How Do I Backup My SD Card Before Formatting?

SD Cards are external storage devices that are widely used in portable devices such as digital cameras, multimedia players, and so on. Formatting an SD Card can kill the viruses for the SD card, improve the running speed of the SD card and restore the memory space of the SD card by erasing files.

However, if you have stored important files on your SD card, make sure to back up the SD card before formatting. This is because, once your SD card is formatted, all files will be removed and data may not be recovered. If you don’t know how you can backup SD card data before formatting, don’t worry, you can follow the guide below to figure out how to backup data on an SD card on Android and PCs.

How to Backup Data Before Formatting SD Card on Computer and Android

In this chapter, we list 2 ways to backup data before formatting SD cards on different devices - Android mobile phones and computers. You can select and apply step-by-step tutorials as needed.

Way 1. Backup Data to Clouds Before Formatting SD Card 

There are a number of popular cloud storage providers in the market. They can store SD card data and allow you to easily restore data backups when needed. For example, you can choose to backup SD card to Google Drive, which gives 15GB of free storage space. Here is how to backup SD cards on Android without computers (take Google Drive as an example):

• Part 1. Backup SD Card Before Formatting on Android

• Part 2. Backup Data Before Formatting SD Card on Computer

• Part 3. How to Restore SD Card Backups from Clouds

Part 1. Backup SD Card Before Formatting on Android

Step 1. Download and launch the Google Drive desktop app on your phone.

Step 2. Click on the + icon, select Upload, and then, go to the folder where the SD card files are stored and select the files you need to get backed up.

Part 2. Backup Data Before Formatting SD Card on Computer

You can choose to backup files to Google Drive with the Google Drive website or Google Drive client. Here we elaborate on steps of how to backup data before formatting SD cards with the Google Drive desktop app.

Step 1. Run the Google Drive desktop app on your computer and complete the log-in.

Step 2. Connect your SD card to your PC and click on the Google Drive icon on your taskbar to tap on the Add device button in the Notifications.

Step 3. Choose files on the SD card that need to be saved to Google Drive. Then, select the Back up to Google Drive option and click Save to start backups of SD card data.

Part 3. How to Restore SD Card Backups from Clouds

If you finish the process of formatting an SD card and need to restore backups from clouds, you can easily download backups and save them to your new SD card. For how to restore backups from SD cards on Android and laptops, please follow the detailed instructions below.

☛For Android:

Step 1. Open Google Drive on your mobile device and hit the three vertical dots button of the file you intend to restore.

Step 2. Press Download on the pop-up screen. Then, locate the downloads on your phone and move them to your SD card easily.

☛For computer:

Step 1. Run the Google Drive desktop app. After you log in to the Google Drive desktop app, it will create a hard disk named Google Drive on your PC.

Step 2. Open the Google Drive disk, find the backed-up SD card data, download it to your computer or move the data to your new SD card directly.

Way 2. Copy SD Card Data to Computer Hard Disk Before Formatting

Saving a copy of SD card data to your computer is another option that you can apply to backup SD cards on Windows 10 and other operating systems. It is easy to handle and 100% free, but it is important to note that your computer's hard drive should have enough storage space to store your SD card documents.

Step 1. Attach the SD card to your PC with an SD card adapter.

Step 2. Head to your Windows File Explorer or Mac Finder, Open your SD memory card, and then copy files and paste them to your computer hard disk.

Tip: What If Cloud Storage Is Insufficient to Store SD Card Data?

Once you know how to backup data on SD cards before formatting, you will find that backing up SD card data is a very simple task. However, you may also run into insufficient storage space in the process. If you find that you are running low on cloud storage and upgrading to larger storage is expensive, you can use CBackup to expand cloud storage for you for free.

CBackup is a professional yet free cloud backup service. It is designed to backup files to clouds including CBackup Cloud (10GB of free space), Google Drive, OneDrive, etc. It comes with a cloud storage combination feature that offers you to combine multiple accounts from multiple cloud storage platforms to form a bigger cloud storage space.

For instance, you can combine 4 free Google Drive accounts to gain 60GB of storage space effortlessly. Now, let’s find out how to increase cloud storage with CBackup:

Step 1. Click the Download CBackup button below and install it on your computer. Apply for a CBackup account and sign in to the CBackup desktop app.

Step 2. Select Storage on the left sidebar, and pick a cloud drive to hit Authorize Now, and follow the prompts to grant CBackup to connect with your cloud storage space.

Step 3. After adding all your accounts, tap on  + Add Combined Cloud.

Step 4. Tick the checkboxes next to the accounts you want to merge and click Next > Combine.

Step 5. Then, your combined cloud will be displayed on the storage list. And you can backup any file/folder to the combined cloud by selecting it as the backup destination.

More useful features of CBackup:

Cloud to Cloud Backup: You can backup files between clouds without downloading and uploading to save SD card files in two clouds.

Cloud to Cloud Sync: You can migrate files from one cloud to another quickly when the free cloud storage is not enough on one cloud drive.

Conclusion

On this page, we explain how to backup data before formatting your SD card. You can decide to backup sd cards to clouds or save a copy of SD card data to your computer hard disk.

If you think backing up sd cards to clouds is a better option, but are worried about running out of storage space, rest assured. With CBackup, a professional backup utility, you can merge multiple Google accounts as well as other cloud storage accounts to expand the space for free. Download and try it free now.