How to Unformat SD Card or Memory Card – 2 Ways

If you accidentally formatted an SD card and lost all data, don’t worry, you have easy way to unformat SD card to undo the format and recover all data on it.

Check below how to unformat memory card and get back lost data by using a top free data recovery software or CMD.

Way 1. How to Unformat SD Card with Data Recovery Software

Formatting the SD card deletes all data on the SD card, but you can still use a free data recovery program like MiniTool Power Data Recovery to easily recover data from the formatted SD card. You should immediately stop storing new files to the SD card to avoid data overwritten. If the SD card is overwritten, then it’s nearly impossible to get back lost data.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery is an easy-to-use data recovery program for Windows. You can use it recover any deleted/lost files from SD card, memory card, computer hard drive, external hard drive, etc. in a few clicks. Formatted or corrupted SD card data recovery is also supported. It is a 100% clean tool.

Download and install MiniTool Power Data Recovery on your Windows computer, and check the 3 simple steps below to recover data from formatted SD card.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Step 1. Use an SD card reader to connect the SD card to your Windows computer. (Related: Fix SD card not showing up on Windows 10)

Launch MiniTool Power Data Recovery. On it main UI, you can click Removable Disk Drive in the left, and select the target SD card in the right window.

Step 2. Click Scan button. This software will automatically scan all data from the formatted SD card including deleted and lost files. Let the scan finish.

Step 3. Check the recovery result to find needed files, check then and click Save button to store the recovered files to a new device.

To unformat SD card and recover lost data on Mac, you can use Stellar Data Recovery for Mac.

Way 2. How to Unformat SD Card with CMD

You can also use CMD to recover files from memory card. Check the steps below.

Step 1. Press Windows + R, type cmd, and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open elevated Command Prompt on Windows 10.

Step 2. In Command Prompt, you can type chkdsk *: /f command, replace “*” with the exact drive letter of your SD card, e.g. chkdsk E: /f, and press Enter to execute the command. This command will scan and fix errors on the SD card. Wait for the command to fully complete.

Step 3. Next you can type Y and press Enter, then type the SD card drive letter like E and press Enter. At last, type F:\>attrib -h -r -s /s /d *.* command, and press Enter.

If Command Prompt is not working, you can use Way 1 to unformat memory card and recover data.

Conclusion

If you accidentally formatted the SD card or memory card, you can use a professional data recovery software to recover the files on it. You can also try CMD, but if it does not work, you can try a data recovery program.