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SDC / Brands / SanDisk

SanDisk · Ultra · Extreme · Extreme PRO · High Endurance · Max Endurance · RescuePRO Deluxe · SDSQXAV · SDSDXXD · Nintendo Switch cards

SanDisk memory card recovery. The card in most pockets, the most counterfeited label on the shelf, and a warranty that says what it will not do.

SanDisk is the brand most cards carry and, since February 2025, a company of its own again, separated from Western Digital and trading under its own name. Its lines are the ones people own: Ultra, the everyday microSD with its A1 rating in phones, dashcams and Switches; Extreme, with its A2 and V30 markings for GoPros, drones and action cameras, now sold in capacities up to 2TB; Extreme PRO, the camera card in SD and microSD, UHS-I and UHS-II; High Endurance and Max Endurance for cameras that record all day; the licensed Nintendo cards; and the CompactFlash, CFast and CFexpress lines for the bodies that need them. SanDisk's documents are unusually plain about what it will and will not do. Its warranty page says that data recovery is not covered under this warranty and is not part of the warranty returns process, and that SanDisk will not return the original drive to end users. Its support note on write-protected cards says the drive will write protect itself to prevent data loss when the number of good blocks is lower than the preset threshold. Its support answer for out-of-warranty data loss points to data recovery partners and takes no responsibility for their work. Every SanDisk microSD is a monolith, with SanDisk's own controller and its own flash interface inside, and the recovery trade has published on both. A SanDisk 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
0800 6890668

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
UltramicroSDXC A1, 32GB to 1.5TB; SDSQUAC and SDSQUAB part numbersPhones, Switch, dashcams; the most counterfeited single card
ExtrememicroSDXC A2 V30, SDSQXAV, up to 2TB; SD UHS-IGoPro, drones, action cameras
Extreme PROmicroSD SDSQXCD; SD UHS-I SDSDXXD; SD UHS-II V90 SDSDXEP; 2TB SD cards in 2024 and 2026Cameras; RescuePRO Deluxe offer
High Endurance and Max EndurancemicroSD SDSQQNR; rated for continuous recordingDashcams and home cameras
Nintendo licensedmicroSDXC in Nintendo packaging; microSD Express for the Switch 2Consoles
ProfessionalExtreme PRO CompactFlash, CFast 2.0, CFexpress Type BOlder DSLRs, cinema bodies; CFexpress from £449 + VAT

What tends to go wrong on SanDisk cards.

The read-only lock, in SanDisk's wordsSanDisk's support note for the write-protected message says the card keeps two copies of its own data on two different blocks and goes into write protection mode when corruption occurs on both, and that the drive will write protect itself to prevent data loss when the number of good blocks is lower than the preset threshold. The lock is permanent and the card still reads. Copy everything off at once; the forum unlock tools do nothing to it.
CounterfeitsSanDisk's name is the one most often printed on cards it did not make, on marketplaces and auction sites, and a counterfeit is a small flash chip behind a controller told to claim a large one. It loses files past its real size and shows SD ERR on a GoPro or an error on a drone when it gets there. The free look measures the real size, and everything on the real flash is recovered.
The monolith insideEvery SanDisk microSD is a sealed block with SanDisk's own controller and flash, and the trade has published what it finds: a cache region on the same flash holding the most recent data, SanDisk's own flash interface rather than the common one, and SanDisk's own scrambling. When the controller stops, the flash is read through the test pads and the bench's software undoes SanDisk's scheme. A card nobody can see is a monolith job, and a routine one.
RescuePRO DeluxeExtreme and Extreme PRO cards carry an offer of RescuePRO Deluxe, a recovery program from LC Technology activated with a key from the card's packaging, on a two-year licence on current cards. SanDisk's own support note says it does not provide installation, configuration or troubleshooting of the software. It is a fair first step on a card that reads cleanly at its right size, run on an image; it is not a way into a card no reader sees.

SanDisk 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 SanDisk cards, and what it means.

Describe yours to us →
What you see The usual reason What the bench does
SD ERR, card error, past a certain amount writtenA counterfeitThe real flash imaged and recovered
Write-protected in every reader, switch openSanDisk's own end-of-life lockCopied off now; imaged in passes if slow
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 line and the part number from the card's face; SDSQXAV and SDSDXXD say more than the colour.
  • Do not claim the warranty first. SanDisk says the original card is not returned.
  • If the card was bought from a marketplace, say so. It may not be a SanDisk inside, and the band is decided by what is.
  • 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-2026-0725JOB LOGGED ✓

A SanDisk Extreme PRO 256GB microSD from a DJI Air 3, which showed 0 bytes in every reader after the drone's battery was pulled mid-write, with a surveyor's week of roof inspections on it

The controller had lost its translation table and presented nothing. The coating was removed, the pads mapped for that generation of SanDisk monolith, and the raw flash read through a needle adapter; the dump was descrambled, the cache region merged into the main image, and the table rebuilt in software. The exFAT volume mounted from the virtual card and every clip and still was copied out.

99% of the week recovered8 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 SanDisk recover data from its cards?

No. Its warranty says data recovery is not covered, its support points out-of-warranty customers to recovery partners, and it does not return the original card. Recover first; claim the replacement after.

Should I use the free RescuePRO Deluxe that came with my card?

On a card that reads cleanly at its right size with deleted or formatted files, it is a fair first step, run against an image of the card. On a card that drops out, shows 0 bytes or is not seen, no; every scan is more reads of a weak card, and the program cannot read a card the controller does not present.

My SanDisk card went read-only. Why?

Because it reached the end of its life. SanDisk's note says the card write-protects itself when its good blocks fall below a threshold. It still reads; copy everything off now.

How do I know if my SanDisk card is a fake?

Buy from the brand or a named retailer, and test a new card with a tool that writes and reads its full capacity. A card that loses files past a point, or that fails at the same amount every time, is reporting a size it does not have. The free look measures what is really there.

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. SanDisk CFexpress from £449 + VAT. Fixed in writing.

Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.

The disk is write-protected →RAW, 0 bytes, or the wrong capacity →microSD →Recovery software, or a lab →Drone, GoPro and action camera cards →SanDisk SSDs, on the SSD site →

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