How to Restore SD Card to Full Capacity?
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26 July 2021 Senior Program Developer
Summary
Some users find that their SD cards cannot be fully used. For example, a 64 GB SD card merely has 29 GB available capacity. In this essay, we will list some possible reasons of this problem and talk about how to restore SD card to full capacity.
When the capacity of a SD card is over the size that a device or a card reader can hold, the device merely show the maximum available size. For example, the device supports the SD card up to 32 GB, but your SD card is 64 GB. At this situation, the SD card capacity is 32 GB in the device, and the left capacity cannot be shown.
If you download the applications from the unsafe websites, they will be carried with the virus. Then, the virus will attack the SD card and consume the SD card capacity. At this situation, you can use the anti-virus software to scan and clear the virus from the SD card. After that, reinsert the SD card to check the capacity.
When the SD card is corrupted, you cannot see the full capacity. At this situation, the capacity is shown as 0 byte. You should use the professional data recovery software to recover the data and then try to restore the full capacity. Next, we will talk about how to recover data and how to restore SD card to full capacity.
Renee Undeleter is the data recovery software. When the users accidentally delete the important files, empty Recycle Bin, or format the disk/drive, the software can retrieve the deleted data. It contains 4 options, namely fast partition scan, whole partition scan, whole disk scan and image creation. These functions can help the users easily recover the lost data.
Renee Undeleter - Powerful Data Recovery Software
Easy to use Only simple steps to recover data from storage devices.
Multiple scan modes Fast partition scan, whole partition scan and whole disk scan for different recovery needs.
File types Support to recover pictures, videos, audios, documents, mails, etc.
Supported storage devices Recover data from recycle bin, SD card, external disk, etc.
Supported systems Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, XP, 2000 and Mac OS X10.6, 10.7, 10.8.
Easy to use Only simple steps to recover data from storage devices.
Multiple scan modes - 3 scan modes for different recovery needs.
Supported storage devices Recover data from recycle bin, SD card, external disk, etc.
This is the tutorial of using Renee Undeleter:
Step 1: Download and install Renee Undeleter. Open the software and then get into [Fast Partition Scan].
Functions of different recovery modes: Fast partition scan: Recover the files after emptying Recycle Bin or deleted by mistake without data backup. Whole partition scan: Scan the whole partition and list all files, especially for the formatted partition or inaccessible issue. Whole disk scan: Scan entire disk to find out all partitions’ information and simulate the partition table. Image creation: Create a partition image which can be used in case that reading partition is slow or need a backup.
Step 2: Select the SD card to scan. Click on [Next] to go on.
Step 3: Select [Fast Scan] or [Deep Scan].
Fast scan: It searches for the accidentally deleted, corrupted, and overwritten files. Deep scan: This is a far more thorough method, but it takes a long time to scan the disk. This mode can be used when the fast scan mode cannot find out the target files.
Step 4: After that, select the file types and click on [Next] to go on.
Step 5: Next, preview and select the files. Click on [Recover] to retrieve the files.
Step 6: Finally, select a destination to save the files. Note: select the other disk instead of the SD card. Click on [Recover] to save the recovered files.
After recovering the lost data from the SD card, you can use the following methods to restore the capacity. Let’s go and see how to restore the SD card to full capacity.
Here are the steps about how to restore the SD card to full capacity.
Step 1: Insert the SD card into the card reader. Then, connect it to the computer. Press the keys [Win + X] and then select [Disk Management].
Step 2: Next, select the SD card and right click at it to select [Format].
Step 3: Select one of the file system types, such as FAT32 (2-3GB) or exFAT (over 32GB). Then, follow the tips to format the SD card.
Introduction of the file systems:
- NTFS: NTFS is the best Windows file system, given to performance and data security. But it is not compatible with all operating systems. Mac OSX and Linux can read the NTFS partitions, but they cannot modify the inside data. Besides, it is not available in the flash drives.
- FAT32: FAT32 is an old but still popular Windows file system. Now, it is mainly used in mobile storage devices with low capacity. Each file cannot be over 4 GB in the FAT32 file system. If the hard drive is over 1TB, it should be in the NTFS file system. Besides, some digital cameras, game consoles and set-top boxed merely FAT32, but not NTFS.
- exFAT: exFAT is the file system used for flash drives in Windows. It is the supplement for FAT32 which doesn’t support flash drives. It supports a file up to 16EB and a volume up to 24ZB.
Besides, you can restore the SD card capacity and create new partition with the DiskPart command.
Here are the steps about how to restore the SD card to full capacity with the DiskPart command.
Step 1: Insert the SD card into the card reader. Then, connect the card reader to the computer. Press the keys [Win + R]. Type [cmd] and press the Enter key to run.
Step 2: Enter the following commands and press the Enter key after typing each command.
diskpart
list disk All disks in the computer are listed and you can confirm the letter of the external disk according to the disk space.
select disk 1 1 means the letter of the external hard disk.
clean It can delete all volumes and partition of the disk, but the data can be recovered if not overwritten.
After that, you can write the following commands to create new partition:
create partition primary size=n “n” means the capacity of each partition. It can be set as the maximum size of the external disk. Then, you can type “assign letter = H” to assign a letter of the partition.
format fs=fat32 label=”FAT32” “fs=fat32″ means the file system is FAT32. Of course, you can format the disk to be exFAT or NTFS, namely “fs=exFAT” or “fs=NTFS”. Click here to learn about the file system types. “label” means the label of the partition, such as “system”, “local disk” and “FAT32” in this case.
exit You can write this command to exit the program.
It is noted that you should back up the SD card well when you are going to restore the SD card capacity. If the data is not backed up, but lost, follow the tutorial to do in Part 2.
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