Free micro SD card recoverer for your bird.

[John Gowland]

You are welcome jerseymitch and drvrbobob. First time a card has failed on me in a DJI drone.
At least you can still use a recovered card in a none critical situation even if you don't trust it in your bird.

 

[Harleydude]

The recommended micro SD cards for DJI drones are not cheap and if you have lots of batteries and or more than one drone you need a big one.
I pulled a 64 Gb one from a M2 Zoom the other day and found it was corrupt. Neither a Mac, Windows or Android OS could even see the SD card.
I was about to shed out $70 Au for a good one when I searched and came across this freebie.
Downloaded it, ran it, stuck my card in the Mac and the software saw it immediately and let me format the old card and saved me shekels.
Thought I would post to share and incase there are others with a similar issue with the new Mavics
Enjoy
Using SD Formatter Tool to restore full capacity on SDHC/SDXC cards
Takes you to this
SD Memory Card Formatter 5.0 for SD/SDHC/SDXC
Don’t you like free stuff that works every time?

2 things:

1) I hope this works, as I actually have a 128GB card netting intermittent errors.
2) Some of these cards have a lifetime warranty. I wouldn't be so quick to toss them.

D

 

[John Gowland]

Good points Harleydude I am starting to agree that once a card reports an error its over. After all what is not a critical situation in which you can use a card that has a problem.
I don't think I can be bothered to sent the card back to scandisk but I am going to take it back to the store Harleydude. Good thinking.
I could never trust it again in my P4P. Lets give people many chances not some tech.

 

[Harleydude]

Good points Harleydude I am starting to agree that once a card reports an error its over. After all what is not a critical situation in which you can use a card that has a problem.
I don't think I can be bothered to sent the card back to scandisk but I am going to take it back to the store Harleydude. Good thinking.
I could never trust it again in my P4P. Lets give people many chances not some tech.

I'm sure I paid over 50 bucks for my 128GB SanDisk Ultra MicroSD card...probably over 60. Certainly worth returning. Good luck with your return! If you got it at Best Buy, you're SOL. They'll tell you to contact the manufacturer. I may have just saved you a trip!....<;^)

 

[JSKCKNIT]

Make sure you're buying genuine SD cards and definitely use multiple.

You get what you pay for. And if the price seems too good to be true, it usually is.

I bought a Transcend 64Gb SD card off Ebay several years ago on the cheap. Documented the devastation from a tornado and then used the same sd card the next day at my son's baseball game. Halfway through shooting, SD CARD FAILURE! Sent it to Transcend to recover the photos and was informed it was counterfeit. Never recovered the photos. Never bought cheap online sd cards either!

 

[Harleydude]

Make sure you're buying genuine SD cards and definitely use multiple.

You get what you pay for. And if the price seems too good to be true, it usually is.

I bought a Transcend 64Gb SD card off Ebay several years ago on the cheap. Documented the devastation from a tornado and then used the same sd card the next day at my son's baseball game. Halfway through shooting, SD CARD FAILURE! Sent it to Transcend to recover the photos and was informed it was counterfeit. Never recovered the photos. Never bought cheap online sd cards either!

I will not only second this, but will double down on it. Don't think Amazon is any better than eBay. The counterfeit MicroSD card market is HUGE. It's gotten so bad that I will not use foreign vendors. And when I say, "Foreign vendors," that means Asians who set up camp in California, too. THOSE cards are fake, too....which is ironic, since these SanDisk cards are manufactured in China. Sometimes the vendor is duped and honestly doesn't know that their cards are counterfeit. So you end up dealing with someone who has the best intentions only to find out they purchased 100 or 1,000 counterfeit cards in some "get rich quick" scheme.

The other problem is that some consumers will order Class 10 U3 cards for their phones. So while these cards work fine under the easy load of cell phone photos or video, they fail miserably when us drone guys start putting real demand on them. Because of these phone consumers, said vendor may have a bunch of good feedback from them, based on these pedestrian uses. You may get push back from the vendor, "I sold 10 of these with no problem." It's a real gauntlet.

The only way to truly know you're get a genuine MicroSD card is to use a genuine dealership. And the only way to know if your vendor is a genuine dealership is to query them.

I found a genuine dealer on Amazon. He backs every card he sells, is native born, and responds to email. So he is all I use. I have too much riding on that card to save 10 or 15 bucks.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XYT37NK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Here's a link to the vendor so you can contact him pre-order:

Amazon.com Seller Profile: CWP Online

And here's the review I left for them:

"I've always used SanDisk Extreme Pro cards for the quality and warranty. That's a no-brainer. But I'm going to give a shout out to CWP Online, who replied quickly to my email, which accused them of selling a counterfeit card. I have been bitten by counterfeit cards THREE times now. After failing in my drone, I was quick to jump to the false assumption that this card was counterfeit. Their reply assured me the card was genuine. So I went back to the drawing board and reformatted the card in the WINDOWS environment. Apparently "formatting" via the drone does NOT do an actual format, but merely erases all files and then rebuilds the folder structure. Lesson learned. Good on you, CPW Online! I will use you again for all my SanDisk purchases."

Good luck!

D