Devices · camera & SD cards
Cards pick their moment: the morning after the wedding, day four of the holiday, halfway through copying off the only set. Cards that read 'empty' or 'damaged' usually hand it all back, so long as nothing else gets at them first.
Speak to an engineer about it
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| The wording | What that tells you | First step |
|---|---|---|
| Canon: Memory card error / Cannot access the memory card | The file system is unreadable to the camera | Eject it and shoot no more |
| Canon: Card cannot be accessed. Reinsert/change the card | Bad contacts, or the controller | Don't format it as a 'cure' |
| Nikon: This memory card cannot be used. Card may be damaged | Corrupt, or not recognised | Skip the camera format |
| Card is write-protected / Card locked | The slider switch — or a dying controller locking itself | Switch is fine? Then it is dying |
| You need to format the disk in drive X: | Your photos sit on a card the PC now calls RAW | Always say no |
| No memory card (with a card inserted) | The controller or its pads are dead | A job for chip-level reading |
As soon as it lands with us, your device gets its own case number. An engineer works out the fault, says what can genuinely be pulled off, then puts one fixed price in writing — no charge for diagnosis, no obligation, and no chargeable work until you approve it.
Everything starts with a bit-perfect clone, so no software of ours or anyone else's ever runs on your only copy.
Where the file system can be mended, that happens on the clone; where it cannot, each photo and clip is lifted out by its own header signature, RAW formats too.
A recovered shoot is opened picture by picture rather than merely tallied, so what comes back displays properly, at full size.
You sign off a complete list of the recovered files first; only then does the recovery fee fall due. Everything returns on fresh media, postage paid, and the job stays open until you confirm the files open at your end.
The figure nobody actually has: no trustworthy published count exists for how much of the SD card market is counterfeit — makers and labs agree it is common, and cards turn up here most weeks, yet any exact percentage you read was invented. One thing is not in doubt: whatever went past a fake card's genuine capacity cannot be retrieved by anybody.
A 512GB SanDisk, full at midnight and blank by breakfast. We cloned it forensically, rebuilt the file system on that clone, then carved deep behind it for anything orphaned — the couple had every frame back, and the photographer kept the client.
Please don't. Formatting lays fresh structures on top of the very ones we read to rebuild your folders and file names. Working from the card as it stands gives a cleaner, fuller result.
Yes — CR3, NEF, ARW, RAF, DNG and their cousins each carry a signature we carve by, video formats as well. Cards from working photographers are most of what lands here.
Not always. Monolith cards keep the memory in one die; where that die survived the break, chip-level reading still lifts the data, even from a card that will never work again.
Memory cards turn round fastest of anything on the bench — two to three working days for most, quicker if a deadline is pressing. Just tell us the date you need.
Powering a damaged device up again costs you data. Start a case first; diagnosis is free whatever you decide.