Any way to repair my SD card?

[schmenge]

The other day when I looked at the files on my SD card, I found that everything was missing save for the stuff that gets recreated (i.e. ignore_docs). I tried a scan/repair with Pocket Mechanic. PM said all was OK, but would hang at the end after that message.

The next day I saw a couple of the folders were back, but not all. Then those "disappeared" again. Tried Storage Tools. It said there were errors and I needed to rerun the tool. I did, but get the same message about errors please rerun.

Tried Flash Format and it said no errors to be found/fixed.

Any hope for getting my files back and should I just bite the bullet and reformat the card?

[Nurhisham Hussein]

Have you thought of checking the card through your PC? The disk tools available for PC are far more comprehensive and powerful, and as the last resort, there are disaster recovery tools as well.

[schmenge]

I don't have a card reader, but am willing to pick one up as they are pretty cheap. I wasn't sure if I could do disk utilities from a PC on something formatted for the PPC.

[Nurhisham Hussein]

Formats pretty standard actually - the only thing a PPC can't read (in the Windows world at least) are NTFS and CDFS. Memory cards are almost always FAT/FAT16 or FAT32 - no problems at all.

Pls don't use PPC based disk formaters like PM or Storage Tools to do flash format, they're known to cause problems. For that matter, NEVER defrag on a PPC - you risk coming across this very same problem you're facing now. If you must, use a card reader and Windows defrag but there's very, very little benefit from defragging solid state memory cards.

[Patrick Y.]

NEVER, EVER, EVER use Pocket mechanic and other programs for these kind of stuff. They will only screw up your card. I encountered some problems of this kind caused by Pocket Menchanic. Get a card reader and use Window's CHKDSK. See this: http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=39583&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

[pocketpcadmirer]

Just yesterday, same happened to my 512 mb sd card. All the folders except "my music" folders got vanished.
Sadly those folders couldnt be read on a card reader. I lost all my important files. I store all of my important data on SD(coz it requires no power when not operating)..this has happened to me before also(like 8 months ago)

This has really lost some of my confidence in pocket pc(coz that doesnt happens to my digital camera or something)

Sunny

[Menneisyys]

Pls don't use PPC based disk formaters like PM or Storage Tools to do flash format, they're known to cause problems.

Some (but not all - for example, SKTools is a very nice and reliable tool, formatting-wise too) of these tools are indeed buggy. However, they have a big advantage over Windows' formatting tool: you can diable the backup FAT creation with them. Please see http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17921 for more info on these questions.

[Patrick Y.]

Just yesterday, same happened to my 512 mb sd card. All the folders except "my music" folders got vanished.
Sadly those folders couldnt be read on a card reader. I lost all my important files. I store all of my important data on SD(coz it requires no power when not operating)..this has happened to me before also(like 8 months ago)

This has really lost some of my confidence in pocket pc(coz that doesnt happens to my digital camera or something)

Sunny

You should be able to restore all your data with card reader using CHKDSK or other data recovery programs such as GetDataBack.

Don't blame your Pocket PC, I believe that some program messed up your card, not your Pocket PC itself