Frying my GPS SD Card

[MDoug]

I'm pretty sure I wiped clean my SD card on my Lowrance handheld H20 when I did a hard reset without taking out the SD card. The unit won't load the card now, indicates it has no data on it. All I get now is a rough view of the lake, no markers, etc.

Has anyone else had this experience?

[jrc]

I don't know anything about your specific issue, but if you erased a file off an SD card, there may be a solution.

Get a free program called PhotoRec from:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

It's a simple little command line program that will find erased files on your SD. So you can copy them to your computer and then restore them to the SD.

It's meant for photos, but works on all files. It's a little old fashioned and tedious, but it works, read the wiki.

[Kamper]

Techniques like the above work because 'deleted' files are not erased. The unit just relabels the file as available for over-writing. You normally have to do something to actually to erase the data, like use a scrubber or over-write program.

If you cannot recover the data contact Lowrance. If they operate like C-Map, updates are available for less than the initial cost if you return the original chip. Lowrance may still allow you to do an exchange for service reasons. They would be over-writing the returnned piece anyway.

Good luck!

[MDoug]

I think my mistake was in not saving to SD and then removing the card BEFORE doing the hard reset. I didn't see any dire warning in the manual.

Thanks to all for the helpful tips!

[MDoug]

Techniques like the above work because 'deleted' files are not erased. The unit just relabels the file as available for over-writing. You normally have to do something to actually to erase the data, like use a scrubber or over-write program.

If you cannot recover the data contact Lowrance. If they operate like C-Map, updates are available for less than the initial cost if you return the original chip. Lowrance may still allow you to do an exchange for service reasons. They would be over-writing the returnned piece anyway.

Good luck!

Called Lowrance and a technician told me exactly where to look for the missing map data. Success!!

BTW, he did tell me a hard reset with SD card installed is not a good idea.
Thanks, Lowrance.