How to Rescue Photos from Bad Sectors

The use of SD cards has increased dramatically in recent years. This is because they help you in increasing the storage capacity of your smart devices. But SD cards are also susceptible to several storage-related problems. For example, SD cards may contain bad sectors that make the photos corrupted.

So if your photos are also damaged for the same reason, don't worry. I have come up with this article that will help you a lot.

This article will explain some tried-and-tested methods to repair photos from bad sectors.

Part 1: Why Do Bad Sectors Occur?

In this part, I will tell you why bad sectors occur and why the photos get corrupted in bad sectors.

Reasons why bad sectors occur

Reason 1: Virus attacks

At times, any malicious entity, such as a virus, can corrupt your SD cards, resulting in Bad sectors.

Reason 2: Power failure

Your SD card may become corrupted if you perform some operations on it when the power to your device fails.

Reason 3: Physical damage

Your SD card can be physically damaged due to heat, pressure, water, and other factors.

Reason 4: Vast usage

Your SD card may have gone through all of its read/write cycles or experienced wear and tear from heavy use.

Reasons why photos get corrupted in the bad sectors

If your photos get corrupted, then it may be because of some reasons which are as follows:

Reason 1: Lack of loading of data

Even when your photos are stored on a drive, they may not load properly due to firmware or application-related issues.

Reason 2: Bad sectors

You might already know that our hard drive is made up of dedicated sectors and tracks. Therefore, if a sector where your photos are saved is corrupted, then it can damage your data, such as "Cannot Open JPG Files With Windows Photo Viewer", photo grainy, etc.

Reason 3: Logical Drive Errors

Apart from that, your hard drive could have encountered some issues with initialization, booting, or any other logical problem.

Reason 4: Other issues

Some other issues related to photo corruption are a missing header, incompatible format, or any other application.

Part 2: How to Fix Corrupt Photos From Bad Sectors

There are several reasons for corrupting your photos on your system. So, to repair photos, try the following methods.

Method 1: Use Reliable Photo Repair Software

The best method to repair corrupted photos from the bad sectors is using reliable photo repair software. If you cannot download your photos, they are damaged. And in that case, using Wondershare Repairit - Audio Repair remains helpful. This software can automatically repair all types of problems with your photos. It has two different photo repairing modes you can use in the following manner.

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• Repair damaged photos with all levels of corruption, such as grainy photos, dark photos, pixelated photos, faded photos, etc.

• Repair images of diverse formats, such as JPG, JPEG, PNG, CR3, CR2, NEF, NRW, etc.

• Repair critically damaged or corrupted photos available on SD cards, phones, cameras, USB flash drives, and more, as well as incomplete photo parts.

• Compatible with Windows PC, Mac OS, and supports PC to mobile transferring/sharing.

Step 1: Start Repairit and add your corrupted photos.

Install and start Wondershare Repairit on your PC. You can navigate to the "Photo repair" feature from the side. Then, click on the "Add" button to find your corrupt photos.

After adding your photos, you can only get their details on the native surface of Repairit and begin the repairing process.

Step 2: Start fixing your corrupted photos via Quick or Advanced Repair.

The software will automatically perform a Quick Repair of your photos.

Now, tap on the Preview button to check the results of the repair process.

In most scenarios, the Quick Repair Mode would fix these minor issues with your images. However, if there is a more serious issue with them, the application would recommend you run an Advanced Repair scan instead.

To run an Advanced Repair scan, add a sample image. The sample image should be in the same format.

Similarly, when the Advanced Repair scan is finished, you can also see the results on the native surface of Repairit.

Step 3: Download your repaired photos from Repairit.

Finally, choose the images that are fixed. And press the Save or the Save All button. Now, from Wondershare Repairt, you can export your photos to any preferred location on your PC.

I recommend you save your images to a secure location and not in any bad sectors again. So, this is the way How to fix photos from bad sectors without any hassle.

Method 2: Run the Check Disk Utility on Your Computer

Windows may experience problems like bad sectors or other unwanted system failures. The good news is that Windows includes a built-in feature to resolve the majority of these problems using the system disc.

So, to repair corrupt photos, you can try to fix a bad sector using the Check Disk Utility on your Windows.

To do this, follow the steps mentioned below:

Step 1: Navigate to This PC or My Computer and right-click the disc you wish to repair.

Step 2: After that, navigate to its Properties.

Step 3: Then, go to the Tools section and select the "Check" button in the Error Checking field.

Method 3: Restore From Backup

If you have a previous data backup, you can easily repair photos from bad sectors. For example, if you have a backup on an external hard disk, you can connect it to your computer to access your data. You can also connect cloud-based storage to restore your photos.

If you use the Windows File History feature to back up your data, you can also use it to recover photos from bad sectors. After connecting the backup disk, navigate to your system's Settings > Update & Security > Backup. And then, select the File History feature.

You can get a chronological view of your backup data here and simply search for your missing photos. When you have located them, select them and click the restore icon to save them to your system's storage.

If your photos still do not get repaired, then try the next method.

Method 4: Run CMD

CHKDSK is the inbuilt utility command in Windows. This command can repair bad sectors on an SD card easily. To perform it, simply open Command Prompt as an administrator and enter the command in the proper format.

The steps are as follows:

Step 1: Start Command Prompt as an administrator from the Start menu, or simply type "cmd" into the Run Prompt.

Step 2: After that, type "chkdsk" followed by the drive letter of the SD Card (such as E: or H:) and the "/r /f" parameters.

Step 3: Press enter and wait for it to repair any bad sectors or logical errors on your SD card.

Method 5: Reinstall the Drivers

If after running CHKDSK command, your SD card is not detected by the PC, then you need to reinstall the drivers. Here are the steps to install drivers on your computer again:

Step 1: Choose the Manager option by right-clicking on the computer.

Step 2: Tap on the Device Manager option on the left side.

Step 3: Go to Disk Drives by double-clicking.

Then, right-click on your SD card's name.

Step 4: Choose Uninstall and press Ok.

Step 5: Remove the SD card and restart your computer.

Step 6: Thereafter, reconnect your SD card to the computer.

Your computer can now detect the SD card.

Method 6: Use Windows Troubleshooter to Fix Bad Sector

To repair the SD card with bad sectors, use Windows Troubleshooter. The feature can resolve hardware and driver issues. To repair bad sectors on an SD card, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Connect the SD card to your computer.

Step 2: To troubleshoot, go to Start > Settings > Update & Security > Troubleshoot.

Step 3: Click Run the troubleshooter after selecting Hardware and Devices.

Step 4: Wait for the procedure to complete before restarting your computer.

The SD card problem should be fixed.

Bonus Tip: Recover Lost Files in Bad Sectors

If you are still unable to repair photos from bad sectors, I have a bonus for you. That is all-in-one recovery software - Wondershare Recoverit.

It helps you to get back unintentionally deleted or lost photos, videos, emails, and other files from corrupted devices. Moreover, to help with exact recovery, you can preview the files that were found. So save your data and time with Wondershare Recoverit.

Conclusion

This concludes how to fix photos from bad sectors. To help you understand the problem, I have covered all of the basics, such as its causes and methods to repair photos from bad sectors. So, try the methods once. But if the problem still persists, a tool like Wondershare Repairit will come in handy.