Many digital cameras use an SD card for better transfer speed and high-capacity storage advantage. If you find your digital camera's SD card behaving strangely or throwing errors or you can't access the full capacity of the card, you need to reformat it. You can reformat a SD card either by using a card reader or in your digital camera. Though reformatting an SD card will fix many issues related to it, it will end up erasing your cherished photos. In many situations, when you don't have any other option but to reformat an SD card, you can restore the deleted photos from a valid backup. However, if there is no backup available, don't worry. Several SD card recovery software are available to cater to your recovery needs.

Formatting using a SD card reader

You can follow the below-mentioned instructions in order to reformat your SD card:

1. Turn on your computer, put the SD card into the card reader slot of your computer or you can use an external card reader for the purpose. Your Operating System will automatically open a window. Click on the option to 'Open a folder to view files'.

2. If your Operating System doesn't open a window, go to 'My Computer'

3. Right-click on the drive letter for your card reader and then select the option that says 'Reformat'. Choose the 'FAT 16' option when another window pops up asking you to select a file system

Formatting in your digital camera

Observe the following steps to format an SD card in our digital camera to FAT 16:

1. Insert the SD card in your camera and switch it on.

2. Press the 'Menu' button or 'OK' button to bring on the photograph options. Choose the option that says either 'Setup or Options'

3. Go to the ' Format' tab and hit 'OK' by selecting FAT 16 file system

FAT 16 is an ideal file system for an SD card. You might change it to FAT 32 for better transfer speeds but many digital cameras may not support it.

Now, that you are through with formatting, in order to compensate the data loss, you have to opt for an efficient SD card data recovery software. Any delay can cause the lost files to get over-written, thus hampering the possibilities of successful SD card data recovery.