Database Users

[Q] USB Mass Storage mode only for reading ?

I'm the only one having problems with usb mass storage? With all builds from all chef and all kernels it happens the same. I can read from the pc what is on the SD, but if I copy a file Android dont see it , the file size is 0. And new files created in android can't be readed by windows either (I can only read the files that were written on the SD before the last android boot)
I missing something? I tryied dismounting the SD from android with same results
Are you using it in the same way USB MASS STORAGE in WM6.5 ???

I use USB storage all the time and in every andrioid build I've used(about 20) I've never had any problems. There are many people like me that also have no problems, but there are also many like you that have plenty of problems. I'm not sure that anyone really knows why.

RobertsDF said:
I use USB storage all the time and in every andrioid build I've used(about 20) I've never had any problems. There are many people like me that also have no problems, but there are also many like you that have plenty of problems. I'm not sure that anyone really knows why.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for answering. Do you have 2 partitions on the sd ?

Just want to check a few things:
1: you plug in via usb and select "disk drive"
2: you are not still connected via usb when trying to read the items on the sd card?
3: When you disconnect the usb, you use the usual method (right click the icon in the taskbar and select "safely remove hardware") then wait for the SD card to be prepared by android before accessing it?
Also, how are you accessing the files in Android?

Reno_79 said:
Just want to check a few things:
1: you plug in via usb and select "disk drive"
2: you are not still connected via usb when trying to read the items on the sd card?
3: When you disconnect the usb, you use the usual method (right click the icon in the taskbar and select "safely remove hardware") then wait for the SD card to be prepared by android before accessing it?
Also, how are you accessing the files in Android?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1 & 2: Yes. Windows assing the drive letter and can read it fine.
3: I connect Android to pc, choose USB MASS STORAGE, in windows access the new drive letter, rename a file , choose "safele remove hardware", disconnect the cable, wait for Android to "prepare the sd" , go to the file and it has the old name!!! the weird thing is that if I connect to the pc again, I see in the pc the new name!
Is like Android is working with his own FAT32 table IN MEMORY and not refreshing it.
I tried Ghost Commander/ES file manager/Root Explorer, all with the same results.
PD: I found something else... If I DISMOUNT the SD from Android Im still able to access it with ES File Manager,etc. So its not really dismounting it Why can this be happening with all builds/roms?

I have the same problem. Strange thing is it worked fine fore the first couple of days. Anybody have a solution?

Try using "Rescan Media" app after you copy your files to the SD

Still nothing. I have to boot back into winMo to transfer files to my SD card! This is really annoying,

Plenty of other tools provide media scan as well, like Optimize toolbox, Switch pro widget and more. they all worked for me.
[edit] sorry, optimize toolbox doesn't offer it, it just clears the cache :/
power control plus however has this function as well.

Connect to PC as Disk drive problem!!!

I'm with the DHD for a day and this is so far my only problem...
When I connect the phone using the option, Disk drive (like a usb pen in the PC), when I transfer several files to the disk drive, after some time (most of the times under a minute) the usb disk drive disconnects from the PC because the sdcard is also unmounted from the phone...
Then the only way for the sdcard to reappear on the phone is to restart the phone or to reinsert it on the phone...
I'm with the last firmware (updated yesterday). I only notice this problem today. I left the original cable at home, but I'm using an original cable from nokia (a very small length one). I also used it with a nokia E72 and a Sony X10i and never got any problems...
I'm not detecting any problems with the microsdcard "inside" the phone (I mean on a OS level). It's the same that I used for more that 1 year on my old phone, an Touch HD...
For the matter, I unticked the USB debugging option... and still the same.
Any one as an idea?!? Bug? Bad settings?

i also had probs even getting the phone to link to my win7 x64 system.. after many many reinstalls of software and restarts of phone i was getting sooo wound up with it!!.. i was ready to give up.. i then started messing with my phone settings and disabled the fast boot and restarted the phone normally.. it instanly saw my phone and linked perfectly, ive transfered hundreds of photos onto it and loads of music.. not sure if the fast boot bypasses some non essential programs to enable it to boot so fast.. try disabling fast boot and leave usb debugging enabled (thats what i am using and it seems fine for me).. let me know if this sorts the problem thanks

For the matter, two days ago I tried on my home computer, another hardware system, but with Win7 x64...
I copied files from my computer to the phone and reversed and no problems.... maybe some bad driver installation...
Nevertheless I'm going to try to disable that option and try again...
Oh, by the way,
I'm almost sure that at home when I choosed the option HTC Sync, the sdcard also appeared in my computer...
Here at work it doesn't appear...
Is this right?!?

Ok, I think I found what was the problem...
Some days ago I tried to move all my files from the sdcard to format it due the jerky video problem (to have the sdcard with a 32k cluster). I tried to format also to be sure that this problem would be gone...
To copy/move the files I removed the sdcard to the PC.
I found out that in some files the move/copy process hang out. I couldn't copy/move or deleted those files. I then skipped those files, still there was some files, and eventually I got most things backup to my PC. The strange thing is that not even running several time the chkdsk command it was able to fix the errors of those files.
Then I formatted the sdcard and moved again all my files to it.
I guess I fixed this problem. I still didn't copy/move files using "Connect to a PC as disk drive" although...

Files on SD card without restarting

Hi at all,
everytime I put files on the sd card, I have to reboot Android because without ES File Explorer won't show the new files I put on the memory card.
Even "Refresh" in ES File Explorer doesn't helo. Is there any other way?
Thanks!

Wifi sync is your friend

lamajstro said:
Hi at all,
everytime I put files on the sd card, I have to reboot Android because without ES File Explorer won't show the new files I put on the memory card.
Even "Refresh" in ES File Explorer doesn't helo. Is there any other way?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is a well documented problem. I think it's to do with the way that android sees the SD card with booting from it but don't quote me on that. As far as I know, the best ways round it are:
1. Use dropbox. Free 2gb account and can be very useful.
2. FTP. This is my personal favourite. SwiFTP is a free FTP server for android and there are many free ftp clients for PC/Mac/Linux available. I use FileZilla (opensource ftp client).
3. I believe that if you unmount your SD card before copying files over, then remount however I don't find it particularly successful.
There are other ways like shared folders, email files etc but the top 2 above are the best for me. I use dropbox for small files and one-offs or if I'm copying a lot of stuff and don't want to reboot to winmo, then FTP.
It's also worth noting that if you are a windows user then winamp can sync music over wifi providing you install the winamp android client. However both winamp for windows and android are free.
Hope this helps..
enjoy

Ok, thank you. But that's bad.
The problem is not only that I want to put files through USB on it, it happens also when I use CurrentWidget for example that wants to create a log file on the sd card. Hmm...

I use MDJ Froyo HD 4.6, and there are practically no problems when using mass storage option... After unplugging the files are on the SD card... Only sometimes have to reboot, but not very often...

Why so complicated? Use "Multi Mount SD Card" (it´s free) to connect to PC and you will see new files without rebooting.

lamajstro said:
Ok, thank you. But that's bad.
The problem is not only that I want to put files through USB on it, it happens also when I use CurrentWidget for example that wants to create a log file on the sd card. Hmm...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you're now saying that applications are unable to create files on the SD then there is something wrong with your card. I'd recommend copying everything off it and reformatting it (use disk management to format it, and use the largest cluster size available).

Some builds suffer from this problem and some don't.
Im using HD2ONE 0.3.6 and it's working fine. File explorer detects the new files after transferring via USB Cable
I love this build paired up with the CM6.1.1 Gingerbread Theme

kashifsiddique said:
Some builds suffer from this problem and some don't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've heard many people complain about not being able to see files after copying them across, but I've never heard anyone say that an app could not make a file on the sd card.

I am having the same exact problem. I was transferring files from this PC to my phone and everything was going fine (it refreshes right away after disconnect) then suddenly, my SD Card got corrupted and I was forced to reformat. I used the same ROM (Darkstone's SUPERAM FROYO) and after that, it won't sync anymore. I even tried removing it and using the HD2ONE (mentioned above) ROM and it was the same. I went home, copied everything from my SD backup from the other PC and same symptoms.
I thought I was missing a sync app or something but no. I looked into each of the folders I copied and most of them are blank.
I hope someone can save us!

I find it easiest and safest to just use ES Explorer to access the network shares and copy files wirelessly. The way our data.img is mounted, giving the pc full access to the sdcard is just not a good move. There was good reason when you connected to windows' sync software it disables your phone from accessing the card.
Even though the hd2one build seems to handle it correctly I almost never do it anymore unless it's for big files. It saves the wear and tear on the usb port anyway.

I had that "problem" too, but for me it was easy to solve. Here is the whole procedure:
So, i want some files to put on my sdcard, i plug in the usb cable and select the option "use as a storage", dont check the "use allways" or "dont ask again" (or whatever this is called on your machine). Now the computer "see" the phone and i put my files on it. In this moment i cant browse the sdcard on my hd2, because its reserved for windows now, (thats why currentwidget cant write onto it, same if you have a wallpaper in some "wallpaper" folder on sd).
Now, when i am done, usually i unplug the usb cable for some seconds and then i plug it in again and choose the option "charge only" and the sdcard gets mounted in android like it should and all my new imported files are visible.
Its the same on WinMo, if you choose there the "HDD" option, you cant browse the sdcard on the mobile. Only if you choose "use active sync"(slower) you are able to browse the sdcard.
cheers
ps: the quickest way for me now is to use wifi and shared folders

[Q] Ext SD issue: help!

Forgive me if there's a forum about this posted somewhere else on xda... I couldn't find one coz few other people seem to be having this issue.
My problem is that I can't write more than like 7mb to any of my 3 my ext SDs (on the phone or on a computer via usb) without the phone pretty much crashing & needing a reboot.
It never happened back when I used GB... And I've had the same issue on all three ICS ROMs I've tried (CM9, F4K r4 and DarkyROM v11).
Anybody had the same issue or an idea on how to solve this?

Ext SD issues
Can you be a little more specific? Which ROM are you currently using? What are you trying to do? Are you installing apps, transferring data to SD ... ? Where are trying to store stuff? Which directory? My Galaxy S external SD is named emmc in File Explorer.
Galaxy S: RemICS-UX v1.3beta
Galaxy Note: ICS 4.0.3

Oct-Al said:
Can you be a little more specific? Which ROM are you currently using? What are you trying to do? Are you installing apps, transferring data to SD ... ? Where are trying to store stuff? Which directory? My Galaxy S external SD is named emmc in File Explorer.
Galaxy S: RemICS-UX v1.3beta
Galaxy Note: ICS 4.0.3
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Currently using DarkyRom v11 (Black Edition) with Semaphore ICS 1.2.5s Kernel.
I am simply trying to transfer files (Mostly media files: jpeg, png, mp4, mp3) from mnt/sdcard/media to mnt/emmc.
The transfer progress bar just hangs and the phone becomes unresponsive to the point where I need to reboot. Reading data off the card works 100% fine.
The memory card does work if I remove it and connect it to a computer via a card reader / SD slot.
I was wondering if it wasn't a hardware fault on the phone (seeing as not many other people running ICS on their i9000s have the same problem), but then someone I know picked up the exact same issue when he flashed CM9 on his sgs.

Ext SD problems
If you are having /datadata problems try here for starters: 'http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1541942' (CM7/9). There is a summary of cause and cure, along with further references for you to follow.
Initially I had problems understanding the file structure of my rooted phone. Using FtpCafe I tried to download large map files into sdcard/external_sd/. Big mistake, as I quickly ran out of space. Moving those files to emmc/ sorted my problem. Go to Settings->Storage to quickly check how things stand re internal and external storage.
Galaxy S: RemICS-UX v1.3beta
Galaxy Note: ICS 4.0.3
EDIT:
Sorry for the above, but have only just got your update. Like you, I had trouble transferring files on the phone (about 1GB), but put it down to memory problems and the limitations of the phone. Much safer to connect to the computer in USB connection mode and move the files around from there. In my own case, I had my files backed up to the cloud and the computer; so I simply deleted the unwanted files and downloaded directly to the external sd card from backup.

Oct-Al said:
If you are having /datadata problems try here for starters: 'http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1541942' (CM7/9). There is a summary of cause and cure, along with further references for you to follow.
Initially I had problems understanding the file structure of my rooted phone. Using FtpCafe I tried to download large map files into sdcard/external_sd/. Big mistake, as I quickly ran out of space. Moving those files to emmc/ sorted my problem. Go to Settings->Storage to quickly check how things stand re internal and external storage.
Galaxy S: RemICS-UX v1.3beta
Galaxy Note: ICS 4.0.3
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, that script is for the low storage notification... an issue I had months back but fixed.... Don't think it's relevant for my current problem.
Running out of space on my internal storage is exactly why I want to be able to move files to my emmc... But that's what's not working, The phone won't let me copy to emmc.
Thanks for trying to help

dan73b said:
Yeah, that script is for the low storage notification... an issue I had months back but fixed.... Don't think it's relevant for my current problem.
Running out of space on my internal storage is exactly why I want to be able to move files to my emmc... But that's what's not working, The phone won't let me copy to emmc.
Thanks for trying to help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you need to use https://play.google.com/store/search?q=move+to+Sd+card&c=apps
or menu > settings> applications> storage use > application you want to move to SD card
you cannot cut and paste from internal phone
But to move from one SD card to another, just connect usb, once usb icon appears on task bar
open your notifications drawer > touch usb connected > touch connect storage to PC
you can now open both SD card in your PC and transfer anything you want to any SD card

xsenman said:
you need to use https://play.google.com/store/search?q=move+to+Sd+card&c=apps
or menu > settings> applications> storage use > application you want to move to SD card
you cannot cut and paste from internal phone
But to move from one SD card to another, just connect usb, once usb icon appears on task bar
open your notifications drawer > touch usb connected > touch connect storage to PC
you can now open both SD card in your PC and transfer anything you want to any SD card
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know how to transfer files via usb but like I said earlier, the phone crashes when I do that too.

Buggy filecopy (Note 3 to PC)

Hello!
I'm trying to backup my phone before i wipe and flash latest Omega rom. But some problems..
I can copy one biiiig (3-4 gb) file from phone to PC in no time, but if i mark several folders, or a folder with like 50 small files in it (a total of ~50 mb) it just hangs on "calculating size" forever.
My setup:
PC - Windows 8.1, latest USB-drivers from Kies
Cable - Tried different ones, but right now the original USB 3.0 cable
Ports - Tried all ports on front and back of PC
Using Explorer to copy. What program do YOU use?
Note: It's the same when i try to restore to the phone..
Ideas?
Thanks

Update: tried with another PC (Windows 7), same problem there. =/

Try Teracopy.
http://codesector.com/teracopy

Thanks! But TeraCopy doesn't work with MTP.
I think the best way to solve this MTP-issue (as it seems to be) is to copy Internal card to a folder on the External card, and then copy the files from that extcard via a cardreader directly to the PC, and vice versa.
Alt 2: AirDroid

It's the MTP protocol. It's a nightmare. Sluggish, unstable, slow...
I always copy big files to and from the MicroSD with a cardreader (which is a hassle as I'm using an Otterbox) and then move it internally with ESfileExplorer. (On an older version of both the firmware and ES, so it still accepts MicroSD writing.)