Know How Data Gets Corrupted on a Camera Memory Card

6 minutes read

“Prevention is better than cure” This proverb proves its relevance even in the digital era, If you understand how does a memory card gets corrupted, you can be safe from losing all your precious photos and videos from corruption issues. This article lists a few of the common causes of memory card corruption.

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Removable flash media such as memory cards offer an easy way of storing huge data on a small medium. These are also used in your digital cameras to store your pictures and videos captured on your digital cameras.  Moreover, they can be easily connected to any camera.

Unfortunately, this ease of use might overshadow their tendency to get corrupted easily, which can destroy and corrupt the data present on these camera memory cards.

This could be a result of your mistake or sometimes unknowingly. Confused? Read further, and you will understand better...

There are many reasons why your memory card or data could become corrupt. Below listed are a few of the causes for the data corruption on your camera memory card.

How Does a Memory Card Get Corrupted?

Improper Handling of the Memory Card

In most of the cases, human error is the primary cause of memory card corruption. It happens when your camera is switched off prior to saving the image to the card.  At times, it even occurs when the memory card is removed abruptly before it is able to save or transfer an image to another device such as a computer.

Low Camera Battery

Taking pictures even when your battery is showing low life will also result in corruption of the camera memory card and results in loss of pictures from a memory card.

Haphazard Use of the Camera

Once a picture is captured, your digital camera needs some time to write that image to the card. In case you continuously take pictures in rapid succession, then it negatively impacts your memory card's performance. Similarly, quickly taking pictures and deleting them when the card memory is full can also risk the card's performance. All these in turn affect the data present on your camera card.

Storage Issues

Your camera memory card cannot store the images for long periods. Even if your card indicates that it can hold 350 images, the actual number of images it can store may be less. It mainly depends on exposure settings and the resolution sizes of the photos. In case you store pictures for a longer time and become overloaded, then this will result in the corruption of data on your camera card.

Formatting Issues

For a memory card to work properly, it must be formatted to the camera’s settings. If you insert a memory card from one camera into another, the card must be formatted according to the new camera’s compatibility settings. Otherwise, it will result in camera card data corruption due to incompatibility issues. In addition, formatting must be done on the camera, not on the computer to ensure optimal performance of the card.

Virus Infection

These memory cards can be inserted into any device like mobile phones, desktops, laptops, etc. not only on your camera. Frequent plug-and-play of the card to the different devices might cause virus infection to your memory card. If it is not fixed in time then the entire memory card will get corrupted resulting in data corruption or loss.

These are the most repeatedly encountered reasons that lead to the corrupt data on your camera memory card. Due to all these issues, you will lose your precious data. In case you are stuck with similar issues then there is nothing to worry much about your camera memory card data. Just make use of the Remo Recover Windows/Mac software that can easily recover files from corrupted memory cards in just a few steps.

Signs of Corrupted Memory Card

There are few signs of a corrupted memory card, and this can potentially lead to a ticking data loss disaster.

SD card not being detected: If the memory card is properly connected to the device and if it doesn’t get recognized by the device then it can be a sign of memory card corruption.

Error Messages: Whenever you try to access the memory card file you encounter file system errors, card errors, or corrupted memory card errors.

Missing Files: If you notice some of the files or folders on your memory card go missing randomly then it could be due to corruption.

Slower performance: If you are able to notice slower read/write speeds or sluggish performance while transferring data from your memory card.

Frequent Crashes: When using the memory card with a device, the device may frequently freeze, crash, or become unresponsive.

Tips to Avoid Memory Card Corruption:

  • Do not remove the memory card abruptly while transferring or capturing images or videos
  • Make sure you scan your card with the latest anti-virus software to get rid of viruses or any threats
  • Avoid capturing the pics when your battery is low
  • Regularly transfer images from the camera to your computer or to other storage devices.
  • regularly format your card to prevent memory card corruption.

About the Author: Molly Owen

Molly is the Lead Technical Specialist with distinguished knowledge and understanding of Mac computers and operating systems. Being a veteran photographer and video recovery specialist, Molly’s expertise in video formats and file repair has helped restore a lot of videos and cherished memories of users. As a technical specialist, she also believes in learning and…