First, protect the card
- Stop recording on it. A new video can land on the space the broken one uses.
- Don't format it, even if the camera asks. Formatting is for after you have copied what you need.
- Copy the broken video to your computer with a card reader and work on the copy.
If the computer can't read the card at all, or the file doesn't show up, that's a different problem: the card itself or its file table. Then you need recovery software first, and our page on recovered videos that won't play picks up after it.
What happened to the file
| What happened | What the file holds |
|---|---|
| Card pulled out or camera lost power mid-recording | All the footage up to that moment, no index |
| Card filled up | The footage that fit, and often no index |
| Camera showed "card error" while recording | Usually the footage up to the error, no index |
| Card was failing for a while | Footage with damaged stretches; harder to repair |
The index, the moov atom, tells a player where every frame is. Cameras write it last, when you press stop. Lose the ending and the player can't open what's there.
Check and repair the copy
- Open the copied video in the checker on this page. It runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
- The free check reports whether it found the pictures and sound.
- If it asks for a second clip, take any video from the same card that plays, recorded on the same camera with the same settings. Many files need none.
- Watch the free 15-second preview, then download the full video for $4.99 or with a plan. If it doesn't play, write to support@nasrtech.dev and we'll look at it with you.
For many files from one card, the Video Repair program for Windows works offline and repairs the same way.
Cameras we have tested
GoPro HERO5, 6, 7, 8, 10 and MAX, a DJI Avata, a RunCam, 70mai and Tesla dash cams and a Samsung Galaxy A56: with the index removed from real recordings, every picture and sound frame came back identical to the original. A file from a card that was failing for weeks may have holes; the checker places the frames it can prove, and the preview shows you how much survived.
What a user wrote
"recovered a video from a place I'll never visit again. it was 1 hour long going on to my YouTube channel." (John C., Google Play review of the Video Repair app for Android, same engine, October 2026)
