I get this message when connecting a USB to my Qin.
Any way to access my stuff without formatting?
Yes, put it in a computer or laptop
If you format there is no way to access
if you plug the sd card into a computer and it still says it needs to be formatted, you can access the files through the dmde software
I would first try chkdsk drive letter: /f
If I get a raw message then I can rebuild with test disk from cgsecurity.
Sorry for not being clear. I can access my stuff on my laptop. I just get the message when putting it in my qin. I dont want to back up 200 gb of stuff to then format it. So I was asking for a different way.
When you connect the card to the computer
A message pops up saying the card needs to be repaired (If not, do it yourself, right-click on the drive, properties, search there and you’ll see)
Click OK and then insert the card into the phone
This will not erase anything from the card
This is what I did last week and it worked
The Issue is probably that its not formatted for a Phone
See 
https://forums.jtechforums.org/t/how-to-format-a-drive-to-fat32/5237
Right
But what I wrote works even though it’s not compatible with the phone
That’s what I’ve done several times with all kinds of Android devices
A message pops up saying the card needs to be repaired.
That happens when you take out a USB or sd card while there is a read/write in progress.
It is called a “dirty bit”
There is a video from Thio Joe explaining it.
Right, he is looking for a way to format it to fat 32 while keeping all of his files.
I had the same problem he wrote in the first post
And what I wrote was the solution for me several times
I didn’t see a need to change FAT32…
Understood, let’s see what @kosherboy will say after he tries it.
Nothing popped up when I put it in my laptop so I went to properties and pressed scan and repair and it said no issues found.
I tried it in my Qin again and no luck.
Just try changing it to FAT32
You need to remove everything from it first though because this will Erase everything
Tried mixplorer?
Press set up later, open the app, and see if it appears in the side menu.
There’s also this (never tried):
I have another idea, which I think is preferable (with root) but I need to know the filesystem.
Send me output (with USB connected to phone) of
su -c blkid
Then you’d create a mount point, and mount based on filesystem type, just like you’d do on Linux.
If I remember corredctly, the paid version from Mini tool partition wizard allows to convert from NTFS to FAT32.
Why convert?! Android is Linux, try basic things before possibly messing up the drive.
my brother has a Sony recorder that his SD card was formatted for
Now he wants to access the SD Card contents on a laptop and it says that the SD card needs to be formatted, he doesn’t want to lose the data on the SD card, what can he do?
I don’t know Sony but it probably formatted it to a filesystem Windows doesn’t understand. Try mounting it on Linux. If it works just copy the files. If it fails, Linux is anyway the place to debug such stuff.