Recover Sony XAVC video from deleted or formatted memory cards.
Free Sony XAVC reconstruction for deleted or formatted cards. iCube Development's tool rebuilds supported XAVC S and XAVC HS MP4 recordings from surviving Sony structures in a full-sector card image. It is not a general file carver or broken-MP4 repair utility.
Input: .img / .dd / .dsk full-sector image · Output: reconstructed MP4 + CSV mapping evidence · no upload or licence key.
How this tool reconstructs fragmented Sony video
128 GB memory card, after formattingIs Sony XAVC Recovery 2.2.28 right for your card?
Want the short version? Start here.
- Current release
- Version 2.2.28.
- What it recovers
- Sony XAVC S using AVC/H.264 and XAVC HS using HEVC/H.265, where the recording uses a supported Sony MP4 layout. HEVC/H.265 reconstruction was added in Version 2.0.
- What it does not recover
- Professional MXF-wrapped XAVC and X-OCN. Version 2.2.28 is for Sony XAVC MP4 recordings.
- What you need
-
A full-sector image of the entire physical card, saved as
.img,
.dd
or
.dsk.
Image the whole device, not an individual partition or mounted volume.
On Windows, a sector-by-sector imaging tool such as HDD Raw Copy Tool can create the image. On macOS, Disk Utility or dd can be used. Do not format, repair or write anything to the original card first. If you are not comfortable imaging physical media, a computer shop or data recovery lab can make the image for you. - What you get
- Recovered recordings as MP4 files, plus a CSV report showing where the recovered pieces came from and the evidence used to associate them with the recording.
- Where it runs
- Windows 10 / 11 x64 and macOS on Apple Silicon. The Windows build is portable with no installer or administrator rights required. The Mac build is a native Apple Silicon app. Choose or drop the image, select any optional recovery methods you need, and analysis and recovery run automatically.
- Your source image stays untouched
- Read-only. The program opens the source image read-only and never writes back to it.
Image the whole physical card first.
Sony XAVC Recovery does not work directly on the original memory card. Create a sector-by-sector image of the entire physical device, not a partition, volume or filesystem view. Save it as .img, .dd or .dsk.
Windows: HDD Raw Copy Tool is one free option. macOS: Disk Utility or dd. Stop using the card before imaging it, and do not run repair, format or write operations against the original media.
Publisher
iCube Development (Calgary) Ltd. also performs paid data recovery and digital-forensics work. This tool is free, provided as-is, and requires no purchase.
C97057BE8BA0310D47D54EBCE8B2073B6F085CFD15BD9E2F92CA8E111EC6798C
Version 2.2 goes beyond finding Sony video. It helps explain what is really happening on the card.
The biggest changes are in fragmented recovery, abnormal card translation, visual sector analysis, audio reconstruction and incomplete recordings.
Add an unformatted reference image
Version 2.2 can use an image from a similar, unformatted Sony card as a reference when the recording layout is unknown. The reference gives the engine a known-good example of how that camera writes its data, which can improve recovery results on unsupported or unfamiliar formats. When to add a reference image.
Extended Translation Recovery
Some damaged, counterfeit or failing SD cards can lie about where their data is stored. Extended Translation Recovery tests alternate translations instead of assuming the card's reported address map is telling the truth. When to enable it.
Visual card sector map
See surviving data and Sony recording structures across the card, making fragmentation and empty regions visible. The sector view can also help investigate cards that may have been erased or unmapped after an SD erase/CMD38 operation.
Picture + sound reconstruction
Supported surviving video and audio are reconstructed together from source-backed recording data, so the recovered result is not treated as picture-only when the original sound is still present.
Partial MP4 salvage
If a later video or audio extent cannot be proven, Version 2.2 can preserve the usable portion as a .partial.mp4 instead of discarding the entire recording. What a partial recovery means.
Recover fragmented AVC transitions
Some AVC/H.264 recordings jump between distant physical regions of the card. This recovery follows the Sony/MP4 structure across that break, accepts only a unique physical match, then confirms the rebuilt transition decodes correctly with the surrounding video. How fragmented AVC transition recovery works.
Deleted or formatted?
The answer changes the odds, but the first rule is always the same: stop using the card.
Deleted / Delete All
Usually the best case. The card's bookkeeping changes, but the old video bytes may remain until something overwrites them.
Best chance: nothing recorded afterwards.
Computer quick-format or RAW filesystem
The normal file map may be gone while the recording data remains. This is the problem the tool is designed to analyze.
Good chance: if the card has not been reused.
In-camera format
Variable. The camera may ask the card controller to erase or remap blocks. Analyze the image rather than assuming the result from the menu option.
Recorded more afterwards
New data can overwrite the old recording. Anything actually overwritten is gone; untouched clips or regions may still survive.
Download Sony XAVC Recovery 2.2.28
Mac · Apple Silicon download
iCube_Sony_XAVC_Recovery_2.2.28-mac.zip is the native Apple Silicon build. It is distributed as a ZIP containing the macOS app. Because this release is not distributed through Apple's Developer ID/notarization program, macOS may require you to right-click the app and choose Open the first time.
Signed, so you can verify it
You are about to run a Windows EXE iCube Development wrote. You should not have to take our word for it. The Windows binaries are Authenticode signed by iCube Development (Calgary) Ltd. through a DigiCert trusted code-signing chain and are timestamped. Windows can confirm who signed them and whether the files have been changed since they were signed.
We publish the signer certificate fingerprint so you can independently confirm you are looking at the same certificate:
- SHA-256
- C97057BE8BA0310D47D54EBCE8B2073B6F085CFD15BD9E2F92CA8E111EC6798C
To check it yourself, unzip the download, open PowerShell in that folder and run the line below with the name of the EXE. The status should read Valid and the hash should match the fingerprint above.
$s = Get-AuthenticodeSignature .\NAME-OF-THE-EXE.exe; $s.Status; $s.SignerCertificate.GetCertHashString('SHA256')The thumbprint shown in the Windows file Properties dialog is SHA-1, so it will not match the SHA-256 value above. Use the PowerShell line for the comparison.
Buy me a coffee
This button unlocks nothing. If the tool saved the footage and you feel like buying me a coffee anyway, excellent. A fair amount of mediocre coffee was harmed while figuring this out.
Goes to info@icubedev.com · CAD · handled by PayPal · a thank you, not a purchase.