I recently transferred some videos from my SanDisk Ultra SD card to an external USB drive using my laptop. Unfortunately, the transfer was interrupted when my computer froze, and I had to force a restart.
After restarting, I noticed that several videos were missing from the SD card, while the files copied to the external drive were either incomplete or wouldn’t open. The SD card is still recognized by my computer, but a few folders that previously contained videos now appear empty.
As soon as I realized something was wrong, I stopped using both the SD card and the external drive to avoid overwriting any data.
Has anyone experienced a similar issue? Is it better to attempt recovery from the original SD card first, or is there a chance the incomplete files on the external drive can still be recovered? Any advice, recommendations, or personal experiences with recovering videos after an interrupted transfer would be greatly appreciated.
One question: were you copying the videos or moving them? If you were just copying them, there’s a better chance the originals are still recoverable from the SD card.
Otherwise, I’d start with the SD card. Even though the folders look empty, the video data may still be there if the transfer didn’t finish properly. Sometimes it’s just the file system that gets messed up, while the actual files are still recoverable.
I’ve had good results with Stellar Photo Recovery for situations like this. It can scan the SD card for lost or missing photos and videos, even when they no longer appear in File Explorer. If it finds your videos, just make sure you recover them to a different drive, not back to the SD card. If a few videos are still missing after that, you can also scan the external drive.
Right now, avoid using basic Windows tools or commands like “Check Disk” (chkdsk). Instead, use specialized recovery software to retrieve the lost files. This type of software can ignore the corrupted file system and find the original data underneath.
Once the software finds your videos, do not save them back to the SD card or the external drive. Save them directly to your laptop’s internal hard drive instead.
After your videos are safely recovered, run a free program like H2testw to test the SD card for errors or bad sectors. If it passes the test, completely format the card before using it again. (A related guide - Ultimate Guide to Fix Corrupted SD Card and Recover Data )
Since the card is still recognized, avoid opening, moving, or repairing files on it and do not run CHKDSK, because it can change the card’s file system and make recovery harder. Recover from the SD card first because it is the original source, while the incomplete files on the USB drive are worth checking afterward for usable fragments. Also use a recovery tool such asStellar Data Recovery can scan the card for deleted video files without writing recovered data back to the card. Save anything recovered to a different drive.
It is good that you have stopped using the card and usb. See what happens is that the videos are usually not erased, only their index entries are damaged or removed. That’s why scanning the SD card with recovery software, few suggestions are already given by other users I have used two software one is 4ddig recovery and recover it so you can have a look at these software without writing anything new to it, gives you the best chance of getting them back.
