[Q] microSD refuses to open any partitions but is SMART capable

08 November 2023, 01:55:59

Card profile: 1TB Lexar; with much Venusian comedy dramas inside there but not elsewhere; entirely unused but when taken for use was stuck at a now broken USB reader, unusable now
However, SMARTctl reports that the card is SMART capable but in other tools it reports no medium
(PS On Windows i never saw that card at all)

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[    6.747285] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Read Capacity(10) failed: Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_OK
[    6.747289] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Sense not available.
[    6.747292] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] 0 512-byte logical blocks: (0 B/0 B)
[    6.747293] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] 0-byte physical blocks
[    6.747299] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
[    6.747300] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 00 00 00 00
[    6.747305] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Asking for cache data failed
[    6.747324] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Assuming drive cache: write through
[    6.748018] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI removable disk
[   50.285430] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Media removed, stopped polling
[   50.286146] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI removable disk
smartctl 7.4 2023-08-01 r5530 [x86_64-linux-6.1.60-1-lts] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-23, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

/dev/sdd: Unknown USB bridge [0x0bda:0x0150 (0x5712)]

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.9.1
Problem opening /dev/sdd for reading! Error is 123.

TestDisk 7.1, Data Recovery Utility, July 2019
Christophe GRENIER <[email protected]>
https://www.cgsecurity.org
Unable to open file or device /dev/sdd: No medium found

PhotoRec 7.1, Data Recovery Utility, July 2019
Christophe GRENIER <[email protected]>
https://www.cgsecurity.org
Unable to open file or device /dev/sdd: No medium found

sdd           8:48   1     0B  0 disk 
dd: failed to open '/dev/sdd': No medium found

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% doas format_sd --update-check /dev/sdd
SD Card Formatter version 1.0.2 (build 3022.9.15.2d)
Developed by Tuxera Inc.
Fetching latest version information...
No update available.
The current version is 1.0.2.
The latest version is 1.0.2.
% doas format_sd -l 931_hn7 /dev/sdd
SD Card Formatter version 1.0.2 (build 3022.9.15.2d)
Developed by Tuxera Inc.
[ERROR] Failed to open '/dev/sdd' with flags 0x0: 123 (No medium found)
[ERROR] Failed to open fat_device: 123 (No medium found)
%

Re: [Q] microSD refuses to open any partitions but is SMART capable

Reply #1 – 09 November 2023, 13:02:26

It doesn't look very promising from that output, but you might look at testdisk and ddrescue and see if they would help to recover anything. Also I would try putting it into a variety of card readers and plugging it in and out, if it ever works on any attempt then dd an image right away! You can sometimes shock electronics into working (or not working) by heating or cooling them, although that could make things worse too. With a conventional spinning disk hdd you can try swapping the electronics from another of the same model, but on a microSD card, not sure if anyone can do much with that internally. Could there be some way to make a low level interface with the connections bypassing usual procedures used by card readers? There are some data recovery services that claim to be able to recover data from physically damaged USB sticks, but those have visible components. Apparently SD cards have little else other than the memory chips on them, but who knows, you could ask around.

Re: [Q] microSD refuses to open any partitions but is SMART capable

Reply #2 – 10 November 2023, 03:51:45

Both DDRescue and TestDisk react with no medium files as well, maybe recovery centres are my final resort, but fortunately nothing too serious is on that microSD, but just TV dramas