My phone reads "Damaged SD Card - Try reformatting it" - 2 weeks in to my 1st international trip

Two weeks worth of pics
I have still never re-formatted the card

Hi there...new to the community, so hello to all and thanks for any insight you may have. I am hoping that this question has been asked in many different variations, so hoping for a solution.

Took my first international trip (off the wifi grid) with someone very special. Decided to buy a larger SD card before we left. Sandisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I. 128gb.

You guessed it, but I wake up one morning with a message on my phone "Damaged SD card" - SD card is damaged. Try reformatting it."

I didn't dare format it overseas so I took it out of the phone, back in it's micro case, and there it has sat for quite sometime.

Today I had the dream that I would try and fix it and surprise myself and her with the actual pics from the trip.
I put the card back in the reader, but my laptop also can't read it and wants me to format it. I watched a couple quick videos and tried to read a couple posts, but every situation I find is still different or slightly different than my error messages or what happens.

If this group has the ability of writing out any step by step instructions on how to fix this problem, let's just say that it would be unbelievably appreciated that you wouldn't know. I know I am far from the only person that has had these issues, so not trying to cry a river. But it would be really really great to actually recover all that was on it.

Here's hoping that this situation is super easy to some of you....Thanks!!! John

 

Thanks Olbriar. Appreciate the words, but sorry you are in the same boat. This trip was this time last year, so similar to your situation...the card has just been sitting in this drawer. If it helps at all, I did take it to Micro center here and it is something that does need to be mailed out. You initially pay $150 just for them to send out. If they can't get it, you're out $150. If they can get it, they told me it most likely is between $250 to $600 with the average in the middle. But they can't tell you upfront what it will be...so the third party company sort of has the ability to determine the billing. Best Buy uses a third party that was even more expensive. I have only been there for portable hard drives, but they quoted we that it can get up to $2,000. So I didn't even bother last year there.

I don't know if you have any experience, but I see in some videos and threads that people seem to go forward and format the drives, and then use SD recovery software to retrieve the lost information that was formatted.

I wish i had a money tree and then I guess $500 to have a company find these pics maybe isn't a huge deal, but I guess I am not ready to pull that trigger just yet.

Maybe it's back to the drawer for this card again.....hahahaha!

 

Hahahaha. Yeah, I'm not giving up. And i figured that if i protected it right away...as long as it stays that way, I'm sure we could open that door anytime in the future. Let's hope someone else may read this and help us both get those SD card up and running.

Any idea if this card will always be a problem even if it was reformatted? I bought it 5 days before the trip so that was the first use. Nothing like a 128gb lasting 2 weeks. hahaha

 

Thanks Slug. The original device was my Samsung Galaxy Note 4. I went the bed overseas, plugged the phone I think to charge overnight, and the error message was on my phone when I grabbed it in the morning. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Still use the same phone today if that helps.

Thanks