Found a Micro SD card...how to access?
October 19, 2014 8:42 AM Subscribe
So my wife found a micro-SD card while on her morning walk. We'd like to see what's on it.
Yes, we're nosy and curious, but on the off chance that whatever is on it might be meaningful to someone, we'd like to return it to the rightful owners if we can identify them in some way.
I have an SD-reader-adaptor. I slotted the found card into the adapter and put it in my Mac and it doesn't see it or react to it at all.
I tried it with a PC and the PC definitely detects it (it makes the little "detected" noise) but then comes up with an error saying that I need to create an application association with the file. But it never gives me the drive to access, so I can't even see what files are on there that it thinks needs associating.
Is there some other way for me to see what's on it? Or am I wasting my time?
Yes, we're nosy and curious, but on the off chance that whatever is on it might be meaningful to someone, we'd like to return it to the rightful owners if we can identify them in some way.
I have an SD-reader-adaptor. I slotted the found card into the adapter and put it in my Mac and it doesn't see it or react to it at all.
I tried it with a PC and the PC definitely detects it (it makes the little "detected" noise) but then comes up with an error saying that I need to create an application association with the file. But it never gives me the drive to access, so I can't even see what files are on there that it thinks needs associating.
Is there some other way for me to see what's on it? Or am I wasting my time?
Try opening the file in Notepad (add ".txt" to the name). It might be gibberish but might give you a clue about what's on there. Also try some image formats (.jpg, .srf).
posted by sninctown at 8:54 AM on October 19, 2014
posted by sninctown at 8:54 AM on October 19, 2014
Make sure to turn off Autoplay before inserting anything like this into your computer....
posted by jozxyqk at 9:07 AM on October 19, 2014 [7 favorites]
posted by jozxyqk at 9:07 AM on October 19, 2014 [7 favorites]
Two things: 1. Is your SD card reader older, and is the micro SD card an SDHC card? I just ran into a problem recently where my card reader wouldn't read multiple micro SDs, regardless of which adapter I put them into before slotting them into the reader, and it was because of that incompatibility. (SDHC is a newer standard, so even if you do a firmware update on the reader—I tried updating mine—a lot of older readers can't see them.)
2. As jozxyqk suggests, be careful. If you do get the card to mount, do a virus scan immediately, as that's one way viruses are disseminated, by dropping memory cards and USB sticks on the ground for curious people to plug in.
posted by limeonaire at 9:08 AM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]
2. As jozxyqk suggests, be careful. If you do get the card to mount, do a virus scan immediately, as that's one way viruses are disseminated, by dropping memory cards and USB sticks on the ground for curious people to plug in.
posted by limeonaire at 9:08 AM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks!
Yes - first thing I did was disconnect the machine from the 'net and turned off autoplay - it's the "sandbox" PC that I use for experiments just like this, but trying to access data that the OS can't see is beyond my technical reach.
It seems like the OS can't see the card at all. My other memory card is also SDHC and it can read it, so it's not an incompatibility issue there.
I can't see a filename to edit or try. It's like it's not there, which makes me think it might just be damaged.
posted by Thistledown at 9:21 AM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yes - first thing I did was disconnect the machine from the 'net and turned off autoplay - it's the "sandbox" PC that I use for experiments just like this, but trying to access data that the OS can't see is beyond my technical reach.
It seems like the OS can't see the card at all. My other memory card is also SDHC and it can read it, so it's not an incompatibility issue there.
I can't see a filename to edit or try. It's like it's not there, which makes me think it might just be damaged.
posted by Thistledown at 9:21 AM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]
MicroSD, dropped in the wild... it's from a phone? Drop it into an Android phone and see what happens? That might explain why your Mac and PC can't read it?
http://disktype.sourceforge.net/ recognises file systems, but is a 'nix app. Try to find an equivalent for your OS? (Maybe a pre-compiled binary for OSX).
posted by Leon at 9:40 AM on October 19, 2014
http://disktype.sourceforge.net/ recognises file systems, but is a 'nix app. Try to find an equivalent for your OS? (Maybe a pre-compiled binary for OSX).
posted by Leon at 9:40 AM on October 19, 2014
When newer cameras and phones can't communicate with linux systems one of the first things suggested is often to pop the card out and slap into a reader. And it works surprisingly often. Have you got or can you get a linux live disk from one of the DVD sized distros (so it'll have the fuller range of software, drivers, libraries, whatnot) that you can try it with? Perhaps something like SUSE? Or maybe go straight to something like an Ubuntu live disk with recovery software to see whether there's formatting, partitions, data, etc there at all?
posted by Ahab at 9:57 AM on October 19, 2014
posted by Ahab at 9:57 AM on October 19, 2014
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posted by sevenless at 8:47 AM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]