SD · microSD · CF · CFexpress · Chip-Off
SD & Memory Card Recovery Singapore
Corrupted or unreadable card with irreplaceable photos and videos? We recover SD, microSD, CF and CFexpress cards — including chip-off for monolithic cards. Stop using the card now. Free diagnosis.
4.9 / 5915 reviews · 20+ years · cleanroom lab (opens Google in a new tab)- Photos & 4K video
- Chip-off & monolith
- Free diagnosis
- Fixed written quote
Quick answer
Yes — corrupted, unreadable and physically damaged memory cards are usually recoverable, including deleted photos and videos, cards that ask to be formatted, and snapped or water-damaged cards. For monolithic cards we read the NAND directly via chip-off. The most important thing: stop using the card immediately — every new photo or video can overwrite what we need.
Overview
Irreplaceable photos on a card that won't read? We can help.
Memory cards hold some of the hardest-to-replace files there are — a wedding shoot, a once-in-a-lifetime trip, a client project. When a card suddenly shows as empty, asks to be formatted, or won't mount, the panic is real. In most cases, though, your photos and videos are still on the NAND flash inside.
CBL recovers every card format — SD, microSD, CompactFlash, CFexpress and XQD — from logical corruption to physically damaged and monolithic cards. When a card can't be read normally, we read the raw NAND directly and rebuild your images and footage, including fragmented 4K video.
Stop using the card right now
Don't take more photos, don't format it, and don't "repair" it. New writes can overwrite your recoverable files. Remove the card, keep it safe, and book a free diagnosis.
Same problem, different words
SD card recovery Singapore, memory card recovery, microSD card recovery — what people actually mean
People describe this problem in a dozen different ways, and the wording matters far less than what the card is physically doing. If any of the phrases below sound like your situation, you are in the right place.
"Memory card recovery", "SD card recovery Singapore", "flash card recovery"
All the same job. SD is a standard, not a brand — it stands for Secure Digital. A full-size card in a DSLR and a microSD in a dashcam store files the same way: on NAND flash chips, managed by a small controller that decides where each block of data physically lives. Recovery means getting your files back off that NAND, whatever label is printed on the outside.
"Corrupted SD card" versus a damaged card
Worth separating, because the two need very different work. A corrupted SD card still powers up and is seen by the computer — the file table is scrambled, so the card shows as empty, shows as RAW, or asks to be formatted. That is a logical case and reconstruction usually goes well. A damaged card is one the reader cannot talk to at all: snapped, water-soaked, or with a dead controller. That needs physical work, up to and including chip-off.
"SD card repair" and "fix my memory card"
This is the confusion worth settling. Repair tools, in-camera repair functions and the format prompt all try to make the card usable again — and they achieve that by writing a clean file system straight over your photos. Recovery does the opposite. We never write to the card; we read it and rebuild the files somewhere else. If the photos matter more than the card, you want recovery, not repair. A card that has failed once should be retired either way.
"microSD card recovery", "TF card recovery"
TF (TransFlash) is just the old name for microSD — the cards are identical. microSD card recovery differs from full-size SD in one important respect: most microSD cards are monolithic, which changes the physical method entirely.
The one thing that genuinely matters
Not the words you use, but whether the card is still being written to. Every new photo, every format, every repair attempt can overwrite the files we are trying to reach. Take the card out and leave it out.
Cards
Memory cards & devices we recover
SD & microSD
Cameras, phones, drones, Nintendo Switch, dashcams.
CompactFlash / CFexpress / XQD
Professional cameras & cinema rigs.
Camera & GoPro cards
Canon, Nikon, Sony, GoPro, DJI.
Dashcam & phone cards
Corrupted loop footage & phone storage.
The form factor decides how we get the data out
- Full-size SD. A plastic shell holding a small board with a separate NAND chip and controller. If the controller dies we can often still reach the NAND directly, which makes these the most forgiving cards we see.
- microSD. Nearly always monolithic — die, controller and contacts moulded into one solid block with nothing to lift off. Recovery means locating the internal test pads and reading the die through them: slower, far more delicate, and not always possible.
- CompactFlash. Older professional cards with a pin block that bends if the card enters the slot slightly off-angle. Bent pins are common and usually fixable.
- XQD and CFexpress. NVMe-based cards in Nikon, Sony and Canon bodies shooting 4K and 8K. They behave like a tiny SSD, so controller and firmware faults dominate rather than simple corruption.
Camera, phone and dashcam cards fail differently
A camera card is written in large sequential bursts and usually has an easy life. A phone microSD is read and written constantly by dozens of apps, so its directory structures fragment badly. A dashcam card is the hardest of the three — loop recording erases and rewrites the same blocks around the clock, so wear arrives years earlier. If a dashcam card holds footage you need, take it out of the camera the moment the incident happens. For footage sitting on a recorder rather than a card, see CCTV and DVR recovery.
Brands & controllers
Card brands, models and controllers we recover
The name on the label matters less than the controller underneath it, but each family has behaviours we recognise before the card is even opened.
- SanDisk — Extreme, Extreme Pro and Ultra. SanDisk uses its own controllers and its own internal data layout, so a raw NAND read has to be reassembled with the correct algorithm, not simply dumped.
- Samsung — EVO, EVO Plus and PRO microSD, heavily used in phones, drones, dashcams and the Nintendo Switch. Monolithic construction, so a dead Samsung microSD is pad-read work or nothing.
- Lexar — Professional SD, CFexpress and older UDMA CompactFlash. Controller failure that leaves the card reporting 0 MB is the classic Lexar case.
- Kingston — Canvas Select and Canvas Go, plus a long tail of older SD cards. Wrong-capacity reporting after a firmware fault is common.
- Sony — Tough series SD and CFexpress Type A from Alpha bodies. The sealed one-piece Tough design is good for the photographer and awkward for us; it has to be opened slowly and precisely.
We also handle Transcend, PNY, Integral, Delkin, ADATA and the unbranded cards bundled with dashcams and action cameras. If the NAND is intact, the brand rarely stops us.
Counterfeit and fake-capacity cards
A steady share of the cards that reach us were never what the packaging claimed. A counterfeit card is typically a genuine 8GB or 32GB chip running hacked firmware that reports 512GB or 1TB to the camera. Everything looks normal until you pass the real capacity — then writes wrap around and silently overwrite the earliest files. There is nothing left on the NAND in that region, and we will tell you so plainly rather than charge you to find out.
How to spot one before it costs you
Suspiciously cheap high-capacity cards from marketplace sellers are the usual source. If a card reports a capacity the brand does not actually sell, or files written months ago have vanished on their own, treat it as suspect and stop using it.
Warning signs
Symptoms of a failing or corrupted SD card
Cards usually give some warning before they go completely. Here is what each symptom normally indicates.
"Card needs formatting"
The file system header is unreadable. Your photos are usually still there — do not agree.
Wrong or 0 MB capacity
A 128GB card showing as 30MB or 0 bytes points to a controller or firmware fault.
Not detected at all
No drive letter, no prompt. Dead controller, worn contacts or an internal break.
Half-grey or striped photos
Blocks failing to read. Copy off whatever still opens, immediately.
Camera freezes while writing
Worn blocks and a controller retrying. The card is near the end of its life.
Files vanish and reappear
Unstable directory entries — a classic early sign of NAND wear.
Why cards wear out in the first place
Every NAND cell tolerates a finite number of erase cycles. The controller spreads writes across the chip to even out that wear and quietly retires blocks as they fail. When the spare blocks run out — or when the controller's own mapping tables are corrupted by a power cut mid-write — the card stops making sense to the reader. That is why a card fine for three years can fail in a single afternoon: the wear was invisible until the margin ran out. Pulling a card while the camera light is still on is the single most common trigger we hear, because the controller is mid-update to that mapping table when the power disappears.
Rule of thumb
A card that is still readable means copy everything off now, then stop using it. A card that is not detected, showing the wrong size, or asking to be formatted means stop entirely and have it diagnosed — every further attempt narrows what is left.
Critical
What NOT to do with a failing card
Keep shooting on it
New photos/videos overwrite recoverable files.
Format when prompted
"Format this card?" — never format; it overwrites the file structure.
In-camera "repair"
Camera repair functions can worsen corruption.
DIY on a broken card
Bending or amateur soldering damages the NAND.
Why each of these destroys data
These are not superstitions. Each one has a specific mechanism.
- Agreeing to "format this card". Formatting writes a fresh, empty file system over the directory area — precisely the region we use to rebuild your folder structure and filenames. The image data often survives, but a named, organised recovery becomes carving nameless fragments out of raw blocks.
- In-camera repair or "recover image". These functions write to the card. On a card whose controller is already struggling they can also trigger further block retirement, shrinking what is still readable.
- Running CHKDSK on a card. CHKDSK exists to make a volume mountable again, not to preserve data. On a corrupted card it commonly dumps your photos into FOUND.000 as numbered fragments with the names and folders gone.
- Running recovery software over and over. Each pass keeps a dying card powered and reading, which accelerates the failure — and many tools helpfully write their own results back to the same card.
- Heat, rice or a hairdryer on a wet card. Heat warps the plastic and drives moisture further under the epoxy, while corrosion carries on regardless. Keep it sealed and cool and bring it in.
- Bending a snapped microSD straight, or soldering it. The die inside a monolithic card is a silicon wafer. Flexing it cracks the die, and cracked silicon cannot be read by anyone.
Software is fine on a healthy card with a simple deletion and a backup elsewhere — nothing beyond that. See DIY vs professional recovery and our honest look at data recovery software.
How it works
Our card recovery process
Step 1: Free diagnosis
We identify the fault — logical, controller or physical — and confirm recoverability. No cost, no obligation.
Step 2: Image or access
If the card still reads, we image it immediately; if not, we attempt controller access.
Step 3: Chip-off (if needed)
For dead or monolithic cards we read the raw NAND directly and reconstruct the data with the card's wear-levelling/ECC scheme.
Step 4: Rebuild photos & video
We reconstruct the file system and repair fragmented images and 4K video, then give you a list to verify.
Step 5: Verify & return
Verified files returned on fresh media.
More on the lab: how professional data recovery works →
Honest expectations
What we can recover — card scenarios
| Scenario | Method | Typical outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Deleted photos/videos (card unused since) | File-system recovery | High |
| Corrupt / RAW / "format card" | Logical reconstruction | High |
| Not detected / controller failure | Access or chip-off | High |
| Snapped / water-damaged card | Chip-off / monolith | Case-by-case |
| Formatted & heavily overwritten | Assessed individually | Reduced |
Also recovering USB drives? See USB recovery, or deleted file recovery.
Transparent pricing
How much does card recovery cost?
| Case type | Examples | Indicative range (SGD) |
|---|---|---|
| Logical | Deleted, corrupt, RAW, "format card" | $150 – $500 |
| Controller / not detected | Card not recognised | $200 – $600 |
| Chip-off / monolith | Dead, snapped or water-damaged card | $200 – $600 |
Free diagnosis = free quote
Exact fixed price before work begins. Full detail: data recovery cost guide →
Recovery in the real world
Card recovery case studies
Representative examples from typical laboratory cases. Anonymised.
Katong · Wedding photographer
CFexpress "card error" after a shoot
A CFexpress card corrupted mid-wedding. We imaged it, rebuilt the file system and repaired the fragmented RAW photos and 4K video.
Full shoot recovered
East Coast · Family
microSD asking to format — holiday photos
A phone microSD showed as empty and asked to format. We reconstructed the file system without formatting and returned the holiday album.
Photos recovered
Tai Seng · Videographer
Snapped monolithic microSD
A snapped microSD from a drone shoot. We performed monolith chip-off and rebuilt the footage.
Footage recovered
The honest comparison
CBL vs a camera shop vs DIY software
Three very different things get called "card recovery". This is what separates them.
More on choosing between them: how to choose a data recovery lab in Singapore →
Zero-risk guarantees
Free diagnosis & a fixed written quote
Free Diagnosis
We assess your card — no cost, no obligation.
Work Stays In-House
Recovered in our in-house Singapore lab — never shipped overseas.
Fixed Quote First
A firm written price before any work begins. No hidden fees.
Answers
Card recovery FAQ
In most cases yes — including cards that show as empty or ask to be formatted. Your photos usually remain on the NAND. Stop using the card and book a free diagnosis.
No — formatting overwrites the file structure. The card is usually just corrupted; we reconstruct it without formatting.
Often yes, provided the card hasn't been used since. Stop shooting on it immediately — new files overwrite the deleted ones.
Yes — for dead or physically damaged monolithic microSD cards we read the NAND directly and rebuild the data.
Yes — we repair fragmented 4K/cinema video and RAW image files during reconstruction.
Indicatively $150–$500 for logical, $200–$600 for controller, and $200–$600 for chip-off. Your free diagnosis gives an exact fixed quote.
In a monolithic card the NAND die, the controller and the contact pads are moulded into a single block of epoxy — there is no separate memory chip to lift off and read. Instead we expose the internal test pads beneath the epoxy, read the die through them, and rebuild the data using that controller's own translation scheme. It is the most demanding card work we do, and the one case where we sometimes have to tell you a card cannot be read at all.
That is the signature of a counterfeit card: genuine small NAND with firmware that lies about its capacity. Once you wrote past the real size, the card wrapped around and overwrote the earliest files. We can usually recover whatever fits inside the genuine capacity, but anything written beyond it was never stored anywhere. The free diagnosis tells you which of your files fall on which side of that line.
Sometimes, and we would rather be straight with you about the odds. Loop recording is designed to overwrite the oldest clip, so if the camera kept running for hours after the incident, that footage is very likely gone. If you removed the card promptly, the chances are good. Footage held on a recorder rather than a card is a different job — see CCTV and DVR recovery.
Normally just the card — we read it on our own hardware, not in the device. Bring the camera only if the card is physically stuck in the slot, or if you suspect the camera is the actual fault; a card that reads perfectly here is sometimes being rejected by a worn card slot. If the files are on a phone's internal storage rather than a card, see iPhone and phone data recovery instead.
Diagnosis is typically same day to 24 hours. Logical cases — corruption, deletion, a card asking to be formatted — often finish within 2 to 4 business days. Monolithic and chip-off work takes longer, because locating the test pads and validating the read cannot be rushed. You get a timeframe together with your fixed written quote, before any work starts.
We would advise against it. A card that has corrupted once has told you something about its remaining life, and cards are cheap compared with what they hold. Your recovered files come back on fresh media. If the card was opened for chip-off it is destroyed by the process and cannot be returned in working order.
What our clients say
Trusted by individuals and businesses in Singapore
Business Profile
SD Card Data Recovery – Rated by customers on Google
915Google reviews
4.9 out of 5
Updated 4 Nov 2026
“Thank you to the team at CBL for helping me recover all the contents from my faulty USB, which contained many precious family photos.”
Iris ShenUSB flash drive recovery · via Google “Great relief the engineers managed to recover all my data successfully from my damaged iPhone 14.”
Peter AndroidiPhone 14 recovery · via Google “Amazing service from CBL. They have restored all the data from my laptop. Sarah was very helpful and attentive to my queries.”
S YTLaptop recovery · via Google
The bottom line
A memory card that won't read rarely means your photos are gone — the NAND usually survives. Stop using the card, don't format it, and let CBL take a look. With chip-off capability and a free diagnosis, your memories are worth the try.