[Q] External SD Card Wipes anything copied onto it! - Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Here's a weird one. I am not trying anything complicated. I just want to copy some music to my new 32GB external SD card that arrived in the post today. I put it into a microSD to SD adaptor, and slide it into my laptops SD slot. It shows up as fat32 and I drag 30 gigs of music on to it. After a long time it completes, and I check in with XP to make sure its all good. Yep fine.
However, the moment I insert it back into my I9000 things get weird. The status bar pops up the usual "Initialising SD card" message, then the media scanner comes up and completes in like a second. Then when I try to browse it from within the phone, the entire music directory has disappeared, and the OS is reporting that there is 28gb of 32gb free on the external sd. So I unmount the SD, slot it back into my pc, and find to my dismay the music directory has indeed been erased.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.. I need my tunes!!
Cheers,
C
Samsung Galaxy S I9000, running Firmware 2.2, Baseband: I9000XXJPH, Kernel version 2.6.32.9 root(at)SEI-28 1

My 1st guess is fake/faulty card.
Copy files onto card with a reader.
Eject.
Insert again into reader.
Try to copy from card. (If it fails -> card is faulty or is FAKE)

CheekyGreek said:
The status bar pops up the usual "Initialising SD card" message, then the media scanner comes up and completes in like a second.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I were to guess, when the phone says it's "Initializing SD card" it's likely formatting the card and erasing whatever data you had on it...
When you install the card in your PC, do you format it again and then copy the files? If so, try not to format it on the PC and let the phone do the formatting.

I fully agree. Let the phone format the card and then use MOUNT mode to copy the music over. It seems Fat32 (formated on PC) won't work well for our phones prob due to a flag setting or something the like too big cluster settings. Let the phone sort it out.

Thanks for the help peeps. Here's what I've tried:
Xan: I tried copying files to and from the device using my PC's card reader, and found no problems with it. It is a Kingston MicroSD SDC4/32GB bought from a reseller on Amazon. Are there any tools for around for the pc to run diagnostic tests on SD cards? Maybe I should give that a go? But from the looks of it I think the error lies in the phone somewhere...
An Droid: I am inclined to agree with you. In my original post I stated that it said "Inititialising SD Card", this was a mistake, as it actually says "Preparing SD Card". I have tried formatting it from both the PC and the Phone and still get the same problem.
Icky Boo: I tried this method last night. Used the USB Debugging mode to Mount the phone's card's onto my PC. My Computer displays the two cards as two seperate Drives. I then tried copying all my music onto it. When the copy completed, I pressed "Turn of USB Storage Mode" on the I9000, which immediately prompted the status bar to again show "Preparing SD Card". Then when I used a file explorer to look at the card, it only had about a gig of music copied onto it. It is quite clear now that in "Preparing SD Card" it is doing something strange. Is there anyway to disable this?
Also there is a directory on the SD called Lost.DIR which seems to increase in size every time this happens. Could be a clue?
Finally, just to confirm my phone is mounting it correctly, to browse the SD card from within the phone the path is /sdcard/external_sd/ right? (I understand this is the new path for Froyo 2.2?)
Thanks for the help, sorry for the essay!
C
UPDATE: Ok, Xan, you were right all along. Finally got a new SD card (sandisk this time, not Kingston) and it works just as it should. Thanks for the help and to everyone else too

Related

[Q] SD Upgrade Problem?

I've got a problem with replacing the SD card. I searched for it and it seems like no-brainer. But I don't know what the problem is:
I bought a 16 GB Transcend to replace the SanDisk 2GB that came with my Liquid.
I have [Leaked]Froyo ROM. I had many apps on SD and some on the phone.
Here is what I did:
- I unmounted the 2GB card in my phone and turned it off.
- I put the new card and turned the phone back on.
- Then connected the old card with a card reader to my Mac. Also, connected the phone via USB and turned the USB storage on.
- I just copied everything from the old card to the new card and turned the USB storage off.
Now here's the problem:
None of the apps on SD are working! And they are not linked! It seems they are not installed.
When I tap their home screen icons, I get the error: "The application is not installed on your phone"
Also, only the apps on the phone are shown in applications.
I double tried the same process with formatting the new card in the phone, but got the same thing. I also copied the hidden folders as well. No luck with that, too.
Any suggestions? It is really driving me ...
BTW, I put the old card back and it is working just fine.
Problem Solved!
I finally found out what the problem was and upgraded my microSD successfully with all the applications working.
I decided to post the SOLUTION so it may help others as well:
The key issue is in the .android_secure folder on the SD card. Before this, I didn't know it is the place where Froyo puts all the apps that are transferred to SD.
Here are the steps that worked for me:
1) Unmounted the old SD and turned the phone off.
2) Copied EVERYTHING from the old card to my PC (I used a card reader).
**ATTENTION: By everything I mean all the files and folders including folders starting with "." (Especially .android_secure)
3) Formatted the new card (FAT32) using the Windows.
**FOR CAUTION: DO NOT use the phone to format the card. Because it makes a .android_secure and it will screw with the one you want to replace. [If you have done it anyways, just make sure to REPLACE the .android_secure folder]
4) Connected the new card to the PC and paste everything to it.
5) Put the new card in to the phone and turn it back on. BINGO! All should work without any problem.

[Q] SOLVED: Connecting with USB shows only internal memorycard...

HI!
I have this problem that when I turn on the file sharing, the computer shows only internal memory card and not the external. Because the phone itself recognizes the external card I have tried to unmount and mount several times without any improvement. I am currently using the latest CM7 nightly, but the problem seemes to have started after I changed the card from 4gb to 16 gb. Any ideas?
EDIT: Erasing sd card from the phones menu helped to solve the problem.
Go Setting>Storage and remount your sd card and try???
I've done that several times....no help... android system accesses the card without problems...music, pics etc.
Did you physically remove your card and reinsert it, or just software remount?
Have you tried the card directly in your computer?
Have a look in windows device manager and see if it reports any problems. (right
click my computer and select manage)
I have tried it all and everything is ok with the sd card itself (I copied recent nightly from the computer on the sd card) also recovery recognizes is... there are also no problems in device manager...
Try to put on debugging mode. And try it with debugging mode on.
If the debugging mode is on try to take it off.
Regards Kali
I tried that also and nothing changed.... I have a feeling that it is somehow attached to me using mybackup pro... I restored application apk and data from another phone to this one and It seems that usually the application data should go to internal memory card. In this case it is on external card... so i believe that somehow the programs are still using the card when connected and do not allow phone to share it out... It's just a guess though...
EDIT: so I think the solution is to wipe everything and start all over again
So I fresh installed Rom and wiped everything and the problem still exist... still can see files with file managers in phone and when connected to computer, autorun shows only internal card...
Edit: I tried now 2gb sized sdcard and it works perfectly... the problem is with 16gb card.
Weird. Did you try another USB-port?
I tried different USB-s now and still same I found out that when I connect the phone, under my computer appears two removable disks.... if I turn on the usb connection, only one transforms to usable removable disk (internal) and the other one asks to insert the removable disk. I used the same sd card on my HTC desire with CM nightlies and it worked perfectly... could it be CM-s bug?
Sorry to ask (maby the obvious)
On Your phone.. using your filemanager (Root explorer astro or what-ever..)
Browse to sdcard
Do you have a folder called _externalSD?
On this phone, for some reason the external SD is not mounted under./ but as i said under ./sdcard/ (i.e its mounted under the internal SD card..)
Just a thought
Where the different cards are mounted doesn't make any difference. And as he said, it works with other cards (2GB and 4GB).
CyanogenMOD mounts internal card as /mnt/emmc, and external card as /mnt/sdcard by default.
When turning on USB storage, both cards should be unmounted and shared over USB.
Hi, I had the same problem with mine, and as you said in one of your previous posts, I had to do a format through the phone and as soon as I did that I was good to go.
I did use the same memory card in my old hero so this might have something to do with it... I'm not sure.
By formatting do you mean from the menu Erase SD card? On the desire I actually had the formatting request from the computer, but there was another problem (some of the rom's files were on the sdcards ext or something and I had no access to the card from the USB).... kind of a similar problem if I think back now but after changing to CM, the problem disappeared.
I forgot to mention I am running completely stock rom and unrooted (for the time being) and there is just an option under sd card & phone storage setting to format external sd card
After erasing the sd card from the phone, the computer recognized it i'm currently copying stuff back and i'm pretty sure it does not affect the recognition
I faced the same problem. I had Swapper2 on my NC, and after I uninstalled it (and cleared the data of Swapper2, just in case) everything went to normal back again.
^ a solution.

[Q] Lexar 32Gb micro SD Card HC Class 10

I have the above memory card for my N7000 (Rocket Rom v3) and am having problems verifying its capacity.
H2testw (Windows utility) verified it as having no errors and as 32Gb
ES File Explorer's SD card analyst displays capacity as 11.06Gb
SD Tools displays capacity as 11.6Gb
I have tried copying music (21Gb) to the sdcard using two methods. Firstly connecting the phone as a media device which was very slow and started to throw up errors after a while. Then secondly by removing the SD card from the phone and plugging it into my laptop (Win7) which was far quicker. This second method didn't throw up any errors BUT when I put the card back into my phone no files were found!
I am beginning to think I have a fake SD card which when plugged straight into my laptop is telling it 'Yes I'm a 32GB card' but for some strange reason allows it to copy too many files to the card without complaint. I am going to do some tests to check this out.
In the meantime is there an alternative utility which is guaranteed to verify what my card is either on Android or MS?
Thanks
Please try to do a SD card format on your laptop before putting it in your phone
It might be an issue with its storage that is preventing android from detecting the full size
If that didn't work, try to format the memory card over the phone (using settings)
Best of luck
Mohammed Atef said:
Please try to do a SD card format on your laptop before putting it in your phone
It might be an issue with its storage that is preventing android from detecting the full size
If that didn't work, try to format the memory card over the phone (using settings)
Best of luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay there were 2 problems, the first one was getting the memory card to be read by my note which I've now managed to do, not sure what I did but there you go, but it certainly wasn't reading before.
The second problem and this is a little embarrassing but when ES File Explorer opens up it displays the contents of the "/sdcard/" by default which on my old desire was the external sdcard but on my note its the internal memory! Not the external sdcard! To view the external sdcard you need to navigate to "/storage/extSdCard/" which is downright misleading unless you come from a Unix mindset of course
SDTools just seems incapable of picking up the external SD card and can only see the internal memory.
Solved

camera complains no sd card

LT4 rom, philz kernel.
When I updated from stock ICS to stock JB, I always remove the ext SD card & SIM.
I didn't notice anything after the update until I went to use the camera, which complained about inserting an SD card.
switching it back to phone storage fixed that, but, I started checking. Root file explorer shows the card, but when you
access it, it shows NO files. When I connect it to the computer, the ext & int both show up, and when I access the ext,
all files are there. I can move programs from internal storage to external storage.
The only thing that seems to be amiss is the camera & phone file browsers.
Did a few searches, not really finding an answer. Tried unmounting, remounting, power off with the SD card, pull the SD card, reboot,
power off, reinsert SD card reboot, no luck. Tried mounting/unmounting in root file explorer.
Tried changing from media device to mass storage, still no luck.
Back up files, format within the phone and try it again??
TIA
p51d007 said:
LT4 rom, philz kernel.
When I updated from stock ICS to stock JB, I always remove the ext SD card & SIM.
I didn't notice anything after the update until I went to use the camera, which complained about inserting an SD card.
switching it back to phone storage fixed that, but, I started checking. Root file explorer shows the card, but when you
access it, it shows NO files. When I connect it to the computer, the ext & int both show up, and when I access the ext,
all files are there. I can move programs from internal storage to external storage.
The only thing that seems to be amiss is the camera & phone file browsers.
Did a few searches, not really finding an answer. Tried unmounting, remounting, power off with the SD card, pull the SD card, reboot,
power off, reinsert SD card reboot, no luck. Tried mounting/unmounting in root file explorer.
Tried changing from media device to mass storage, still no luck.
Back up files, format within the phone and try it again??
TIA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
may be the sd card got corrupted..try format and check...
Mayank Chandwani said:
may be the sd card got corrupted..try format and check...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I stick the card into my computer, all the files show up. Perhaps Android places or formats in a different
way than Winx, and it does need to be formatted again. Funny thing though, it JUST does that with the camera.
I have most of my apps located on the ext SD card, they all work perfectly. I just use the phone to store, then transfer
them to the SD if I need to.
Thanks for responding.
I had a problem with external sd card.
Phone could not handle the card or format and the same in windows and ubuntu.
So it look the card is dead and I wanted t throw the card away.
But it was not dead in my case , I put the card in my digital camera and format the card.
Now my phone windows and ubunto see the card and can handle it as a new card.
Henk

[Q] External SD card not recognized

Hello everybody,
I'm trying to get a new microSD card (8 GB class 10 microSD HC from Kingston) to work with my GT-I9000 (Custom ROM Mackay CM9 2014 1.7; freshly installed from stock GB). The card doesn't seem to get recognized and is not usable.
In storage settings there's an option to mount an SD card. When I press it, it says 'preparing SD card', after which nothing happens. In WRTP the card is also not recognized. Another SD card (2GB class 4), however, works flawlessly with the current setup.
When connected with my PC via a USB adapter, the 8GB card is recognized and usable without any problems.
I already repartitioned and formatted (FAT32) the card multiple times using Minitool Partition Wizard and Windows 7's formatting tool, as well as SDFormatter.
Does anybody know what might cause this problem? What else can I try to get this card to work??
Thanks in advance.
Simple Fix for this. Keep in mind that smart phones are
computers and the SD cards are physical memmory and
like hard drives, they require regular maintenance.
First take the SD cad out of the phone.
You will then need to insert it into a PC of some sort. I
had to go out and buy an adapter to insert it in the SD
slot on my laptop. You can usually find a cheap adapter
in any store that sells digital camera supplies. I found
one at Walgreens for $8 with a 2MB micro SD.
Third step (Optional). Copy all the data from the card
into a folder on the PC in order to back up your data.
Fourth Step run a scandisck on the card. In windows
Right click the drive then choose "Properties". Click the
"Tools" Tab and you will find an Error correction section.
Run the error correct and make sure you choose the
"Automatically fix file system errors". This should take
just a couple momments to run. DO NOT CHOOSE THE
BAD SECTOR OPTIONS AS THIS WILL TAKE FOREVER TO
RUN.
Once this is complete. Remove the card from your PC
insert back into the phone and boot up. You should be
all fixed.
pryerlee said:
Simple Fix for this. Keep in mind that smart phones are
computers and the SD cards are physical memmory and
like hard drives, they require regular maintenance.
First take the SD cad out of the phone.
You will then need to insert it into a PC of some sort. I
had to go out and buy an adapter to insert it in the SD
slot on my laptop. You can usually find a cheap adapter
in any store that sells digital camera supplies. I found
one at Walgreens for $8 with a 2MB micro SD.
Third step (Optional). Copy all the data from the card
into a folder on the PC in order to back up your data.
Fourth Step run a scandisck on the card. In windows
Right click the drive then choose "Properties". Click the
"Tools" Tab and you will find an Error correction section.
Run the error correct and make sure you choose the
"Automatically fix file system errors". This should take
just a couple momments to run. DO NOT CHOOSE THE
BAD SECTOR OPTIONS AS THIS WILL TAKE FOREVER TO
RUN.
Once this is complete. Remove the card from your PC
insert back into the phone and boot up. You should be
all fixed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your reply.
I did what you told (plugged the card into my pc with an adapter and ran scandisk, which ran successfully without finding any errors), but the card is still not used by my phone.
Any other suggestions?
Found this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=601340
pryerlee said:
Found this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=601340
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the suggestion. I deleted fsck_msdos, rebooted and tried to mount the card a couple of times, but sadly the problem persists.

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