Have you ever formatted the SD card because of impulsiveness, and found that all precious files were gone? How to unformat the SD card and recover lost files from formatted SD card? Now follow this article to get back the lost files.

About SD Card Formatting

Before we study how to unformat SD card, let's learn about formatting SD card first:

1. It is effortless to format an SD card either on PC or other digital devices. You can format it in Windows Explorer by right-clicking the drive and selecting Format option. Besides, there is usually a Format option on a digital device, which allows users to format SD card if necessary.

2. The formatting process deletes everything stored on the SD card. After formatting, you can save new data on the drive. Many users format memory card intentionally to free up space.
How to Format SD Card?

If you format SD card in Windows, you have two options: quick format and full format. The "Quick Format" option is selected by default.

A quick format of SD card writes boot sector and empty filesystem to a partition. Thus the memory card will be full of free space for new data. If you format an SD card in this way, files on the card are not completely erased until they get overwritten. That means you can unformat SD card and recover formatted data from SD card. But, a full format does extra action which wipes data permanently so that removed files can never be recovered.

The difference between the quick format and the full format is whether the volume can scan the bad sectors by using the "chkdsk " command or not. But no matter which format option is used, the data will be lost.
Is it Possible to Unformat SD Card?

We know that a quick format doesn't destroy data. And in most cases, the formatting done to SD card is the quick format. So we often say that formatting refers to quick formatting. To format a memory card does not really erase the data on it. The data is not immediately destroyed, and they still stay on the SD card, waiting to be overwritten by newly stored data. If the data area is not overwritten by the new content, you still have the opportunity to unformat the memory card.

So stop using the card immediately! That is absolutely the first step you should take. If you continue using the card to save newly taken pics, chances are the "free space" your original files took will be newly occupied. When that happens, you've lost them. Second, try any of the following ways to unformat SD card on Windows.

We recommend a data recovery freeware -- Bitwar Data Recovery. It is an easy-to-use and risk-free data recovery utility that helps you to unformat SD card. It enables you to unformat almost all files from a formatted SD card, including photos, videos, audio files, and more.

Read more? How to Unformat SD Card