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SD Cards

What to Do if your SD Card Is Not

Formatting?
Written by Approved by
Manuviraj Godara  Andrey Vasilyev 

Last updated: February 9, 2023 Views: 5864 Expert verified

Handy Recovery SD Cards What to Do if your SD Card Is Not Formatting?

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Table of Contents
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There areHandy
several reasons why your SD card may refuse to format. The good news is that in
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most cases, you can salvage your data, as well as repair the SD card. Use the guide below to
diagnose and fix an SD card that won’t format. As ita bonus, you’ll also learn how to recover
OK, I got
data from a logically damaged SD card.
Reasons Why Your SD Card Is Unable to
Format
It’s essential to know why your SD card won’t format. This helps you choose the correct
solution while ensuring you don’t end up paying for a service you don’t require.

Use the table below as a guide:

Reason Description Solution

Your best bet is to contact a

SD cards can be physically
💣 SD card
damaged because of improper
is physically
storage, water, power surges,
damaged
and improper physical ejection.
professional SD card data recovery
service to get back your files.
Dispose of the old SD card once the
data has been recovered. It’s also
possible that the casing of the SD
card is damaged, while the chip
inside is still intact. Here, you can
attempt to fix it using tutorials like
these, only if you’re comfortable
handling the necessary tools.

SD cards from all major

manufacturers such as SanDisk,
Set the physical switch on your SD
Sony, etc. come with a physical
card to the “unlocked” position. If the
🔒 SD card switch to write-protect the card.
problem remains unresolved, use
is write- It’s also possible that the card
Windows Command Prompt to
protected was manually set to read-only
remove write-protection from the
mode, or it write-protected
SD card.
itself after detecting data
corruption.

📛 The file A corrupt file system renders all The best way to fix a corrupted SD
system of the files on your SD card card is to first recover the data from
the SD card inaccessible.
Handy Recovery It’s typically
uses cookies caused
to optimize it using
your browsing data recovery
experience software,
on our website.
got by viruses, accumulation of bad then reformat the card using one of
corrupted sectors, and improper usage. It’s the methods below.
 crucial to first recover your files
from the SD card, as a corrupt
file system is usually fixed by
reformatting the drive.

Retrieve Data From an SD Card That Is Unable

to Format
It’s likely that your SD card won’t format because of a logical issue, commonly a corrupt file
system. In this case, you will not have access to the existing files on the SD card. To prevent
data loss, first recover these files using a data recovery program. You can then proceed to
safely format the SD card.

You’re spoiled for choice when it comes to data recovery apps that can help you recover
data from your SD card.

👀 For this tutorial, we’ll use Disk Drill, mainly because of its ease of use and high
data recovery rate. Disk Drill’s support for all major file systems, including NTFS,
FAT, exFAT, and RAW, makes it ideal for data recovery from an SD card that’s
unable to format. If your files collectively take up less than 500 MB of space, you
can recover them for free as part of Disk Drill’s free trial.

Here is how to get started:

1 Download Disk Drill and install it.

2 Connect the SD card that refuses to format to your computer.

3 Open Disk Drill, and select the SD card from the list of storage drives. Click on Search
for lost data.
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4 Click Review found items to view the recoverable files. You can also directly click on
the file type that you want to recover such as Pictures, Video, Audio, Documents,
Archives, and Others.

5 Handy
Expand theRecovery
Existinguses cookies
section, to optimize
or the Deletedyour
or browsing experience
Lost section. on our website.
This depends on whether
you wish to recover existing files from the SD card, or files that were deleted earlier.
6 Select the files you would like to recover. Disk Drill will display a preview of each file
upon selection. Click Recover after confirming.

7 Choose a recovery destination for the files and click Next.

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 8 Disk Drill will retrieve the files from your SD card. You can now proceed to reformat the
SD card using Windows or a third-party formatter.

🔗 To make an even more informed choice about the tool, be sure to check out our
in-depth review of Disk Drill.

How to Fix SD Card Won’t Format Error

Fixing an SD card that is unable to format boils down to two things–removing the write
protection from it, and then formatting it using Windows. If Windows is unable to format
the SD card, you can use a third-party utility to do the same.

We’ll delve into each of these methods below:

Method 1:Recovery
Handy Remove Write
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to optimize From
your browsing the SD
experience Card
on our Using
website.
CMD
Before you proceed, ensure that the physical switch on your SD card isn’t in the “Lock”
position.

An easy way to remove write-protection in Windows 11/10, is to use the Windows

Command Prompt to clear the “read-only” attribute from your SD card. Here’s how you can
do that:

1 In Windows Search (Windows Key + S), type cmd. From the search results, right-click
on Command Prompt > Run as administrator.

2 In the console, type diskpart and press Enter.

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3 Now, type list disk and press Enter to view the drives attached to your PC.

4 Type select disk x and press Enter. Replace “x” with the drive number of the SD card.
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5 Finally, type attributes disk clear readonly and press Enter. This will remove the read-
only attribute from the SD card.

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Method 2: Format Memory Card Using Built-in Windows Tools

As a Windows user, you can format your micro SD/SD card using Disk Management, or the
Command Prompt. Pick whatever method you’re comfortable with.

Via Disk Management

1 Type “disk management” in Windows Search (Windows Key + S). Click on the Create
and format hard disk partitions options from the results.

2 Right-click on the SD card from the list and select Format.

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3 Choose the format parameters according to your needs. Click OK.

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4 Windows will format the SD card.

Using Command Prompt

1 Type “cmd” in Windows Search (Windows Key + S). Right-click on Command Prompt
from the search results, and select Run as administrator.

2 Type diskpart in the console and press Enter.

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3 Type in list disk and press Enter.

4 To select the SD card, type select disk x (replacing “x” with the number of the SD card
in theHandy Recovery
previous menu)uses
andcookies
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optimize your browsing experience on our website.
5 Type clean and press Enter to remove all the data from your SD card. This is irreversible.
Do it only after you’ve recovered all the required data from your card.

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6 To create a partition, type create partition primary and press Enter.
7 Finally, type in format fs=NTFS and press Enter to begin the formatting process. You
can replace “NTFS” with a file system of your choice (such as FAT32, exFAT, etc.). This
process may take some time, depending on the size of your SD card.

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 ✅ Pro Tip: Format the SD card to the exFAT file system if you want to store files
over 4 GB. Additionally, the exFAT format is supported by all major camera
manufacturers such as Canon and Nikon, while also being compatible with both
Windows and macOS.

Method 3: Format Memory Card With a Third-Party Tool

It’s quite possible that you’re unable to format the SD card on Windows 10/11, using the in-
built formatter. Here, a third-party SD card formatter can help you out.

The SD Association has a dedicated tool, aptly called SD Memory Card Formatter, that you
can use to format your SD/SDHC/SDXC card.

Using the tool is easy:

1 Download the SD Memory Card Formatter.

2 Extract the ZIP file and run the installer.

3 Launch SD Memory Card Formatter.

4 Select your SD card from the “Select card” drop-down menu.

5 Choose the Formatting Options according to your needs, and click Format.

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 Method 4: Perform Low-Level Formatting on an SD Card That
Is Unable to Format
A low-level format will not only delete all the data on your SD card, and overwrite it with
zeroes, effectively giving you a clean slate. Use this as a last resort because the process is
time-consuming and resource intensive.

A good tool to low-level format your SD card, is the HDDGURU HDD LLF Low Level Format
Tool. It’s available for Windows and is free for personal use, with a limit on formatting speed
(up to 50 MB/s). For unlimited speed, you can purchase a personal license.

Here is how you can low-level format your SD card using the tool:

1 Download the HDD LLF Low Level Format Tool. You can choose from a portable version
or the setup.

2 Connect your SD card and run the application you just downloaded.

3 Handy
Select Recovery
the SD uses cookies
card from to optimize
the device list andyour
clickbrowsing experience on our website.
Continue.
4 Click on the LOW-LEVEL FORMAT tab.

5 Click on FORMAT THIS DEVICE and click Yes on the next prompt.

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FAQ

How to format a memory card that cannot be formatted on Android?

Why won't my SD card format in the camera?

Why can't I format the SD card to FAT32?

Why is my micro SD card not formatting?

How do I force a Micro SD card to format?

Conclusion
SD cards need to be handled with care. Consider investing in an SD card case if you own
multiple cards and frequently switch between them. Additionally, keep a backup of your
important files on different storage drives, as well as the cloud. This will minimize the
damage in case your card is lost, or extensively damaged.

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Manuviraj Godara
Staff Writer • 51 articles
 Manuviraj Godara recently advanced to the staff writers team at Handy Recovery,
having initially joined as a contributing writer in 2021. His primary expertise lies in
resolving data issues on Windows machines, and he has recently begun to explore
Share this Article topics.
Apple-related

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