Krdytkyu

I just upgraded to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, and wanted to backup my files (i know, i did it wayyy after i was supposed to, judge me if you want) but when i put my SD Card in, it wasn't recognized (i mean that it doesn't appear in the file explorer). The SD Card slot on my computer doesn't let the SD card go all the way in; that's the design, but i think this is what's causing this. Idk.

I'm using Ubuntu 16.04, and Dell Inspiron 20 Model 3048.

P.S. I'm using an SD Card adapter from PNY.

You can check if ubuntu detects your sd card.
Open your terminal and type this with your sd disconnected:

ls /dev/ | grep sd

Then, plug in your sd card and try to run the same command and you should see the difference on the output.

If that doesn't help somehow, you can try installing Gparted. It's a tool for partitions and other related things connected to your pc.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install gparted

Try following :

Type:

dmesg | tail -20 

command to check the last few lines. Now insert the drive. Again type

dmesg | tail -20 

if system is able to get the drives serial number and assigns device name like /dev/sdx means the device is detected.

Then try to mount it with various mount types if not sure of the partition type.

mount -t <partition-type> /dev/sdx /path/to/any/empty/folder

You can also skip the -t <partition-type> part, the mount will try to guess it.

This is better than lsblk way...:

Execute lsblk before connecting the SD card, then once connected execute lsblk again. If there is new entry, then you can see the device name with the mount point (if mounted), like /media/user1/BX5GB in following snippet.

└─sdb1   8:5    0     4G  0 part [/media/user1/BX5GB]

If there isn't any mount point there you have to mount the drive to any local folder with mount command mentioned earlier.

If the partition details are corrupted e.g. Corrupted MBR.. You can try recovery with some softwares like testdisk or something.

For testdisk -

execute the testdisk with superuser privileges (this is necessary as we're going to write the partitioning info)

sudo testdisk

• Now, choose choose logging (create is default). Next screen will show you the disks attached to your system and their total size




• Here select the correct disk that needs to be fixed (your memory card say /dev/sdx).




• On next screen there are options for partition type like [Intel/PC | EFI GPT | Humax | Apple |....]. You can choose one that s suitable for your card. for MBR partitioning it's Intel/PC.



• Now select Analyse. This will take you to analyze screen
  
  
  
  
  • You will first have an option of [Quick Search] select it and let the application search the partitions
  
  
  • If you are satisfied with the current search press Enter to continue (though you may choose to change the partition type detected).
  
  
  • Now you have two options: [write] or [Deeper Search]. So at this point, if you are satisfied with the current partition info select [Write] which writes the partition info to disk and you can now remove and attach it again to see content. OR
  
  
  • You can click [Deeper Search] for more analyzing more damaged partitions and write the detected partition scheme on the disk and you are able to see the content now.
  
  
  
  

This was again in case of reading the SD card. If you just want to recover the content... you have an option of using the photo-recovery, which comes with the testdisk package. and recover the media to some other partition as target. You'll get most of your files, but there won't be any directory structure that you were using earlier.