SanDisk Extreme 256GB V30 SD card corrupted
I’m a photographer and I recently ran into my first serious SD card corruption issue. The card is a SanDisk Extreme V30 256GB SD card that had around 150-200GB of photos on it, mostly RAF RAW files and JPGs from my camera.
The card suddenly stopped being readable on Macbook. The camera says the card cannot be read, and neither my phone could access it.
After researching, I tried Disk Drill because ChatGPT recommended it for corrupted SD card recovery. Disk Drill was actually able to scan the card and it showed around 200GB worth of recoverable files/data from the 256GB card, which gave me hope that the files are still there.
However, I then found out the free version only allows recovering up to 100MB, and to actually recover everything I’d need the Pro version which costs over $100 CAD. At that point I started wondering whether I should just let a repair shop handle it instead of buying recovery software myself.
I took it to a local computer repair shop and they quoted:
- up to 50GB recovered = $50 CAD
- up to 100GB = $80 CAD
- 150GB+ = $120 CAD
They said they would use recovery software to recover the data.
At this point I’m debating whether to:
- Let the shop handle it
- Buy software and attempt recovery myself
Could a cheap USB-C SD card reader have contributed to corruption?
Any advice appreciated. This card has a lot of important photos on it and I’m trying not to make the wrong move.