How to Fix the Error SanDisk SD Card Won’t Format in Windows

Having a tiny SD card with your camera or phone is great! But what if your card shows an error message stating SD card won’t format Windows? Are the photos and videos stored on that card is gone forever?

Well, you are not alone…

When I had my digital camera, I suffered from a similar kind of situation. My heart was broken, 4GB of photos in the SanDisk SD card became inaccessible all of a sudden.

Luckily, I was able to fix this issue with the help of some simple solutions. My journey was not easy, though. It took lots of efforts to find fixes that actually worked out.

That is why the reason I decided to share this guide to resolve SanDisk SD card won’t format error in Windows 10/8/7, with relevant solutions.

Part 1: Recover Data from SanDisk SD Card That Won’t Format

If you saved important data on SD card and it suddenly has got corrupted, your very first move is to extract and restore data from it. However if its not accessible the next step is to try and format the SD card.  So, follow this procedure, if files and folders present in the SD card, showing error “SD card not formatted” are important for you.

If you don’t have important data, and just want to make your SD card workable again, directly jump to part 2 section of this article and follow methods to fix the SD card.
Note: The following steps would also help in fixing Windows was unable to complete the format error for hard drives and other portable storage devices.

# 1. Change Drive Letter to Make SD Card Recognizable

If the SD card is not recognized or not accessible in Windows 10/8/7, you should first make it recognizable. To do this, here is the procedure:

• Connect won’t format SD card to PC
• Right-click on This PC/My Computer> Manage > Disk Management
• Locate and right-click on SD card, select Change drive letter, and paths
• Re-select a new drive letter for your SD card and click OK to confirm

#2. Restore Data from SanDisk SD card

After making SD card recognizable, you can now restore all saved data from the card. If you cannot extract and find all data on the SD card, don’t worry. Take the help of Remo Recover.

Remo Data Recovery Wizard allows you to restore lost, hidden and even formatted data from SanDisk SD card, USB drive or other storage devices in a simple way.

Follow these steps to recover data from SD card after won’t format error:

1. Connect SanDisk SD card to PC. Download, install and run Remo Data Recovery

2. Select Recover Drives followed by Partition Recovery option.

3. Now choose the drive representing your SanDisk SD card that won’t be formatted. The tool will start a quick scan to find files.

4. Preview and restore lost SD card data. You can preview found data by file types, select the required files and save them to another safe location in PC/external storage device.

Part 2: Fix SanDisk SD Card Won’t Format error

#1. Run CHKDSK to Fix Won’t Format SanDisk SD Card Error

• Right-click on Start to select Command Prompt (Admin) or click Start and type: cmd > click exeto bring up Command Prompt
• Sign in as an administrator and type: chkdsk E: /f /r and hit Enter; (Replace E:with the drive letter of your SanDisk SD card)
• Exit CMD and enter Disk Management tool, find SD card, right-click on it and select Format volume
• Reset file system and drive number of the SD card, click OK to confirm the format action

#2. Run DiskPart to Fix SanDisk Card Won’t Format Error

• Open Command Prompt by right-clicking Start >Command Prompt (Admin)or search cmd from Start
• Type: diskpart to bring up DiskPart utility
• Type: list disk and hit Enter
• Type: select disk 1 and hit Enter (Replace 1 with the drive number of your SD card)
• Type: cleanand hit Enter
• Type: create partition primary and hit Enter
• Type: select disk 1 and hit Enter (Replace 1 with the drive number of SD card)
• Type: active to make the SD card partition activate
• Type: format fs = NTFS orformat fs = fat32 and hit Enter
• Type: assign letter = F
• After this, type exit to finish the process

Well, I could say that these are the best methods to fix SanDisk SD Card Won’t Format Error in Windows 10/8/7 at present and most of the times they work well just like in my case. You can try these solutions above one after another and find the one works for you!