"This memory card cannot be used. Card may be damaged. Insert another card." error

jdong217 · Sep 2, 2011

I'm getting this error on my Nikon D3100 with a 16GB Kingston SD card. The SD card was working just fine yesterday but now my computer won't even pick it up when it's in the card reader. I don't leave it laying around as it's always in my camera unless Im uploading pictures, in which case it's in the card reader.

Is there any way to fix this or is it done for good?

StringThing · Sep 2, 2011

Most likely done for good.

But first, it can't hurt to try:

1) insert the card into a different computer to see if it recognizes it.

2) If another computer detects the card but is warning you about errors, you still may be able to save any data on the card by using the myriad of free recovery tools out there. Google it.

Good luck.

tirediron · Sep 2, 2011

Try formatting the card in the camera.

H4X1MA · Sep 2, 2011

I had this happen to my D3100 yesterday. Just put it back into the computer and Eject it properly (My Computer -> right click Drive letter -> eject

thomas30 · Sep 12, 2011

There is only solution to get rid of such irritating error message that is to format the card. But, it will erase your all pictures. So, use any photo recovery tool after formatting to get it scanned. After scanning, it shows previews of your all photos, Just select your interest of pics and click on recover button for recovery. If the tool is unable to scan the card then send it to Data Recovery Company.

MatteDotCom · Sep 12, 2011

That happened to one of my cards. I ended up getting it to read on my pc and formatted it on there and its been working fine since. Good Luck!

DiskoJoe · Jan 12, 2012

jdong217 said:
I'm getting this error on my Nikon D3100 with a 16GB Kingston SD card. The SD card was working just fine yesterday but now my computer won't even pick it up when it's in the card reader. I don't leave it laying around as it's always in my camera unless Im uploading pictures, in which case it's in the card reader.

Is there any way to fix this or is it done for good?

How old is your camera? It may not be a model that can handle a 16 mb card. I know with my alpha it can only handle a 8 mb card and I would need a newer version to handle a 16 mb card.

Also download the pictures from the camera using the usb instead of pulling out the card. This will prevent you from corrupting the card before you can download your pictures.

analog.universe · Jan 12, 2012

My card did this to me once.. I was going to run recovery software on it before I formatted it to try and fix the issue, but simply doing a proper mount and unmount on the PC (I use Linux, Windows "eject" is similar) solved the issue. I didn't even need to run the recovery.