Database Users

Storage Card Memory Loss--Fault of Card or MDA?

I have the T-Mobile (USA) MDA, an HTC Wizard. In it I have a Sandisk 2GB miniSD card.
For the second time now, suddenly and inexplicably, most of the data on the card is missing. There was no operation I executed that could have deleted the data, it was suddenly gone, for no apparent reason. This happened once before?
Has this happened to others? Is it a bug in the MDA, that it sometimes deletes data from the storage card, for no reason? Are those miniSD cards inherently unstable, sometimes suddenly losing their data? Or might I have a defective card?
If the card is defective, I think I could call Sandisk, and get a new card under warranty. (If the MDA is defective, nothing I can do about it, no longer under warranty.) So, I'd like to have some idea--bad card or bad MDA?
Also, I have a USB card reader that can read miniSD cards, and have used that before to transfer data to the card from the computer. That seems to no longer work. I wonder if that is also an indication of a bad card. (Although it could also be the a failure of the card reader, or of my Windows XP installation.) Now I can only transfer data back to the card via ActiveSync.
Is there a utility, that either from the computer, or directly on the PPC, can check the disk surface of an SD card for errors, and fix them (similar to chkdsk)?
Any insight into this problem would be appreciated. Thank you.

I assume you checked the SD on a computer to verify the files were actually gone, and not just "hidden" from the MDA?
Do you have another chip you can test run? Maybe in a camera or something?

Myrddin Wyllt said:
I assume you checked the SD on a computer to verify the files were actually gone, and not just "hidden" from the MDA?
Do you have another chip you can test run? Maybe in a camera or something?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"Hidden from the MDA" in what way? (Even when files are deleted they are not "actually gone", and can sometimes be recovered.) Do you mean turned into "hidden files"? No, that's not the case, as I have Resco Explorer set to view all hidden and system files, not to hide any files, and it didn't see the files, nor did any app. Nor did ActiveSync, when connected to the computer, Explore.
As I mentioned, my USB miniSD card reader doesn't seem to be functioning either, so I cannot look at the card directly on the computer.
I'm not sure what you mean by "test run another chip"? I do have another miniSD card, a 1GB card I had purchased first. I don't see what point would be served by "testing" that. It is not that this card is constantly deleting files. You could test this card, and it would seem to be OK. But it has happened twice already, that most (not all) of the data on the card was suddenly missing. So, there is definitely a problem, either on the card, the MDA hardware, or an app or the OS (WM5) on the MDA. But you cannot test it out by putting in another card, as one wouldn't necessarily see the same problem right away, as one also might not with this (problem) card.
Something strange happened since the original post though. Fortunately, I had a lot of the data from the storage card backed up to my PC. Via Activesync, I copied some of that back to the MDA Storage Card. After doing so, suddenly it looks like all the missing data has been restored, including a lot of data that I had not yet copied back.
What could have happened? Still wondering whether to call Sandisk and report a defective card.

undelete tools for normal harddisks work just fine on sd cards in sdcard readers

Rudegar said:
undelete tools for normal harddisks work just fine on sd cards in sdcard readers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That isn't the question. I didn't ask how to undelete the files. And, as I said, my card reader isn't working either.
Also, as I said, I had the data backed up to HD, so really don't need to undelete.
So----what's the problem then? Obviously something's wrong if a memory card suddenly and inexplicably loses its data, now for the second time.
So I was asking--what could be causing this to happen? Has it happened to others? Is it likely a defective card? Or defective PPC?

me said:
Is it likely a defective card? Or defective PPC?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, but without an alternate means of testing either, it's a waste of time to speculate. Hence my admonishment to go find a card reader. You can run a complete format and look for bad sectors on the suspect SD chip that way...something you cannot do from the PPC to the best of my knowledge. Chances are, the boot sector (where the location of files in memory is written) on your SD chip is failing (if the chip is old, that is VERY likely, as flash memory has a limited number of rewrites that usually hits around the 2 year mark for heavy users, and if you're moving music on-and-off a lot, that's you....).
So, no, there's no way to be SURE, without getting your hands on a reader (and c'mon, they're like, $10).

Nexus one maximum transfer speed (using all methods)

hi, so ive been experimenting with transfer speeds to the SD-CARD with my nexus one.
so far i managed :
2mb/sec using the stock USB cable, with eclair, same with froyo stock kernel.
via WiFi tether and connecting a laptop to it, transfering files via FTP server on the android device
1.5-2mb/sec on froyo tethering
using the wifi tether app on eclair, around 600kb/s (fail? or maybe some cyanogen issues)
i recently upgraded to a CLASS6 transcend 16gb sdcard
yet the results are the same.
i tried a few SD-CARD testing apps, all results were around 2mb/s
is this some sort of hardware/software limitation?
did anyone get passed 2mb/s?
in theory my card should reach 6mb/sec write speeds.
so im hoping we can share our experiances.. and maybe come to some conclusion on whats going on, and finally put these issues to rest.

So you're trying to do what? You're on cellular, wifi, tethered, SD card speeds.....
I don't get the point.
If you're wanting to benchmark your SD card, maybe this program? I haven't tried it yet, just finally thought about searching. http://www.cyrket.com/p/android/performance.test/

You say "mb" which isn't correct for anything (unless you really mean "millabit"). Do you mean megaBIT (Mb) or megaBYTE (MB) / sec ?
I just ran several tests from this Vista PC using ADB Push to the SD card (a 16GB Class 6), and I see 9-13 megabit/second or 1.1 - 1.3 megabyte/second rates, at file sizes from 10 to 25 MB.
This is a Vista work PC, running around 40 applications, Symantec AV and Firewall and all manner of other crap. If I think about it, I'll pound out a test from a real computer later.

lol Why are you people giving him such a hard time ?
He wants to figure out the fastest transfer speeds. Who gives a crap about Mb Mb MB or benchmarking his SD.
N1 transfer speeds are slow regardless of the SD card. Im not sure why.
I would like to know if file transfers over USB , or Wifi result in faster transfers.
I think the OP is wanting to do the same thing.
Using the Websharing or FTP via Efile sometimes gave me better results than USB.

lol yea be gentle guys. But yea I remember reading that it's always gonna be slower using USB and Phone, it's better to take your card out and use a reader. It's usually at least 2 times faster when I take my SD out and use a reader

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=628508
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=691173
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=656908
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=669511
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=662296
Those are just a few of many more, I am sure.
But none of the the existing Nexus One SD card threads are worded like " Nexus one maximum transfer speed (using all methods)", so lets just add this one to the pile please.

SabrWolf said:
hi, so ive been experimenting with transfer speeds to the SD-CARD with my nexus one.
so far i managed :
2mb/sec using the stock USB cable, with eclair, same with froyo stock kernel.
via WiFi tether and connecting a laptop to it, transfering files via FTP server on the android device
1.5-2mb/sec on froyo tethering
using the wifi tether app on eclair, around 600kb/s (fail? or maybe some cyanogen issues)
i recently upgraded to a CLASS6 transcend 16gb sdcard
yet the results are the same.
i tried a few SD-CARD testing apps, all results were around 2mb/s
is this some sort of hardware/software limitation?
did anyone get passed 2mb/s?
in theory my card should reach 6mb/sec write speeds.
so im hoping we can share our experiances.. and maybe come to some conclusion on whats going on, and finally put these issues to rest.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the post, regardless of the patronizing of others... I've wondered the same thing as I've only gotten 2mb/sec going through the USB mount in android. I thought something was wrong with my computer so I've tried both pc and mac with the same speeds. I thought it was my memory card so I plugged it directly into a card reader and got 4x's the speed...
My main reason for wanting this to be fixed or acknowledged is for sync'ing music through programs like Salling Media Sync. It seems to me a wifi alternative would be faster even at 802.11g if it's related to the USB interface... let me know what you find I'm curious...

My wife's transfer speed was 3.6 on the stock SD card...
I have a class 6 and speed is under 2
I try to switch cards later and see if my class 6 goes faster on her N1

I too have never seen faster than 2mbish, even when i upgraded from stock to a class 2 8gb, and then to a class 6 16GB

Storage Card Problems(this is a long one)

Hey Guys,
I've been having a TON of problems with my storage card lately. I was using doubletwist to sync music when the problems first happened. Basically the storage card flipped out, it wouldnt allow any access either through the computer or on the phone. So i turned off the phone popped the Storage Card out and then back in. When I plugged my HD2 back into the computer i discovered that all my files on the storage card had been deleted.
I called t-mobile customer care and they told me to call the htc accessories line to get a new one. Did that and the lady says theres nothing they can do as all the cards are back ordered.
I'm worried that its going to happen again, and on top of all this my 16 GB Storage card is now 971 MB, i was adding my applications when it said the card was full so i checked and thats what the computers giving me.
I figured that maybe if i formatted the card it would work but i cant find that option anywhere when i right click on the card when plugged into the computer.
So basically all i have now is a 971 MB Sd card with a few applications on it instead of the 16 GB preloaded SD card that held about 200 pictures taken with the phones camera(that are now gone along with Transformers and everything else that was on the phone)
Sorry for the long rant guys but im really frustrated...
Any Help?

Have you connected the phone to the PC in 'disk drive' mode? If not, then do that to 1) be absolutely sure you can't see/recover any of the files, and then 2) to format it (it has to be connected this way for that option to be available)

I'm not an expert on here (more of a "user" than a "maker") but I have had my share of SD card problems.
If you are using the class 2 card that came with your phone, order a class 4 or class 6. The class 2's are known to cause performance problems for the HD2. When I upgraded to my class 6, I noticed the difference right away on graphics-heavy apps that use the SD card in realtime (i.e. not just to store profiles).
You need to decide if you simply want to get your SD card back or try and save data on it first. If you just want to format it and start over, try these:
Try first using the sd formatter in your HD2, in the "Tools" folder.
If you have a card reader or a card slot in your Windows PC, try inserting the card (or, as sirphunkee said, mount your HD2 as "disk drive" and not as active sync) and go to control panel > administrative tools > computer management > Disk Management and see if Windows can read your card. If it can, you should be able to right click on the drive and select "format". You could also try assigning it a new drive letter. Sometimes it seems to kick start the Drive Management services into accessing your card with a proper mount.
Download SD Formatter from Panasonic. Sometimes when windows can't do it, this program can.
If you have an uBuntu OS installed, sometimes using gParted is also effective.
I have also seen threads on here about downloading the default factory files that should already be on the card, with links...
Hope this helps. But bottom line you should definitely NOT wait for another crappy class 2 card from TMo/HTC and go get a class 6 (you can find them easily enough online for about $50).

sirphunkee said:
Have you connected the phone to the PC in 'disk drive' mode? If not, then do that to 1) be absolutely sure you can't see/recover any of the files, and then 2) to format it (it has to be connected this way for that option to be available)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So instead of using active sync to connect use disk drive mode. Got it, but once i do that if there were files to recover i would see them correct?

googlesax said:
So instead of using active sync to connect use disk drive mode. Got it, but once i do that if there were files to recover i would see them correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, as long as you're looking at the card's contents via file explorer on the pc, not the phone...the one one the phone won't be able to see the card at all when it's connected that way.
Basically, when you connect in disk drive mode, the pc handles the card just like a regular external USB hard drive.
You'll probably be able to format and use it again now that you're connecting it that way, but if it still acts up then go through any and all of mfrey's steps above, including just upgrading to a higher-class card if possible. The stock cards that come with the HD2 seem to be somewhat inconsistent in quality and potentially unreliable, and as he said the speed difference of a faster card can definitely be noticible in every day use.

i connected the phone via disk drive mode as suggested but i had the same results after connecting multiple times so i decided to format the card through the phone as mfrey suggested. After doing so the card still reads as a total of 971 MB both on the phone when checked under settings and on the computer.
Im going to try going to t-mobile to see what they say about my problem because i dont see how this could happen, ive been using this sd card for about three months and up til a few days ago it worked perfectly
Wish me luck guys

googlesax said:
i connected the phone via disk drive mode as suggested but i had the same results after connecting multiple times so i decided to format the card through the phone as mfrey suggested. After doing so the card still reads as a total of 971 MB both on the phone when checked under settings and on the computer.
Im going to try going to t-mobile to see what they say about my problem because i dont see how this could happen, ive been using this sd card for about three months and up til a few days ago it worked perfectly
Wish me luck guys
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Were you able to see the drive in Drive Management in Administrative Tools? If so, when you right-clicked it, was there an option to delete partition? Did you try SD Formatter (it's free)?
If it's the factory class 2 that came with your phone, it could be bricked...

[Q] Windows Explorer not seeing External SD

Hello
For some reason, when I plug the tablet to my PC I can only see the internal SD Card. Does someone know how to see the external SD card? Other posts have suggested to copy the files to the internal SD and then copy from here to the external SD. That would be a huge pain. Does anyone know how to tackle this?
Thanks!

If you know how to use ADB you can access it at mnt/external_sd
You will have to learn ADB commands but it is acccessable through that.

In the "First start information" document that came with my Acer, it states:
Transferring files from a microSD card (optional) to your PC
Remove the card from the tablet and use a card reader or USB adapter to access the card as an external storage device.
That works, but it is a pain. What I've done instead is:
(1) Root Acer
(2) Install cifs.ko module (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1058713)
(3) download cifsmanager from Marketplace
Cifsmanager can then be used to mount disks on your Windows PC via a network connection. You can then use any application to access files on the PC (so use a file manager like Astro to copy files back and forth). Personally, I find I just leave the files on the PC and access them via the network (play movies, read books, etc.).

Thanks for the information. Other than that issue, this tablet rocks.

guilleaguirre said:
Thanks for the information. Other than that issue, this tablet rocks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Acer overlooked the MicroSD I think. Since it can be seen by adb I'm assuming the fix is easy for a team of programmers to write in.
If enough of us email their support or call them and drop the Asus bomb, they may include it in the next big update.
That's what I did. I said "I'm not able to access the microsd card in the unit from the PC as I would normally my phone and it's extremely inconvenient. I'm aware the Asus EEE Transformer does so it doesn't seem to be an OS limitation".
Once enough people complain it will hopefully get noticed. Hopefully it's in their agenda anyway.

This issue is one of the reasons I sold my gtab and switched to the Acer. At least I can store data on the acer's sdcard. The gtab erases all data on the sdcard every time you reboot.

Neoprimal said:
Acer overlooked the MicroSD I think. Since it can be seen by adb I'm assuming the fix is easy for a team of programmers to write in.
If enough of us email their support or call them and drop the Asus bomb, they may include it in the next big update.
That's what I did. I said "I'm not able to access the microsd card in the unit from the PC as I would normally my phone and it's extremely inconvenient. I'm aware the Asus EEE Transformer does so it doesn't seem to be an OS limitation".
Once enough people complain it will hopefully get noticed. Hopefully it's in their agenda anyway.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please let us know how this turns out. I've emailed support for other issues (cell standby mostly), and keep being told my unit is defective and I need to send it in via mail (which conveniently would take me past the return/exchange date) ... so I'm not really happy with support.

this is something i never understood. my 1st tablet (and android anything) was an archos 101, and when plugged into usb, 2 drives would appear in windows. internal and external drives. i thought that was the way android did things. grabbed a gtab expecting the same thing as well as the iconia.the gtab went back and i bought the iconia and plan on keeping it, but it is the 1 big thing that irks me about it. everything else is perfect.

I just picked up my Acer this week, and today when I set it up to transfer music via Airtwist to my A500 I noticed that there seems to be no way to set it up to store the music on my microSD card; it comes up saying it needs to store it on the internal. Probably the same issue that keeps it from showing up in Windows. Now I just have to figure out how to set it up to transfer into the microSD so I don't have to drag it all there the hard way.

vcs111 said:
This issue is one of the reasons I sold my gtab and switched to the Acer. At least I can store data on the acer's sdcard. The gtab erases all data on the sdcard every time you reboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's simply not true. Why would you want to discredit a device like that, I don't get it. Maybe you had a mod/rom on there that wasn't working right but I had stock on there 80% of the time and TnT lite on there 20% and I've NEVER had anything being erased on my SDcard.

Dalrimple said:
Please let us know how this turns out. I've emailed support for other issues (cell standby mostly), and keep being told my unit is defective and I need to send it in via mail (which conveniently would take me past the return/exchange date) ... so I'm not really happy with support.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've gotten some reps that made me want to pull my hair out and some that actually 'SEEM' to try. I was able to call and make the report (for free!) I actually have reported several things since I got the unit now and when I write back about it I'm told that they're working on a bugfix - this is a BIG upgrade from before where I was told the same thing as everyone else so they're not ignoring us. We just have to be patient and consistent. In the next week I'm going to post a list here with some known issues and see if we can get it validated.
One thing I hate is when people post their issues as 'fact' like I see a few people doing. We have to try to coordinate and work out what are really issues and what are more, individual problems (like people complaining about weak wifi, etc.).
Then I'm going to make a list and give Acer a call and see what exactly they have in their systems as 'known', etc.

Neoprimal said:
That's simply not true. Why would you want to discredit a device like that, I don't get it. Maybe you had a mod/rom on there that wasn't working right but I had stock on there 80% of the time and TnT lite on there 20% and I've NEVER had anything being erased on my SDcard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1. Ran several diff ROMs on mine, it never erased my SD card.

I guess I get to ask the first dumb question!

Hello all,
Used to be on here for about 10 years but now I don't have access to my old email so I'm back to being a newbie. I feel like one too since the last device I rooted was a HTC HD2. Those were the days... LOL I've been a longtime Windows guy since 6.1 and before and have followed the progress through 7, 8, 8.1 & 10 as an insider but I think it's time to start looking at Android again.
Anyway, saw this really great deal on Amazon for the Idol 5S and since I was already using an Idol 4S with Windows, I thought I'd give it a go. Especially for $211 it seemed like a pretty good deal to me. Now the first annoying thing is really why the price was so good and that's the Amazon Prime ads on the lock screen. No way to get rid of them. They've obviously rooted the phone already and taken away any developer options and that's what I was looking for when it brought me back to XDA.
My problem is that I have an SD card installed, I made sure to format it and it functions as you'd expect with one exception. When I connect to my PC via PTP (Win10 latest insider build), I see internal storage but not the SD card. If I change to MTP use for the USB, I get nothing at all just a charge. I've installed the correct drivers in Windows so I don't see why this should be an issue unless something has changed these days with you having no external access to the SD card? I was thinking of checking USB debug mode to make sure that was off but like I said, no developer options are available.
That brings me to my question (Dumb or not), anyone got any ideas? Is my new newbie status just making me blind? I guess there is no way to root this device yet until some clever dev comes up with a way but if anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears. thanks in advance and have a great day! :good:

There are no dumb questions (as long as there are no sticky threads that already contain the answer ).
Are you using the SD card as an external storage or is it recognized by your phone as part of the internal storage (c.f. settings->storage)? The latter is an optional feature that got introduced with android M. Neither your phone nor your PC will distinguish between the phones internal storage and the SD card if you use this option.
You need to be aware that your SD card gets encrypted if you decide to use that feature and that only your phone is able to decrypt the data that is stored on the card. In other words if your phone dies due to whichever reason then you won't be able to recover the data on your card. In addition, the internal storage of nowadays smartphones is quite fast (in regard to its read/write speed). Most of the SD cards on the market aren't (in comparison to the internal storage's speed). This means that integrating an SD card to your internal storage slows your phone down.

Flippy498 said:
There are no dumb questions (as long as there are no sticky threads that already contain the answer ).
Are you using the SD card as an external storage or is it recognized by your phone as part of the internal storage (c.f. settings->storage)? The latter is an optional feature that got introduced with android M. Neither your phone nor your PC will distinguish between the phones internal storage and the SD card if you use this option.
You need to be aware that your SD card gets encrypted if you decide to use that feature and that only your phone is able to decrypt the data that is stored on the card. In other words if your phone dies due to whichever reason then you won't be able to recover the data on your card. In addition, the internal storage of nowadays smartphones is quite fast (in regard to its read/write speed). Most of the SD cards on the market aren't (in comparison to the internal storage's speed). This means that integrating an SD card to your internal storage slows your phone down.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply Flippy. I've tried to format the SD both ways. First as external storage and secondly as internal storage. Either way I do it, it is not showing up in Windows file explorer as expected. I see internal storage being the actual phone with no problem but no go on the SD card. It's a strange problem that I've never run across before. I've read that this may occur if USB debugging is on but since this is a pre-rooted phone by Amazon, I am unable to confirm if this is the case or not since there are no developer options or ways to get to USB debugging. They are omitted from the settings menu. I guess you get what you pay for buying from Amazon but I will hold out hope that the price and build quality will make this phone popular and some clever dev will find a way to root it so I can flash it with a new build without the limitations.
With regard to the build, it's very nice. All aluminum bezel, beautiful design. Responsive and snappy and a perfect form factor with it's size. I like it so far but I would say that I am looking forward to making it my own...
Thanks again for your response.

I need root my phone

[email protected] said:
I need root my phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm wondering if this phone will be rootable? Seems Google is making it harder with Nougat.