrade SD card a reader still sees is £149 + VAT after the free look, fixed in writing; one no reader sees is £299 + VAT; a ProGrade CFexpress or CFast card is SSD work from £449 + 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
Cobalt CFexpressType B; Type AThe top tier; from £449 + VAT
Gold CFexpressType B; Type AFrom £449 + VAT
CFast 2.0Cobalt and GoldCanon 1D X II, C300, Arri, Blackmagic; from £449 + VAT
SD UHS-IICobalt V90; Gold V60Any UHS-II body

What tends to go wrong on ProGrade cards.

Refresh Pro, and what it is notProGrade's program reports a card's health and sanitises it, which rewrites the whole card to restore its speed. It is for cards between jobs, not for a card with the job still on it; sanitising a card with footage on it is the full format by another name. It does not recover.
The firmware on both sidesA ProGrade CFexpress card the body stopped recognising after an update on either side has unchanged data and a failed handshake. The bench reads the card in its controller's own modes, and the job is usually a plain one priced where it sits because of the tools.
HeatThe fastest cards run hottest, and a long take at a high bitrate can push a card to its thermal limit and a halt. The card is usually fine once cool and the last clip is cut short at the halt, to be rebuilt from a reference clip from the same body.
Drives, not cardsA ProGrade CFexpress or CFast card is an NVMe or SATA drive with firmware and a translation table, recovered with the SSD bench's tools in the controller's own modes or by reading the flash and rebuilding the translation. That is why the band is the top one.

ProGrade Digital symptoms, and how long each gives you.

Not listed? Describe it on the form →
Body stopped recognising it after an updateA firmware handshake. The footage is intact.Everyday job
Stopped during a takeHeat. Readable once cool; the last clip cut short.Do not delay
Formatted in the fieldTables rewritten; the data left where it was.Do not delay
Not recognised anywhereThe controller. SSD-class work.Everyday job
Reads in one reader onlyA reader bridge. Nothing wrong with the card.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 ProGrade cards, and what it means.

Describe yours to us →
What you see The usual reason What the bench does
Refresh Pro's sanitise was run with footage on the cardThe whole card rewrittenNothing; said plainly, nothing to pay
Body no longer recognises the cardFirmware on one side changedRead on the bench in the controller's own modes
Card halted during a long takeThermal limitImage when cool; rebuild the cut clip
Formatted in the bodyTables rewrittenImage; carve; checked for a trim
Not recognised in any readerController or firmware failedSSD-class recovery

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

From the bench

  • Say the body and both firmware versions.
  • Do not run Refresh Pro's sanitise on a card with the job on it.
  • Send a reference clip from the same body at the same settings if you have one.
  • 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.

One job, followed all the way through.

UK · SDC-2026-0734JOB LOGGED ✓

A ProGrade Cobalt 325GB CFexpress Type B from a Nikon Z9 that halted in a long 8K take on a hot day and would not be recognised by the body afterwards, with a documentary interview on it that could not be reshot

The card had halted on its thermal limit and its controller had not come back cleanly. On the bench it answered in its firmware mode and was imaged in full; the exFAT volume read from the image and every clip opened, with the interview clip, cut short at the halt, rebuilt from a reference clip from the same body at the same settings.

100% of the clips recovered6 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 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 ProGrade CFexpress card after a firmware update. Is the footage gone?

No. The handshake failed; the data is unchanged. The bench reads the card in the controller's own modes. From £449 + VAT after the free look, fixed in writing.

Will Refresh Pro recover my files?

No. It checks the card's health and sanitises it, which rewrites the whole card. Do not run the sanitise on a card with the job on it.

Why are ProGrade's CFexpress cards priced with SSDs?

Because they are SSDs, with NVMe controllers and firmware, and are recovered with SSD tools. The SD cards are recovered as SD cards, in the lower bands.

What does it cost?

A ProGrade SD card is £149 + VAT if a reader still sees it after the free look, £299 + VAT if none does; CFexpress and CFast from £449 + VAT. Fixed in writing.

Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.

CFexpress Type A and Type B →XQD and CFast 2.0 →SD, SDHC and SDXC →Lexar →Delkin Devices →

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