[Q] [Edited]: Losing SD card functionality ... - Vibrant Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Good morning everyone.
I have been surfing this site for quite some time, but have just received my Vibrant S and am now in a position to post a question.
I am coming from the WinMo 5.0 world and android is very new to me, but I am enjoying the new phone.
I do not yet have the phone rooted and am hesitating ... mainly because I don't know all the features it has yet but also because I don't want to get into anything I don't know yet how to get out of. Having spent enough on this phone, I don't want to break anything just yet. This forum seems to have some very helpful people though, so I hope I can trust you all when you finally talk me into rooting. I barely got on the Market yesterday and found a tool 'SGS Tools' which has some info in the description which I think I can really use, but I need to root. So go ahead and start talking me into rooting.
Anyway, to my question:
The movie 'Avatar' comes on a 2Gig micro SD card and I have an 8Gig HCSD card. So I copied the directory 'Movie' and its contents to my C: drive, unmounted the 2Gig, removed it, and put in the 8Gig. The phone recognized it and everything went fine when I turned the phone on. So I moved the directory 'Movie' and its contents to the 8Gig card and after all was said and done, when I try to open the movie file 'Avatar.dcf' using either the shortcut or the media player, I get the error: This video can not be played.
Is there a hidden file I may have missed? Can you not create a copy? Would the DRM get involved at this point?
I am concerned if I move the file from the 2Gig card to the 8Gig card, and I get the same error, then I've also lost the movie.
Your suggestions would be most helpful. Thanks.

Here's another take on it.
I powered my phone on this morning just before posting, and found the phone was not recognizing the SDHC card. It was in effect, unmounted. I pulled it out and back in and it then asked if I wanted to format the disk, so I did. I need to pull the original dcf file off the 2gig disk and try this move again, but in the mean time I've found this among a lot of complaints regarding android recognizing SDHC cards.
[edit] Seems I can't post outside links yet. Here's an address you'll have to manually put in your address bar if you wish to read this article.
< ... ://humanslate.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4&Itemid=14 >
In there it mentions, "SDHC cards will not work in devices designed to the older SD 1.x specification".
So, another question at the moment is this:
Has android (I'm running JI6, eclair 2.1) been developed for the original 1.x cards? Has anyone bought a new android phone and had an SDHC card in it? My 2gig card is of the old 1.x specification.
Perhaps I need to repost on the developer page? I figured the movie was part of an app, so it would only seem reasonable to post here.

Hangman_ said:
Good morning everyone.
I have been surfing this site for quite some time, but have just received my Vibrant S and am now in a position to post a question.
I am coming from the WinMo 5.0 world and android is very new to me, but I am enjoying the new phone.
I do not yet have the phone rooted and am hesitating ... mainly because I don't know all the features it has yet but also because I don't want to get into anything I don't know yet how to get out of. Having spent enough on this phone, I don't want to break anything just yet. This forum seems to have some very helpful people though, so I hope I can trust you all when you finally talk me into rooting. I barely got on the Market yesterday and found a tool 'SGS Tools' which has some info in the description which I think I can really use, but I need to root. So go ahead and start talking me into rooting.
Anyway, to my question:
The movie 'Avatar' comes on a 2Gig micro SD card and I have an 8Gig HCSD card. So I copied the directory 'Movie' and its contents to my C: drive, unmounted the 2Gig, removed it, and put in the 8Gig. The phone recognized it and everything went fine when I turned the phone on. So I moved the directory 'Movie' and its contents to the 8Gig card and after all was said and done, when I try to open the movie file 'Avatar.dcf' using either the shortcut or the media player, I get the error: This video can not be played.
Is there a hidden file I may have missed? Can you not create a copy? Would the DRM get involved at this point?
I am concerned if I move the file from the 2Gig card to the 8Gig card, and I get the same error, then I've also lost the movie.
Your suggestions would be most helpful. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That should be all you have to do to get the movie to play. I would only recommend that you double check to make sure you copied the Movie folder to your external SD card and not the internal card.
The Vibrant can use SDHC cards (use 8gb class 6 here) and I know many others use 16 and 32 gb ones.

Convert the file to simple mp3 universal coding that any video app including the stock can read. Should be 720p. Create a video folder if one does not exist. You know all this sounds like. Should play fine. Too bad you can't use the lame short cut this way. Then again I never used it anyway.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

I replaced avatar this way. Since have now for the extended version instead.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Thank you for the quick reply.
Flak_Munky said:
That should be all you have to do to get the movie to play ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you mean by 'That'? Do you mean to move or does a copy suffice?
A little earlier after posting here, I put the 2gig back in and copied the DCF file to the C: drive again. Then after replacing the 2gig with the 8gig in the phone, I moved the 'Movie' directory and files into it. Now the media player doesn't even recognize the file. Although when I went to the SD card and looked at the details of the DCF file, it said the rights were expired. Can I assume it is because I copied it?
mr. orange303 said:
Convert the file to simple mp3 universal coding that any video app including the stock can read. Should be 720p.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What program did you use to make the conversion? I have two converters on my laptop I really like, but I don't know that they will even recognize a DCF file.
Thank you for your assistance.
And thank you Mr Moderator for moving this to its correct forum location.

Hangman_ said:
What do you mean by 'That'? Do you mean to move or does a copy suffice?
A little earlier after posting here, I put the 2gig back in and copied the DCF file to the C: drive again. Then after replacing the 2gig with the 8gig in the phone, I moved the 'Movie' directory and files into it. Now the media player doesn't even recognize the file. Although when I went to the SD card and looked at the details of the DCF file, it said the rights were expired. Can I assume it is because I copied it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was referring to either a move or copy. Both should work without a problem. I've done both and it played each time.
Never seen the rights were expired before. Not sure atm.

Thanks Flak for the clarification.
I am thinking I have larger issues here now (hence the edit to the title).
Over the New year, I have been working on word documents and PDFs and saving them to the external SD card on the phone. I have Windows 7_64. I was synced in with my phone using 'media' to transfer files as Kies doesn't work. After disconnecting the phone and verifying I can read both the word docs and the PDF's, I turned the phone off for the night. The next morning when I turned the phone on, I recieved a message that the external SD card was corrupted. I had to do a format to get the card back. After copying the docs and PDF's to the SDHC again, making a few phone calls, and installing a couple apps from the market to the internal memory, I rebooted the phone (turned off then back on), I received an error message saying the external SD card had been damaged. I had to do a format on the card again to get it back.
All I can say at the moment is I'm glad I didn't move the Avatar.dcf file to the SDHC card, but I don't understand what is happening with the SD functionality. This is becoming completely untrustworthy as I can't use the SD card for anything in fear of it getting corrupted or damaged. Which means I can't backup anything to the SD card either.
[Q] I have read mention of drivers for Windows 7_64, but have not yet searched them out. Could the default connection drivers that Windows 7 loads when you first connect your phone be an issue?
[Q] I have also read in several places now that the USB debugging should be checked. Now most all of these posts are for rooting and reinstalling ROM's and such, but my question is this; Should I have the USB debugging on when I am simply connecting to the PC to transfer files? It seems I am losing my SDHC card only after I have connected to the PC using the USB cable.
Do you have any thoughts or suggestions I can try? I'm too new to android to think of possible solutions to these little quirks, or where to look or what to ask.
Thanks.

One reason I am hesitant to put any Windows 7_64 bit drivers is because of the following comments:
"cant get my cpu to recognize my phone after installing drivers... im on windows 7 64 bit any ideas??"
"have the same problem. i'm on 7, 32bit"
"did you enable USB debugging?"
"yes of course. first thing I did after I rooted"
These are from <http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=728929>
Now again, my phone is not yet rooted. For the purpose at hand, I can't see the need to root. If my SDHC card is getting corrupted during connection, then rooting the phone is not going to solve the problem.
So my question above still stands; should the USB debugging be on (checked) when I simply connect to the PC to transfer files?
But I don't know where to look now or what to do. I have spent an entire day looking over the posts and have found virtually nothing to assist me with this little quirk.
Any suggestion would be helpful at this point.
Thanks.

So, I've learned something new today and would like your confirmation if I am correct in my assessment or not.
When you plug the phone into the Windows desktop machine, you get a prompt on the phone asking if you want to connect to Kies, Media Player, or Mass Storage.
When I select Media player, I have immediate access to the phone and SD card. There is nothing more to do with either the phone or the PC is this correct ?
The reason I ask is that if I connect to Mass Storage, I then have to go to the pulldown whatchamacallit on the phone and select USB connect. It then prompts me to "Mount" the phone (SD card) so I can access it.
I think this is why my SD card became corrupted and damaged. I didn't know I had to go and "Mount" the thing before I could use it.
BUT, why doesn't it ask me to "Mount" it when I select Media Player for my connection?
Thank you for your assistance and expertise.

Still waiting for confirmation
I'm still waiting for some definitive answer(s) and confirmations to these questions of mine if anyone has the knowledge.
Thank you.

Related

Reformating my minisd

if I have a 1 gb mini sd n I want 2 reformat it do I need a certain program 2 do so or what?
if you got a usb sd adaptor just use windows to format it... like you normally do a flash drive..
no I didn't get a usb adapter I got a sd adapter...maybe I can do something with that?...or maybe I can put it in the phone then format?...any help is appreciated...
What I think he was talking about was a usb card reader. You usually have to put your mini SD card in the SD adapter so you can put it in the card reader so your pc will read it. If I remember right, I think total commander will reformat your card for you while it's in the phone though.
where can I get total commander from?
Google for it, you should find it. Either that, or you could try looking in your start-->programs-->accessories folder. Most of the cooked ROM's here have been including it.
xeno1 said:
Google for it, you should find it. Either that, or you could try looking in your start-->programs-->accessories folder. Most of the cooked ROM's here have been including it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks alot! i will test it when i recieve my minisd in the mail
I just looked in TC and couldn't find a format feature. I don't need to format right now but I was checking the advice given here and am not sure it's right. Can someone point me to the right area of TC?
I apolgize, somewhere recently I read in one of the forums that I go through on a daily basis that total commander provided a format function and so I passed on the information believing it to be true. Apparently it wasn't. I went through total commander and also went to their website and found nothing even mentioned about reformatting an SD card. Again, I apologize for the misinformation. You'd think I'd learn to check out information before re-posting it.
well its the thought that counts...but a college of mine has a laptop with a slot 4 the sd card so i think i will b able to reformat there
formatting mini sd woes....
you can format ur card in the phone using an app called pocket mechanic pro
get more info on www.wizcode.com
it does a whole lot also check it out
if u like it do a torrent search...
mastertek said:
if u like it do a torrent search...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm actually speechless. Moderators where are you?
Please replace the above with:
You can buy Pocket Mechanic Professional for $29.95 from here.
Resco explorer
I have Resco Explorer (or whatever the name is). It has a format option. I tried it, but never worked. Was it a fake menu item? Then I formatted it in my laptop. I used FAT format and had to use full format option (takes hell lot of time) . The quick format option made the SD card unreadable in PPC.
Can I also use other formats with PPC? Like Fat32, NTFS?
accessories folder. Most of the cooked ROM's here have been including it.
great help!

Recover images deleted from root drive?

Hey guys,
Gonna try explain this best I can. If I need to be corrected or any blanks filled in then please let me know
Basically, I had around 25 images that were taken a few weeks ago when my family visited from New Zealand on my SD. I thought to be safe, I'll move them to a folder on the root drive so popped onto root explorer, made the folder on root and copied the pictures over (well moved them actually).
Now, issue is I stupidly named the folder (in my wisdom god knows why I chose this) 'PICREC130910'. I do understand the name of the folder is fairly irrelevant but thought since I'm asking for a hand, best explain myself best I can.
Now, again in my wisdom, I was browsing about using root explorer and somehow managed to delete that folder (let's blame working 14 hour shifts for that wonderful mishap).
I tried a recovery using various deleted file recovery softwares on my SD using the computer, but to no avail. It finds the image names but when I recover them it only recovers a non readable file that every viewer I've tried can't see. this might be because I had just before deleting root folders, put about 6gb of music on the SD so probably overwritten the pictures.
Anyway, because the root is generally less written to than the SD I'm hoping they're still in a recoverable state so to put my question out there... is there a software that can do a similar recovery search but on the root drive? Would really appreciate any help cause I only get to see my family from nz about once every 5 years.
Thanks for reading guys,
Pete
What recovery software have you used?
One I have tried with great success is Recuva.
I used that and another one, can't remember the name just now but my issue is how do I search the root drive?
What I'm looking to do is somehow mount the root drive to allow a windows based piece of software search it or alternatively find another way to do so using a terminal to show all deleted files so I can find these pictures somewhere.
Hopefully (and I'm asuming..) the internal is a similar structure to the flash-based memory system in the SD card and therefore as long as it hasn't been overwritten, should be recoverable.
Would I be right in this assumption?
Nobody help here?
Sorry dude, but i am pretty certain there is no software available that would allow you to recover deleted files from a Mobile Phone internal memory. I can only suggest that you remove your SD card and connect that to you PC and see if you can recover any pics direct from the SD. You will have to use an SD Card reader as it will not work if you connect the phone to the pc.
I personally use Recover My Files. It always works for me.
Have a look with THIS, worth a shot.
First off can I offer my greatest thank you to all those that have replied so far. I'm avoiding installing or deleting a thing until I know what I can do with this.
Isn't mounting the phone to the computer (Ie mount SD card) the same as putting it into an SD card reader? Higher chance of it working with a reader?
As said, it can find the image names, just not the images (ie recovers a non readable file!)

[Q] SD card is full (but, its not)

Hi,
another forum recommended I register and ask my question here. I am not a techie. I don't know what I'm doing. This is probably a basic question, but with all the googling I've done, I can't find the answer!
Here goes, and please be easy on me:laugh:
My GS3 was running really slow, running down the battery, just in general not running as well as I remembered from a year before buying it. I decided to back it up, reset it and start from scratch. The phone has run AWESOME! One problem though; when it updated, it installed 4.3. Ever since, I can't do anything with my SD card. I get an error that the SD card is full, and if I look in the settings, it shows zero space on the SD card. If I plug it into my mac, it shows like 12gb of space.
I used to use Android File Transfer and that doesn't work anymore. I recently tried Airdroid, which works great for the internal storage, but tells me that my SD card is full.
Help!
PS I tried to post a link to a screenshot of what storage on my phone looks like, but since I'm a noob, I'm not allowed
When you upgrade to android 4.3 it will change your storage partition from sdcard0 to emulated/0 ... simply it will change its partition so all your old files will not be visible there but they are still in your memory... I suggest you find your old files and move them to new directory... There are many threads on how to find your old files.. Search
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

[Q] SD card is full (but, its not)

Sorry for the double post. I just realized, I should have posted this in this section. Mods can delete the other if needed.
Thanks
Hi,
another forum recommended I register and ask my question here. I am not a techie. I don't know what I'm doing. This is probably a basic question, but with all the googling I've done, I can't find the answer!
Here goes, and please be easy on me
My GS3 was running really slow, running down the battery, just in general not running as well as I remembered from a year before buying it. I decided to back it up, reset it and start from scratch. The phone has run AWESOME! One problem though; when it updated, it installed 4.3. Ever since, I can't do anything with my SD card. I get an error that the SD card is full, and if I look in the settings, it shows zero space on the SD card. If I plug it into my mac, it shows like 12gb of space.
I used to use Android File Transfer and that doesn't work anymore. I recently tried Airdroid, which works great for the internal storage, but tells me that my SD card is full.
Help!
PS I tried to post a link to a screenshot of what storage on my phone looks like, but since I'm a noob, I'm not allowed
Download the sd formatting tool and use it on your pc to format your extremal sd card.
If you meant your internal storage the go read the sticky thread in general, about the changes 4.3 makes.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

Mount external SD Card as Mass Storage on PC: App

Hi folks,
I own a Padfone S, and the thing which bothered me about it when I got it was that it (like every KitKat device) uses MTP protocol for transfer of files to PC instead of USB mass storage (UMS), which in my opinion is a really good thing with regard to the phone's internal storage, but which was a really bad decision by google with regard to external SD cards.
It took me a really long time of googling and trying things I found on the internet until I finally found something that works for me, so I thought maybe I write my solution down here for others to find. All the apps I could find on XDA developers for that purpose didn't work for me, probably because they were written for different phones (what I could find here were apps for Sony, Samsung and LG devices).
What you need:
a rooted Padfone S (probably works on X as well)
an app called "USBMounter_v1.1_Panda"
For your convenience, I have attached the app. Now, what's funny about this app is that I couldn't find any reference to it on any of the sites written in a language I understand (English, German and a bit of French), I just happened to find this app while googling by accident, seems to be written by some Chinese or Taiwanese guy. I thought this was noteworthy, as of course I can't tell you anything about the app's origin, reputation or license, since I don't understand a word of what's written on any of the sites which have this file, but since it's publicly available on so many mirror sites, I think it's okay to share it with you. But keep in mind, use at your own risk (I personally didn't see any signs of malicious behaviour).
How to make it work:
install app
unmount your external SD card
enable USB debugging
open app, and set switch to UMS
connect your device to PC
You will see your SD card in your Windows explorer as a drive with a drive letter, just the way it used to be with every Android device in the good old days.
Now, it is VERY important that you unmount your SD card from your device BEFORE using it with your computer! If you forget that, the SD card will still appear in your Windows PC's Explorer, and at first file operations seem to be carried out normally, but you'll soon end up with inconsistencies in your file system! Sort of makes sense anyway, two devices accessing a file system at the same time doesn't seem to be a good idea.
Unfortunately, I still haven't found a working widget to mount/unmount my SD card, so I always have to go to the settings screen to do that. I tried the "Switch Pro" widget from the Playstore, which supposedly has a mount/unmount functionality, but that doesn't work with the Padfone S, when I tap the relevant button, nothing at all happens. So if anyone knows of a solution to mount/unmount SD card with a shortcut, feel free to post it here.
Finally, two more pieces of information:
My Padfone is on the latest stock rom (UL-ASUS_T00N-WW-11.10.7.18-user), the only changes I have made to my phone is rooting (of course), and chaning the recovery to ClockworkMod.
My SD card is a 128GB MicroSDXC, formatted in NTFS. The Padfone is able to handle this SD card, both size and NTFS file system do not cause any problems at all.
Well, I hope my post can help a few people who want to make the most of the Padfone's SD card slot. ^^
Have a nice day!

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