What is SmartMedia?
A SmartMedia card is a media storage device that consists of a Flash-Memory chip that stores data. The first card was developed by Toshiba and over the years SmartMedia cards have been manufactured with storage capacities ranging from 2MB to 128 MB. A typical SmartMedia card has an NAND-flash chip embedded on the thin plastic cover card. SmartMedia cards with higher storage capacities come fitted with multiple linked chips.
As of 2016, SmartMedia cards are no longer manufactured or developed. These cards have been overtaken by more reliable and powerful Storage media cards such as Memory cards and MicroSD cards. In the olden days, SmartMedia cards were used as portable storage devices that could transfer data from cameras and Phones for easier access on a PC. SmartMedia cards were so popular in 2001, and they reached a peak where they garnered more than half of the digital cameras Market. Companies such as Olympus and Fujifilm relied so much on SmartMedia cards, but around 2002/2003 SM cards started to experience problems with low storage capacity as camera increased image resolutions. Eventually, Toshiba was forced to switch to other smaller higher capacity storage devices such as the XD-Picture card and Memory card.
Data Loss and Format errors
SmartMedia cards can easily get corrupted and unusable when connected to a card reading device. Cameras using the SmartMedia cards are required not to remove these cards while the camera is still on and operating. SmartMedia cards can experience data loss if sudden changes are made to the cards without following a proper system procedure. The majority of the lost photos files and format errors can be repaired and recovered with a data recovery software.
Disk Drill SmartMedia data recovery software
Disk Drill can recover 70% of lost or deleted photos files from a SmartMedia card. The software is so easy to use and can help to recover SmartMedia files without altering the card information system (CIS).
Learn how to recover deleted files on a SmartMedia Card with our SmartMedia recovery software
- To recover lost files from a SmartMedia card, you can use a SmartMedia card reader to connect the card to your PC.
- Before starting the data recovery process on your device, download Disk Drill for Windows or Mac OS X and install the SmartMedia card data recovery software on your computer.
- Connect your SmartMedia card with your PC and make sure that it is detected as a mass storage device.
- Launch Disk Drill and locate your SmartMedia card drive from the available storage devices connected to your PC.
- Click on the “recovery” button next to the Card drive to start the scanning process (since SmartMedia card has a low storage capacity, expect the process to take some few minutes or less).
- When the scanning process is done, Disk Drill will display recoverable photo files on your screen, and you will be able to save them to your computer.
