My first mini3pro was DOA on a firmware load issue, they sent me another one in less than a week.  That was a positive.  I did a few test flights on #2 and all seemed well so I took it on a work shot.  While on site, I could not recall if I removed my test material from the sd card so I formatted the drone sd card via the RC.  All appeared well, took 40 or so videos and many 48mb photos.  When I got back to my Windows pc I slide in the sd card and all I can see is the jpg and mp4 files with thumbs and sizes.   I attempted to copy them over...only a few of the srt files came then it dropped the drive.  My partition software stated format was unknown.  Over the next few days I tried several PC's, linux, mac and several sd repair apps to no avail. The repait apps would copy a file over but its was unreadable and about 10% of the orginal file size.  DJI help ticket responded, " we are not able to recover the document for you. If the document is very important, you may try the third party service provider and see if they can recover it for you"  but did not answer the base question what format is the drone placing on the card.  I also tried to connect directly via windows assistant software and to the drone while powered up to transfer the files and while very slow a few did come over to windows but the photos were only 60% of the canvas size and distorted.  So overall, very pleased with my new bird but will NEVER format from drone again as I had to redo those shots on a 102 degree day.  In my experience, avoid the drone format feature unless you want to risk your material.  

I have had a similar experience with the Mini 3.  With all my other DJI drones I can format the card in the drone and read all the files with the PC.  Unfortunately, for the Mini 3 my PC (+ 2 different laptops) will only read files from the SD card that is formatted in the PC.  Very strange situation.

I had a similar issue a while ago (only once) but the solution was to leave the card in the drone then plug it into the computer via the USB.
The images could all be read that way whereas it failed to recognise the card format using my normal SD card reader in the machine.

gnirtS Posted at 7-24 06:21
I had a similar issue a while ago (only once) but the solution was to leave the card in the drone then plug it into the computer via the USB.
The images could all be read that way whereas it failed to recognise the card format using my normal SD card reader in the machine.

and then perhaps, once successful, remove the card from the drone, put it in a reader attached to the computer and format the card with the computer?

Sean-bumble-bee Posted at 7-24 07:35
and then perhaps, once successful, remove the card from the drone, put it in a reader attached to the computer and format the card with the computer?

Could do.
But i reformatted on the drone and its worked fine since in the card reader.

I reformat the SD card prior to every flight.

Useful information. Sorry you had to acquire it the hard way, but thanks for passing it on.

Regarding reformating in the drone, does it reset your image counter every time?

Hello there Megawisdumb. I am sorry for the trouble this has caused and thank you for sharing these detailed information with us. Have a safe and a happy flying always.

If you format the card in the PC, it is best to use the SD Card Formatter app.