How to recover photos from a memory card via Power Data Recovery app

Data is stored on a compact memory card or a USB flash drive, and for some reason we don't use these storage devices carefully, but when it's too late we, of course, regret it. There is often a need to restore sd card photos deleted by mistake.

Because we receive questions like that very often, we decided to share one way of recovering files deleted from a memory card. By the way, if after reading you still have any questions, don't hesitate to ask them.

How to recover deleted pictures from sd card: step-by-step guide

1. Downloading Minitool Power Data Recovery

We suggest downloading MiniTool Power Data Recovery to restore deleted photos from sd card. The program is suitable for recovering images and pictures from a memory card or usb flash drive.

There are several reasons to use MiniTool Power Data Recovery:

1. The program is easy to use,
2. It has all necessary settings and options to search for photos on a memory card,
3. Its free version helps to understand, whether it's possible to restore pictures from sd card or not,
4. Flexibility: you can select one of the recovery modules, depending on the task.

Download Power Data Recovery

Let's start with Power Data Recovery restrictions. Power Data Recovery (Free Edition) is a free version which can recover up to 1 GB of any data. It's usually enough for recovering certain photos from a phone memory card or a digital camera microsd.

2. Selecting a suitable media files recovery module

Launch MiniTool Power Data Recovery. There are five recovery modules in the main window:

1. Undelete Recovery,
2. Damaged Partition Recovery,
3. Lost Partition Recovery,
4. Digital Media Recovery
5. CD/DVD Recovery.

Each module is defined in detail. The help describes how to work with a particular type of recovery.

The section titles speak for themselves, so we won't waste time on its description. Digital Media Recovery recovery type suits our needs, so we choose it.

3. Specifying the memory card / USB flash drive for the recovery

Specify the memory card to recover pictures from in the list of drives and partitions. Before that, you need to connect the device to your computer.

If you work with a memory card, connect it to a PC via a card reader and a USB cable. (Some models of laptops and Macbooks can have a built in card reader).

4. Specifying the file types for recovery

There is a filter on data types in the advanced settings ("Settings" button) at the bottom of Power Data Recovery window. It helps to save time: you need to specify the multimedia files extensions (photos, videos and etc.)

There are seven options to choose from in the advanced settings: documents, archives, images/photos, email, databases and etc. Specify Graphics & Picture (Images and pictures) file types.

By clicking on the cross which is on the left of the file type, a more fine filter will open. A lot of image formats are listed there: dwg, psd, cdr, jpg, gif, png, bmp and etc. You can select only the photo formats you need (more often raw / jpg) by pressing "OK" to confirm.

5. Scanning the memory card

We come back to the app main window. Press the orange button "Full Scan" to start. Photo search process and the number of recovered files are displayed in the appeared window.

6. Saving the recovered files onto a drive

There are five folders containing images in various formats in the sidebar "Path" tab.

There is a special filter displaying only the desired and available data types in MiniTool Power Data Recovery. You can set the filter via settings ("Settings" button at the bottom of Power Data Recovery window).

By clicking the check boxes select the recovered photos and then press "Save" button.

Specify the target folder where you want to save the files and click "OK".

Note: do not save the recovered photos on the memory card! It's better to specify any computer disk with enough space. Otherwise, the data will be overwritten and you won't be able to recover the files again (for example, when searching via other apps).

Bottom line

We described how to recover images from sd card via MiniTool Power Data Recovery. If you follow the guide steps, you're likely to manage to recover deleted photos. If that doesn't work, try another software to recover pictures from a memory card, for example, Photorec.

Here is the guide

Questions & Answers

1. My phone is Samsung S4. Photos from my memory card disappeared yesterday. But other information and videos are fine, several programs for photo recovery found a lot of photos, but among them were only the ones I deleted manually. And those which disappeared weren't found. How can I recover photos from sd card for free? Is there anything else I can try to do? There is no problem with saving new photos on the phone.

2. My laptop rebooted when I was copying files from a sd card onto it. As a result, I can't find the photos neither on the sd card nor on the laptop. What should I do? Please, help me to recover deleted images from sd card! All the photos of my child's first year were stored there! I'm in despair.

The answer. Try to recover the files via Power Data Recovery program following the steps of this guide. If you still can't find the photos, try such free apps like PhotoRec or Recuva with the option of deep scanning enabled.

By the way, recovery of old media files isn't always possible. If a lot of time has passed and the files have been overwritten, the chances of recovering anything are significantly reduced.

We suggest checking once again, where (apart from the memory card) the files were stored: on a hard drive/ in Samsung cloud / Dropbox / Google.

I have a Philips phone. I opened the Gallery and found out that all the photos taken by the phone camera disappeared. I took the card out and plugged it to a laptop but the folder is empty. Is it possible to retrieve deleted photos from sd card?

The answer. If the photos were really stored on the memory card, there is a chance of recovering the data. The main thing is not to use the memory card on your phone / laptop. Connect it via a card reader and proceed immediately to recovery. Power Data Recovery program allows you to save up to 1 GB of photos: others, such as PhotoRec, don't have any limits.

1. My phone is Samsung J5 2016, the memory card has 32 GB and has been in usage for 4 months. The photos on the memory card started getting damaged: half of the photos is gray or some of the photos are all gray. I tried to format them but again some photos became gray. Please tell me what should I do?

2. All data stored on Samsung Galaxy Tab E tablet memory card disappeared. Android says: "the memory card is empty or has an unsupported file system". What should I do? And is it possible to somehow recover those photos, videos and apps?

The answer.

1. Check the memory card for errors via standard utility chkdsk for Windows.

2. Update smartphone firmware and delete unnecessary applications.

3. Check the mobile device for viruses.

I dropped my phone in water. I dried it immediately and put aside. Two days later I turned it on and all data (photo and music) just disappeared. How to get deleted photos from memory card, help me, please! My phone is Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 SM g7102. (SD card worked for 3 years without any errors.)

The answer. Check whether the memory card is recognized by your mobile device. If not, try to fix it.

Remember: whether the files were stored on the memory card or in the device internal memory. Recover the photos on that basis. Guides on that subject are collected here.