Forgot your memory card password? Here is what you can do.

Technical Level : Intermediate

Summary

Details

This post shows how to

format a locked memory card

and to

safely recover the data from a locked memory card(on some conditions) through your phone.

Important Note and some conditions:

A. There is no way to recover the forgotten memory card password (Yes for some old smartphones).
B. There is no way to recover data unless the memory card is in the same phone using which you have set the lock code and you have not updated/reinstalled/restored your phone, but you can format the memory card for reuse.

First, just make sure that you have the latest Nokia Suite/PC suite installed on your PC.
Or install Nokia Suite from here.

1. Formatting the locked memory card with a smartphone

If you have updated/reinstalled/restored your phone after setting the password, it is not possible to recover the data.

If you don't care about the data in your memory card and just want to save the memory card for reuse,

you can easily format the memory card by using any smartphones like Nokia E66, N8, 701 etc. These smartphones will override the password and will format the memory card.

If you have important data and want to recover the data from your locked memory card,
then insert the memory card in the same phone using which you have set the password and follow these methods:-

2. Connect the phone to PC in Nokia suite mode/Mass storage mode and move data to your PC

Even though the password is set to your memory card, the memory card is still accessible by your phone before any software update/reinstall/restoring and it is also accessible through your PC when you connect the phone in Nokia suite/Mass storage mode. After connecting, move the data from the memory card to your PC and format the memory card for reuse using any of the smartphones as said in the method 1 above.

3. UsingUSB OTG Cable (If supported) to move data to your pendrive

You can also use your phone's USB OTG(On The Go) function and connect the pendrive to your phone via USB OTG cable and move data from memory card to your pen drive.
You need to buy USB OTG cable separately.
After moving the data, you can format the memory card using any smartphones as said in method 1 above.

Watch how to use USB OTG in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/o27OuK8Bggc

Use computer to browse the files of the phone and move the data to your PC.

USB OTG:

USB OTG with Transcend 8GB:

Since 26/06/12 update to ATF Nitro SD reader enables you to crack (brute force) passwords on Micro SD memory cards without losing the data on the card.

Important note:

Please make regular backups of your important data for safety.
USB OTG on the N8 has an upper limit of 4GB memory sticks. So if an 8GB doesn't work, try with 2GB or 4GB memory stick.

Credits and my special thanks go to