Guide to Fix Files Not Showing on SD Card

Here we have created a list of solutions to fix the issue caused by all the possible reasons. You can try them one by one to fix files not showing up in SD card, and no data loss will happen. Further, this guide will help you if you have the following problems:

• SD card working on camera but not showing files like pictures and videos on PC
• SD card shows disk space used but not showing any files (probably due to a virus)

How to fix files not showing on SD card?

There are many ways to get access back to the files on SD card on Windows, try the following steps until you get your problem fixed…

#Solution 1: Enable the Hidden Files in Windows

It is none other than the virus that attaches itself to the auto-run command of the SD card as well as other portable devices. It makes all the files hidden on your memory but you can still see the disk space being used from Windows Explorer. But, it can be easily fixed.

• Press Win+R to open run
• Type “cmd” and press Enter. This will open a command prompt (black window)
• Enter the following command in the command prompt. Replace “k” with your SD card drive letter

attrib –h –r –s /s /d k:\*.*

• Go back to Windows Explorer, open SD card drive, all your files will reappear

Now, install a good anti-virus or antimalware such as Malwarebytes to remove the virus that caused files to be hidden.

When SD card is not recognized or showing in Windows Explorer or My Computer!

#Solution 2: Try Accessing the Camera photos/videos directly

The default path for videos and photos stored by camera on a SD card is:

F:\DCIM

Here, “F” letter represents the letter of the SD card that will show up on Windows. “DCIM” represents the folder that contains your media files.

#Solution 3: Make sure your SD card is not Write-Protected

SD cards come with write protection by default, there is a tiny switch on a card that enables or disables writing data on it. Slide the tiny switch upward to remove write protection.

#Solution 4: Connect your camera to your PC

You can connect camera to your PC through data cable. That way your camera will work as a card reader and you could see all the files.

#Solution 5: Update SD card driver

Navigate to Device Manager, here you will see the card reader in the list. If it has a yellow sign beside it, the problem is most probably caused by driver issue. Then you need to update the driver. To do this, follow below steps:

• Connect the SD card to PC
• Navigate to Control Panel -> System -> Device Manager -> Disk drivers
• Find and select your USB device, right click and first choose "Uninstall" and then choose "Scan for hardware changes" to refresh the driver

#Solution 6: Use Disk Management to force SD card show up

• Plug SD card to PC
• Open Disk Management tool: press "Windows + R" > Type: "diskmgmt.msc" and press Enter

#Solution 7: Recover data and format SD card for reuse

If the SD card is still not working or recognized after you trying all the above methods, we recommend you to try YupTools Photo Recovery Software to recover all media files from the SD card and then reformat it to fix file system or compatibility issue. To perform this recovery procedure, first check if your SD card can be seen in Disk Management!

Steps to recover data from SD card

YupTools Photo Recovery Program, a simple yet easy way that helps in recovering file from SD card when it is not recognized by Windows system. To do this, follow these below steps:

Step 1. Connect your SD card to the computer. Download, install and launch YupTools Photo Recovery Toolkit, select Lost Photo Recovery option followed by choosing the drive repressing the SD card.

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Step 2. A quick scan will start first. After it completed, all the recoverable files will be displayed on the screen.

Step 3. Choose the ones you are looking to recover, preview them and finally save them.

Here, you'd better save all the recovered files on a different drive or device in case of data recovery failure.

“If you are a user of SanDisk SD card and you have lost files due to accidental or mistakenly formatting the card, then you can unformat the SD card with the help of above steps.”