How To Fix “SD Card Not Formatting” Error?

I. Reasons for the error message The disk is not formatted, do you want to format it now? when using the SD card

When connecting the SD card to the computer, the error message “The disk is not formatted, do you want to format it now?” appears. In addition to physical damage, the reasons may be as follows:

● The SD card has some bad sectors or the file system is damaged.

● The SD card has been infected with a virus, resulting in incomplete formatting.

● The SD card format operation is very frequent.

● Remove the SD card from the phone or camera in an incorrect way.

● Sudden power failure when writing, reading or transferring data to the SD card.

Selecting “Fromat disk” in this error pop-up will format the SD card, erasing all files. If your SD card contains important data, choose “Cancel” to avoid formatting. Regardless of your choice, use the data recovery methods below to scan and recover your SD card. If there are no important files, you can directly view the contents of the third part and repair the SD card.

II. Use Renee Undeleter to recover SD card data

When an SD card cannot be accessed or has been formatted, use professional data recovery software to scan and restore it. Here, we use Renee Undeleter as an example.

1. What is Renee Undeleter?

Renee Undeleter is designed to restore system data. Whether you’ve accidentally deleted files, emptied the Recycle Bin, or formatted a disk/storage, this tool can retrieve lost data. It offers four modules: Fast Partition Scan, Whole Partition Scan, Whole Disk Scan, and Image Creation, addressing all data loss issues comprehensively.

2. How to use Renee Undeleter to recover SD card data?

Step 1: Connect the SD card to the computer through a card reader, download and install Renee Undeleter on the computer, and run Renee Undeleter. Select the (Whole Partition Scan) option on the main interface.

Step 2: Select the SD card partition and click (Next).

Step 3: Please wait patiently for the scan, which will depend on the SD card’s memory size. After scanning, double-click the file to preview, select the file to be recovered, and click the Recover button. Note: Save the recovered files in a different partition to avoid data overwriting. If Whole Partition Scan doesn’t find the file, try the Whole Disk Scan function.

III. The solution to the error message The disk is not formatted, do you want to format it now? when using the SD card

Once the important files are successfully restored or transferred, you can safely repair the SD card without worrying about data loss. Here are some repair methods to try (Note: Some methods may clear the data on the SD card, so it’s recommended to back up or transfer data in advance).

1. Check the system file error of the SD card

When the “disk is not formatted, do you want to format it now?” error prompt, you can first use the file system error checking function of the Windows system to check and repair the SD card.

Step 1: Open the file explorer, right-click on the SD card, select (Properties), and then click (Tools) > (Check).

Step 2: Click (Scan and Repair Drive). If errors are found, restart the computer to repair the file system. After that, reconnect the SD card to the PC and check if the problem is resolved.

2. Uninstall the SD card in the device manager and reconnect and install the driver

Step 1: Right-click on the (Start) menu and select (Device Manager).

Step 2: Locate the SD card in Device Manager (under “Disk Drive” or “Universal Serial Bus Controller”), right-click it, and select Uninstall Device > Uninstall. Eject the SD card, restart the computer, and reconnect the SD card.

Step 3: Your computer will automatically install the driver. If not, right-click the SD card in Device Manager, select Update driver > Automatically search for updated driver software, and follow the prompts. Check again after the update to see if the SD card issue is resolved.

3. Use the chkdsk command to repair the SD card

Step 1: Search (cmd) directly in the search box in the lower left corner, and select (run as administrator) to open the command prompt.

Step 2: Enter the command chkdsk F: /f /r /x , and press (Enter) to fix SD card errors. After the SD card is repaired, please check whether the SD card works normally.

4. Use the diskpart command to format the SD card

Step 1: Connect the SD card to the computer through a card reader, enter (cmd) in the search box, right-click (command prompt), and select (run as administrator).

Step 2: Enter the following commands in sequence in the command prompt, and press the (Enter) key after you type each command:

(The disks in the computer will be listed, and the disk number of the SD card can be judged according to the capacity)

(1 is the disk number of the SD card)

(The partitions and volumes on the disk will be deleted, and all information will be cleared, but the cleared data will only be marked as deleted and may be recovered)

After that, please continue to enter the following commands, and press the (Enter) key after each command is typed:

(Create a primary partition. If necessary, you can enter it on the next command line assign letter = H , H is the drive letter of the new partition)

(fs=fat32 means to format the SD card as a FAT32 file system, you can also choose NTFS or exFAT file system, quick means to quickly format)

(quit)

The above are some repair methods for the error message “The disk is not formatted, do you want to format it now?” when using the SD card, and you can also try to change the drive letter for the SD card or format it in Disk Management.