Maidenhead Data Recovery – Maidenhead’s No.1 SD & microSD Data Recovery Specialists (25+ Years)

We recover photography and video from SD / microSD media used in cameras, drones, phones, dashcams and CCTV—across consumer and industrial cards. Our workflow is forensically safe: we image first, fix later, never writing to your original card.

Card Types We Handle

• SD / SDHC / SDXC / SDUC (full-size)

• microSD / microSDHC / microSDXC / microSDUC

• UHS-I / UHS-II (two-row pins) / UHS-III; application classes A1/A2; video classes V6–V90

• Legacy/related media frequently sent with SD: miniSD, MMC, CF / CFast / XQD / CFexpress (supported; workflow similar but not identical)

20 Widely Used UK Memory-Card Brands (with representative series)

1. SanDisk – Ultra, Extreme/Extreme Pro, High Endurance, Max Endurance

2. Samsung – EVO Plus, PRO Plus, PRO Endurance

3. Kingston – Canvas Select/Go/React/React Plus, High Endurance

4. Lexar – Professional 1066x/1800x/2000x, Silver/Gold

5. Transcend – 300S/500S, High Endurance, Industrial Temp

6. PNY – Elite, Elite-X, Pro Elite, High Endurance

7. KIOXIA (Toshiba) – Exceria/Exceria Pro, Exceria High Endurance

8. Integral (UK) – Ultima Pro, Ultima Pro X2, High Endurance, Industrial

9. Verbatim – Premium/Pro+, High Endurance

10. Sony – SF-G/SF-M series, Tough; microSD UHS-I/UHS-II

11. Panasonic – SD UHS-I/UHS-II, Industrial/Surveillance

12. Delkin Devices – Power/Black/V90, Advantage; Industrial

13. ProGrade Digital – V60/V90 SD, microSD V60

14. Angelbird – AV PRO SD V60/V90, AV PRO microSD V60

15. Silicon Power – Superior/Elite/High Endurance

16. ADATA – Premier/Premier Pro, High Endurance

17. TeamGroup – Color Card/GO Card, High Endurance

18. Patriot – EP, High Endurance

19. Netac – Pro/High Endurance

20. Swissbit – Industrial SD/microSD, pSLC options

(We support other brands as well, including OEM/industrial cards bundled with cameras and DVRs.)

Our SD/microSD Recovery Workflow (concise, step-by-step)

1. Intake & Preservation – Log identifiers, photograph the card, capture controller codes; isolate from power.

2. Non-invasive Reads – Stabilised reader, fixed voltage/I-O; lock to safe timings; attempt full image; collect error maps.

3. Controller-Bypass Path (when needed)

   • Monolithic microSD: expose test pads (CLK/CMD/DAT0–3, VDD/VSS/VQ) under microscope; micro-solder or pogo-pin; read via PC-3000 Flash / VNR / Soft-Center.

   • Discrete SD (older): lift NAND package (“chip-off”) and read raw.

4. Signal & NAND Decoding – Determine bus width, page/block geometry, interleave, scrambling/XOR, ECC (BCH/LDPC); reconstruct L2P (FTL).

5. Logical Rebuild – Rebuild FAT32/exFAT structures; fix allocation tables/bitmaps; repair media containers (MOV/MP4/MXF) and RAW stills (CR2/NEF/ARW/DNG).

6. Verification & Delivery – Hash manifests; sample-open images/clips; deliver via secure download or your supplied media.

Packaging: Place the card in a small padded envelope or box with your contact details; post or drop off—both accepted.

50 SD/microSD Faults We Recover — With Technical Notes

A. Physical / Electrical

1. Bent or cracked card → Micro-X-ray/continuity map; trace repairs; if monolith, direct-pad read; else chip-off.

2. Broken/abraded contacts → Gold-pad rebuild; reduce contact resistance; stabilised reader with fixed spring force.

3. Water/liquid ingress → DI rinse, dry, ionic contamination removal; then non-invasive read; escalate to pad access if controller unstable.

4. Heat damage (dashcam/drone) → Duty-cycle reads under cooled fixture; throttle timing; migrate to raw read if controller resets.

5. ESD event → Replace/bridge ESD suppressors if discrete PCB; otherwise direct-pad/monolith read.

6. Write-protect switch failure (full-size SD) → Force read-only at host level; bypass switch line on reader.

B. Controller / Firmware

7. Controller lock-up after error threshold → Reset strategy, fixed block size, BOT/UASP mode selection; if persistent, bypass to raw.

8. Bad translation table (FTL) / mapping loss → Raw dump; infer interleave & block order via markers; rebuild L2P in PC-3000 Flash/VNR.

9. XOR/scrambler unknown → Derive XOR from spare/marker patterns; apply to dumps; verify with ECC parity.

10. ECC metadata corruption → Identify ECC family (BCH/LDPC), page layout; brute pattern search; reconstruct parity or fall back to majority reads.

11. Controller-level wear-levelling failure → Use multi-dump comparison to resolve generation conflicts; choose freshest block by timestamp/sequence.

12. Vendor bad-block table loss → Rebuild BBT from spare bytes; mask defective blocks during virtual image creation.

13. Incorrect capacity reporting / counterfeit → Validate die count and density; virtual remap to true size; recover within genuine range.

C. NAND / Media-Level

14. Read disturb → Shuffle read order; apply read-retry (if supported); voltage/temperature tuning to lower BER; multiple passes with voting.

15. Retention loss (shelf-stored card) → Bake/controlled warm to improve marginal threshold, then low-duty reads; ECC soft-decode.

16. Program disturb → Identify affected wordlines; prioritise earliest generations; majority voting across dumps.

17. Endurance wear (dashcam/CCTV high-write) → LDPC soft-decoding; iterative re-reads; selective page recovery for long GOPs.

18. Multi-chip interleave unknown → Determine die interleave from cyclic markers; reconstruct virtual die order.

19. TLC/QLC higher BER → Increase pass count, apply soft-decoding curves; accept partial recovery on non-critical frames.

D. Interface / Host-Side Issues

20. UHS-II mode instability → Force UHS-I SDR50/DDR50 in reader; stabilise timing; image slowly but consistently.

21. Incompatible A2 command set (older readers) → Use reader that supports CMD23/CMDQ; otherwise fallback to raw.

22. Damaged USB reader corrupting transfers → Replace reader; verify with read-only checksum tests; re-image.

23. Power droop on bus → Lab PSU or powered reader; controlled inrush; retry.

E. File System / Partition

24. FAT32 boot sector damage → Rebuild from backup sector; reconstruct BPB fields; validate FAT chain.

25. FAT tables cross-linked → Duplicate cross-check; heuristic chain repair; carve contiguous camera files by cluster heuristics.

26. exFAT boot region corruption → Regenerate VBR and backup VBR; rebuild Allocation Bitmap and Upcase Table; restore directory entries.

27. Partition table (MBR/GPT) lost → Signature search for FAT/exFAT; virtual partition map; mount read-only.

28. Camera formatted card (quick format) → Metadata-first recovery; then header-guided carving (JPEG/RAW/MP4).

29. Accidental deletion → Recover directory records and cluster chains; avoid carving until metadata paths exhausted.

F. Camera / Workflow Specific

30. Broken MP4/MOV (missing moov atom) → Rebuild moov from mdat; infer time-to-sample, keyframe index; stitch spanned clips.

31. Spanned clip recovery (4GB splits / exFAT spans) → Order segments by creation time/UUID; merge; rewrite container indexes.

32. RAW stills (CR2/NEF/ARW/DNG) partial damage → Patch headers; rebuild TIFF IFDs; salvage preview/JPEG and raw mosaic if needed.

33. MXF index loss (broadcast cameras) → Recreate KLV indexes; re-wrap essence; validate duration.

34. GoPro/Action Cam LRV/THM present but MP4 missing → Use LRV timing to reconstruct main stream boundaries; carve long GOPs.

35. DJI drone SOS (card not recognised after crash) → Raw dump; decode vendor exFAT quirks; rebuild MP4/MOV.

G. Security / Malware / OS

36. Camera “lock” or vendor password flag → Vendor tool resets; if none, raw read; ignore controller-side flags.

37. Malware-hidden files / attribute tricks → Mount read-only; ignore hidden/attrib flags; export directly from raw image.

38. Mac “The disk you inserted…” prompt → Verify partition signature; rebuild VBR/MBR; avoid first-aid writes.

H. Manufacturing / Counterfeit / Compatibility

39. Counterfeit capacity (host sees 256 GB; real 32 GB) → Detect wraparound; recover only genuine LBA span; warn about overwritten upper range.

40. Wrong CID/CSD parameters → Reader with override; or raw path ignoring CID.

41. Controller family mismatch across series → Select matching XOR/ECC profiles based on die markings and test dumps.

I. Data-Path Errors / User Events

42. Interrupted transfer / unsafe eject → Journal-less exFAT inconsistencies; rebuild directory and bitmap; container fixups.

43. File transfer overwrote originals → Carve older versions from unallocated; prioritise contiguous clusters.

44. OS “format card” after error → Treat as quick-format; signature-driven rebuild.

45. Camera switched from FAT32→exFAT mid-shoot → Build two virtual volumes; segregate cluster spaces; export both sets.

J. Monolithic microSD Specific

46. No visible pads (“black epoxy” packages) → Map internal test pads with continuity and IR backlighting; micro-solder; single-wire DAT0 if required.

47. DAT bus line failure → Fall back to DAT0 1-bit mode; slower but stable imaging.

48. VQ (I/O voltage) mismatch damage → Provide separate VQ rail; level shifting; safe clock rate.

K. Edge Cases & Optimisation

49. Severely fragmented exFAT with heavy deletion → Metadata-first, then graph-based cluster reassembly; partial recovery of long 4K clips.

50. Multiple cards, same event (wedding/sports) → Cross-validate missing frames from other bodies; reconstruct timeline; deliver continuity.

Why Choose Maidenhead Data Recovery

• 25+ years focused on flash/NAND and camera workflows

• Advanced tooling: PC-3000 Flash, VNR, Soft-Center, microscopes, precision micro-soldering

• Deep format expertise: FAT32/exFAT, JPEG/RAW, MP4/MOV/MXF

• Forensically sound methods with clear, verifiable results