EDIT: Could this please be moved to the T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S II Q&A section? I just found it. Sorry for the error.
I have a Telus Galaxy S II X (same as T-Mobile S2) running 2.3.5 not rooted that was bought on October 28th 2011. I do not want to use an SD card since I have almost 12GB of built in storage available. I had originally inserted an 8GB microSD and had music and images on it. I have since put that SD into my wife's phone since she only had a 2GB card and I have lots of internal space available.
When I put music and pictures in the external_sd or USB_storage folders which are the 11.54GB partition of my phone, the default music app and the 3 music app do not see the music. Pictures are also not seen by the gallery. If the music and picture folders are moved to the internal 2GB system partition, both music apps see the music and gallery sees the images. If I move the 2 folders back to the external_sd partition they are no longer seen. When I move an MP3 to the internal 2GB and started the 3 app, in settings, the storage section shows External 11GB (11GB free) since I moved my test MP3 to the internal memory. In the directory filter setting it shows external_sd and USB_storage as music directories. Something is definately wrong here.
I have defaulted my phone 3 times via hardware keys, via the OS, formatted USB storage and no change.
I called Samsung and this is what I was told...
"The USB Storage and external_sd are only for downloaded content via the phone (apps and other) and not for music and photos. You must use an SD card for music and other items."
This was after registering my Telus Galaxy S II X on the Samsung Canada Webs site. It is possible that the Telus version is different than other versions, but I find this ridiculous.
I cleared the music app cache, no change. Telus confirmed that the Samsung rep confirmed that ICS will be out for my phone in March/April. This will completely rewrite the system and will change everything, but I would like to know if what is happening right now is normal or if Samsung is feeding me a line. Any help/feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.
I'm little confused of what you said, the phone (SGS2) has normaly ~ 11.3GB of internal storage allocated or mounted as /sdcard, regardless of the name this is the internal storage, then the external SD card is mounted as external_sd within the same folder structure (/sdcard/external_sd), if you don't have any SD installed the external_sd this not used. You may want to add your music in the internal storage (e.g. /sdcard/media/music) then you may want to make sure you don't have a .nomedia file in the folder (nor in the folder tree) specially in the root (/sdcard).
elbermu said:
I'm little confused of what you said, the phone (SGS2) has normaly ~ 11.3GB of internal storage allocated or mounted as /sdcard, regardless of the name this is the internal storage, then the external SD card is mounted as external_sd within the same folder structure (/sdcard/external_sd), if you don't have any SD installed the external_sd this not used. You may want to add your music in the internal storage (e.g. /sdcard/media/music) then you may want to make sure you don't have a .nomedia file in the folder (nor in the folder tree) specially in the root (/sdcard).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought the same thing, but after reading this is what I have come to understand. The Galaxy S2 4G has 16GB of memory. Some is OS, 2GB is internal use and 11.25GB is called USB storage (also has a directory called external_SD). The 11.25GB is part of \sdcard, but used or seen separately. The actual SD card is not the external_sd folder on the phone. I can't recall what the name was, but it is something else. See the attached screenshot from my phone. I will get my 2GB SD out and plug it in to see the name it is given.
When I refer to external_SD and USB_storage I am referring to the 11.25GB of storage availble in the phone.
EDIT: When I put an MP3 in the system storage 2GB everything is fine, but when I put it in the USB storage partition nothing is seen.
OK, seems that I remember incorrectly. When a microSD card is inserted it is seen in the external_sd folder. The problem that I have with that is the folders that I had placed in that directory before inserting the card, were stored in the 11.25GB portion, but no longer show up!
Here is more information on my issue.
When I insert a microSD card it appears as external_sd
With the card inserted the folders (music and images) that were in the external_sd folder which was part of the 11.25GB, were no longer visible
I removed the card, the music and images folders reappeared in external_sd. I moved them to the usb_storage folder and reinserted the microSD
I have attached 2 screenshots.
If I move MP3s and images to the microSD (external_sd) files are seen. If the microSD is not in the phone and the 11.25GB is used for external_sd then why are the music and pictures not being seen by the apps? Even with the folders and files in usb_storage they are not seen. It is ridiculous that 11.25GB of space would only be available for app data when installing apps.
EDIT: When files are in the \sdcard they are seen, there is no problem with that aspect, only when in the usbstorage 11.25GB portion. How can I see if there is a .nomedia file?
Xerses_frm_HoFo said:
Here is more information on my issue.
When I insert a microSD card it appears as external_sd
With the card inserted the folders (music and images) that were in the external_sd folder which was part of the 11.25GB, were no longer visible
I removed the card, the music and images folders reappeared in external_sd. I moved them to the usb_storage folder and reinserted the microSD
I have attached 2 screenshots.
If I move MP3s and images to the microSD (external_sd) files are seen. If the microSD is not in the phone and the 11.25GB is used for external_sd then why are the music and pictures not being seen by the apps? Even with the folders and files in usb_storage they are not seen. It is ridiculous that 11.25GB of space would only be available for app data when installing apps.
EDIT: When files are in the \sdcard they are seen, there is no problem with that aspect, only when in the usbstorage 11.25GB portion. How can I see if there is a .nomedia file?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Forget the external_sd folder, it is used for the external sd card when inserted. As what you refer to the USB Storage in the screenshot is the actual /sdcard or the 11.3GB, so when you write in the /sdcard you are you are using this 11.3GB portion. As you said when you put files in the /sdcard folder you should be able to "see" them. You can put music files in the /sdcard/media/music/ and the pictures in /sdcard/DCIM/pictures (just a suggestion).
There is another folder /sdcard/usbstorage, i'm not sure but this is used when mounted USB OTG (like putting a card reader).
---------- Post added at 03:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:51 PM ----------
And when I said "is the actual /sdcard" is the /sdcard folder.
OK, I am going to try to put more than 2GB in and see what the storage meters say. My original understanding was that the full 11.25GB was only available via the usbstorage folder and the 2GB Internal Storage was \sdcard.
Will try and post back. This phone storage description should be made more clear somewhere!
Eureka!!!
Finally someone who understands how the storage system works in the S II X!
I dropped about 1GB of music into \sdcard\Media\Music and the USB Storage meter is the one that goes up. The Internal Storage meter stays at 673MB.
Thank you once again, this finally clears up how internal storage on this phone works. I can't believe that the Samsung support was unable to explain this to me when I told him what I wanted to do!
I will be putting this information (referring to you) in my post on Android Forums!
Thanks again!
Glad I could help...
Regards,
My carrier is MetroPCS. Since this phone only has 1.8GB of internal memory, I have a 16GB microSDHC card for external storage, but I can't move anything from sdcard0 to my external sd card in File Manager because nothing shows up on sdcard0. I want to move my pictures from sdcard0 to my external sd card, but nothing shows up under the "pictures" folder in sdcard0. I can't just make my storage option the SD card because when I do that, it's still saving on the internal memory, because apparently the phone thinks that sdcard0 is the SD card. So I need a way to change the storage option to my external card or a way to uncover these files that are hidden somehow.
I'm operating on Jellybean 4.1.2 and 3.0.31 kernel.
@pennyboard420 Welcome to XDA forums.
Your camera pictures are actually saved in the "DCIM/thumbnails" folder and not the "Pictures" (only my screen-shots are saved in the "Pictures" folder) folder and no this folder won't open with File Manager. You need a different file browser, like Root Browser that lets you see hidden files/folders. On some of them you will need root access to modify or change these files and folders.
You can't set and change your default storage location from sdcard0 to the external sdcard natively.
You would need to install an app like Link2sd or a swap script, again the device needs to be rooted.
Another Solution
xdrc45 said:
@pennyboard420 Welcome to XDA forums.
Your camera pictures are actually saved in the "DCIM/thumbnails" folder and not the "Pictures" (only my screen-shots are saved in the "Pictures" folder) folder and no this folder won't open with File Manager. You need a different file browser, like Root Browser that lets you see hidden files/folders. On some of them you will need root access to modify or change these files and folders.
You can't set and change your default storage location from sdcard0 to the external sdcard natively.
You would need to install an app like Link2sd or a swap script, again the device needs to be rooted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried your solution but wasn't able to get it rooted because some drivers that I needed couldn't be run on the Surface RT tablet that I have due to the tablet only allowing Microsoft developed software to run. However, I have found an alternate solution: Instead I connected my LG L9 to the tablet, opened up the DCIM/Thumbnails folder and manually copied all my pictures into the DCIM/100LGDSC folder of my external SD card.
Chances are you probably already know about this, but just putting it out there.
Thanks again.
My galaxy s5 started showing memory full when all storage programs said there was about 5 gb left.
I downloaded foldermount and it said it found the issue so it was going to repair it.
Well after I rebooted. The internal sd card(phone memory) is not mounting.
When connected to the PC, it shows 128mb.
on ES FIle explorer SDCARD shows "???" and when I attempt to open it ask what file I want to open it with, but with the program storage analyzer it finds the "data" folder just fine and lists all the files and folders within it.
In the phone settings options, it can show the amount of memory being used along with the media, mp3, apps, so the Folder is still there along with all the info, it is simply not mounting properly?
Thank you.
UPDATE: I found the path of where all my files are at, but the phone is not mounting it as the internal storage?
It is located at data/media/0 and mnt/sdcard0 or mnt/sdcard1 are missing.
* Aside from Phone being rooted, there were no other modifications
* Phone is running on original OS(as opposed to roms or such)
*There is not an external sd card in the phone
Folder mount will not do anything for you really without an SD card. After you use it to clear space you need to unmount all the folder it mounted to view what is actually in the folders. If not it will show the folder that it is linked to and look like it never worked. Changing your system data to SD data in your case keeps it in internal memory and does not free it up. You need to use folder mount with a SD card for it to help you. Saved me over 500Mb with it on my s5
intenselyinsane said:
Folder mount will not do anything for you really without an SD card. After you use it to clear space you need to unmount all the folder it mounted to view what is actually in the folders. If not it will show the folder that it is linked to and look like it never worked. Changing your system data to SD data in your case keeps it in internal memory and does not free it up. You need to use folder mount with a SD card for it to help you. Saved me over 500Mb with it on my s5
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, long story short,
My phone mnt/sdcard and sdcard links are no longer there. Is there a way to recreate the links? Certain apps are still able to function because they are using the actual link, device/media/ect, ect, /0/ folders as opposed to mnt/sdcard/
I saw on another forum that
su
echo mkdir /storage/sdcard0 > /data/local/userinit.sh
chmod 700 /data/local/userinit.sh
reboot
May help, but not sure if it is only for roms and not for original OS.
On another forum there was talk about recreating a syslink?
Solved:
Simply went to "system/bin" and erased the "sdcard" file and renamed the file "sdcard.backup" to "sdcard". Rebooted and it solved the issue.
I have pictures saved to the micro SD card on the phone. I connect the phone to my PC (Windows 7) and I found a bug, where the image size would read as 0 bytes. And on the PC I won't be able to open the file. Copying the file over to the computer will yield an un-openable file.
The image is open-able in the Gallery from Asus in the phone. But if I look under details it won't tell me the size.
Lucky for me the Asus File Manager is still able to read the size of these images.
The Fix:
1) Open file manager from Asus on your phone.
2) Locate your pictures in your micro sd card (Location SD). Check and see if you can see all the file sizes.
3) If yes, select all images. Copy them to a folder in your internal storage (Location IN) in your phone.
4) Then select all the newly created images from the internal storage. Copy them back into the same spot (Location SD) as the origin.
5) Your PC should be able to read those files sizes now. Once everything is fixed, feel free to delete the duplicates in Location IN.
This problem happens when you use a third party program like Microdroid to move files from the internal storage over to your microSD card. As such only use the Asus File Manager to move files.
(You can set the default saving location to your microSD. But I found that to be too slow, specially for video recording. Hence I want to save first to internal storage and then move them to microSD after. Either way you can play around.)
Android Nougat's own basic "File Explorer" doesn't reflect proper storage space!?
So here's the deal.
Since Nougat doesn't allow direct editing of SD card by 3rd party file managers, I started to use Android's own basic file explorer. (I created a shortcut using an app from the store).
Nougat's own basic File Explorer is simple, basic, clean and works well, except: After you move a file between internal storage and SD Card, although the files are moved, the free storage space don't reflect that change.
And the only fix to this is a restart. After a restart the File Explorer shows the proper Storage Space. But the issue still remains if you move any files again.
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So does anyone have any idea why this is and how to fix this?
If not, are there any File Managers that can edit the SD Card (External Storage)?
Thnx for any help!
No one has any idea?