How does one view the content of the SD Card from the Vivid device itself?
I can connect the Vivid to my PC via USB cable and view the SD Card as a separate drive on the PC, but cannot see how to view the SD Card content from within the device.
Suggestions? TIA.
Get a file explorer app from the marketplace. Try Astro.
Sent from my HTC PH39100 using xda premium
DUTCH Van Atlanta said:
How does one view the content of the SD Card from the Vivid device itself?
I can connect the Vivid to my PC via USB cable and view the SD Card as a separate drive on the PC, but cannot see how to view the SD Card content from within the device.
Suggestions? TIA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First, you need to get a file manager application from the market. There are many of them, mostly free or low cost. I'm not crazy about Astro, the one I downloaded, but it works. Look at some others.
On my Vivid in the root directory is a folder called sdcard. That is the 8.83 GB user portion internal memory portion of the "16 GB" internal memory. Also, I have a folder called sdcard2. It's the 32 GB micro SD card I installed.
Interestingly, there is also a folder in the root directory called mnt. Under it is a folder called sdcard. It is the same as the sdcard under the root directory. Under mnt/sdcard is ext_sd. That is the 32 GB external SD card. I don't know if this duplicate listing is the work of the file manager app, or if it is the Android OS, but I am able to find files and copy files from one place to another.
With me making no changes for applications and data during application installations (I'm not sure I can), all of the apps I have installed have gone into the other portion of internal memory. The data seems to be going into the user portion of internal memory. When I installed the external SD card, I copied music files to it from my PC. The music player found them with no problem. Also, once the card was installed, photos I took were placed on the external SD card instead of internal memory.
brucegil said:
First, you need to get a file manager application from the market. There are many of them, mostly free or low cost. I'm not crazy about Astro, the one I downloaded, but it works. Look at some others.
On my Vivid in the root directory is a folder called sdcard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How does one access the root directory? Is that what the file manager app does?
(New to Android, and still in the learning phase.)
DUTCH Van Atlanta said:
How does one access the root directory? Is that what the file manager app does?
(New to Android, and still in the learning phase.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't feel alone. I just came from several years on the old Windows Mobile. In the file manager, I click on the Up icon until it won't go any further. You will see only a '/' in the address/location bar near the top. You will likely see folders such as acct, app-cache, config, sys, sysytem, etc., as well as mnt, sdcard and sdcard2. Tap on the sdcard2 folder icon, and you will see any folders you have on your external SD card.
In Astro, you can specifiy where the program opens when it starts. It can be the root directry, the exteranl SD card or any other location.
By the way, the other poster likes Astro. It comes with other tools. The "free" version has ads, but it might have a paid version. And it does come with an Exit button, something missing from a lot of Android apps.
brucegil said:
Don't feel alone. I just came from several years on the old Windows Mobile. In the file manager, I click on the Up icon until it won't go any further. You will see only a '/' in the address/location bar near the top. You will likely see folders such as acct, app-cache, config, sys, sysytem, etc., as well as mnt, sdcard and sdcard2. Tap on the sdcard2 folder icon, and you will see any folders you have on your external SD card.
In Astro, you can specifiy where the program opens when it starts. It can be the root directry, the exteranl SD card or any other location.
By the way, the other poster likes Astro. It comes with other tools. The "free" version has ads, but it might have a paid version. And it does come with an Exit button, something missing from a lot of Android apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks much!
brucegil said:
First, you need to get a file manager application from the market. There are many of them, mostly free or low cost. I'm not crazy about Astro, the one I downloaded, but it works. Look at some others.
On my Vivid in the root directory is a folder called sdcard. That is the 8.83 GB user portion internal memory portion of the "16 GB" internal memory. Also, I have a folder called sdcard2. It's the 32 GB micro SD card I installed.
Interestingly, there is also a folder in the root directory called mnt. Under it is a folder called sdcard. It is the same as the sdcard under the root directory. Under mnt/sdcard is ext_sd. That is the 32 GB external SD card. I don't know if this duplicate listing is the work of the file manager app, or if it is the Android OS, but I am able to find files and copy files from one place to another.
With me making no changes for applications and data during application installations (I'm not sure I can), all of the apps I have installed have gone into the other portion of internal memory. The data seems to be going into the user portion of internal memory. When I installed the external SD card, I copied music files to it from my PC. The music player found them with no problem. Also, once the card was installed, photos I took were placed on the external SD card instead of internal memory.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
/sdcard is a symlink to /mnt/sdcard/ its the same thing, just a 'shortcut' to the actual mounted partition located in /mnt
/sdcard2 is a symlink to /mnt/ext_sd/ same thing, just a 'shortcut'
the actual ROOT system is inaccessible unless you have root access and an app that can see it, like root explorer, or es file manager. there are probably a few others that can get into the actual root of the filesystem.
Pirateghost said:
/sdcard is a symlink to /mnt/sdcard/ its the same thing, just a 'shortcut' to the actual mounted partition located in /mnt
/sdcard2 is a symlink to /mnt/ext_sd/ same thing, just a 'shortcut'
the actual ROOT system is inaccessible unless you have root access and an app that can see it, like root explorer, or es file manager. there are probably a few others that can get into the actual root of the filesystem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the explanation. What I meant by "root" was the top level of the file system, e.g. C:\ on a Windows PC. "Root" apparently has a different meaning in the Android OS.
ES File Manager was the other highly rated file manager, along with Astro when I searched for "file manager" in the Market.
brucegil said:
Thanks for the explanation. What I meant by "root" was the top level of the file system, e.g. C:\ on a Windows PC. "Root" apparently has a different meaning in the Android OS.
ES File Manager was the other highly rated file manager, along with Astro when I searched for "file manager" in the Market.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
root in linux and subsequently, android, has an entirely different meaning.
in a sense, you have it right. / in linux/android is the root of the filesystem, equivalent to C:\ in windows pcs.
without having root (superuser access) on linux/android, you cant see the / or most of the directories below it. the general user only has direct access to storage, like /sdcard, /sdcard2 (also referred to as ext_sd, or sd_ext)
brucegil said:
First, you need to get a file manager application from the market. There are many of them, mostly free or low cost. I'm not crazy about Astro, the one I downloaded, but it works. Look at some others.
On my Vivid in the root directory is a folder called sdcard. That is the 8.83 GB user portion internal memory portion of the "16 GB" internal memory. Also, I have a folder called sdcard2. It's the 32 GB micro SD card I installed.
Interestingly, there is also a folder in the root directory called mnt. Under it is a folder called sdcard. It is the same as the sdcard under the root directory. Under mnt/sdcard is ext_sd. That is the 32 GB external SD card. I don't know if this duplicate listing is the work of the file manager app, or if it is the Android OS, but I am able to find files and copy files from one place to another.
With me making no changes for applications and data during application installations (I'm not sure I can), all of the apps I have installed have gone into the other portion of internal memory. The data seems to be going into the user portion of internal memory. When I installed the external SD card, I copied music files to it from my PC. The music player found them with no problem. Also, once the card was installed, photos I took were placed on the external SD card instead of internal memory.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was wondering about this, can we Not access the rest of this 16GB ...what happened to the other 8GB...?
I too just made the Jump from WM 6.5 (<-- nightmare), so I have no clue how a lot of things work too. ;P hehe I'm a noob again ;P
StrangeShadow said:
I was wondering about this, can we Not access the rest of this 16GB ...what happened to the other 8GB...?
I too just made the Jump from WM 6.5 (<-- nightmare), so I have no clue how a lot of things work too. ;P hehe I'm a noob again ;P
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the phone is marketed as having 16gb of onboard storage, but in reality, 1gb is dedicated to the ROM, aka /system
4gb is dedicated to /data which handles app installs and the like.
the remaining is storage for you to use.
be lucky you have all that. my other HTC phones all just had a mere 2gb or 4gb TOTAL storage (all allocated to /system and /data), which required you to have an SDCard just to be able to take pics or put music/movies/ringtones on it....
Pirateghost said:
the phone is marketed as having 16gb of onboard storage, but in reality, 1gb is dedicated to the ROM, aka /system
4gb is dedicated to /data which handles app installs and the like.
the remaining is storage for you to use.
be lucky you have all that. my other HTC phones all just had a mere 2gb or 4gb TOTAL storage (all allocated to /system and /data), which required you to have an SDCard just to be able to take pics or put music/movies/ringtones on it....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow! Yeah I figured at least a Gig for the Rom. The rest is pretty nuts though, any way we can see a detailed breakdown on our phone? Didn't expect it to be so much.
Can we install apps on the sd card, like some WM apps?
I rooted my nook internally. When I use my card reader to install apps on my card they Dont show up on my nook. When the card is in the reader I can see them, but I can't see them when I open file explorer and look on the sdcard. How can I install APk files from my SD card? I also took my sdcard out of my rooted evo to try and load some of the same apps from my phone through titanium backup and none of them showed up in titanium backup. I cant figure out what's wrong......this worked fine on my nook tablet. Any ideas?
Is the card showing as mounted in the Nook?
Yes, it is mounted. Ive tried unmounting it, then took it out and put it back in and remounted it and its still not showing any apks that I put on it from my pc. I thought maybe it was the card, so I took my EVO card and tried it in my nook and it was the same thing. I can take the card and put it in my card reader and everything shows up on my pc. I even tried reformating the card wiping everything. I put the card in the nook and turned it on. I then unmounted the card and put it in my card reader and the only file that showed up was "LOST.DIR". I then tried to put an apk file in the lost.dir folder to see if I could find it once I put the card in the nook and when I opened up lost.dir there was nothing. I can take the same card out of the nook and put it in my EVO and go into file explorer and open lost.dir and I can see the apk file. So I know its something with the nook.
I can download apks from market, and from other places and I can install them without any problems. I am stumped!!!
So you can see the card when it is in the Nook, can see the lost.dir but not any files inside it. Is that correct?
This is not a fix, but have you considered installing DropBox and then just placing the files in the DropBox folder you designate on your desktop and then syncing with the Nook? You should see them then and be able to install.....
Come to find out, the sd card is bad. After I tried to put it back in my EVO to see if it would read again it would not. I also tried to write a big file onto the card with my card reader and it would show the file being on the card but it really wasnt as it never actually transfered the file to the card. Weird to say the least. I got another card and now all is well.
I searched the forums but could'nt find a similar problem. My SD card is read by my phone. But when i connect it to the computer through USB storage, only a few folders are seen(lost.dir, buildprop.tmp, .profig.os) along with any new folders that i create. But while browsing the card through a file explorer on my phone i can see all the files and folders. Anyone know what's wrong??
Try to put it in a card reader and see what happends.
Hey
I bought a sd card from eBay and had countless errors and trouble with it, I bought a new sd and had no issue what so ever. So try a new sd card or even formatt the memory card
Sent from my HTC Incredible S using xda app-developers app
See if you can back the contents up to the pc then run disk check or format.
Formatting at the moment is not an option. I have a lot of data on it that needs to be backed up like photos, videos, music etc. Unfortunately i cant backup the contents onto the PC since they cant be seen! Guess i have to upload everything onto dropbox and then format it. And with my current upload speed its going to take days . Unless there's someother way of doing it
Try doing a backup using a card reader for your pc.
Even with a card Reader only the "New" folders that i create can be seen. But on the phone All the folders can be seen.
Have you tried to connect it with Linux based OS or only with Windows?
Try this also. Currently there's a troyan round the globe. When it activates it hides all the folders on external media devices connected to PC, and creates .exe files with names of hidden folders. When you connect your storage to a PC with good antivirus it deletes .exe files but leaves folders on storage in hidden state. Try to configure your Windows Explorer or Total Commander to show hidden files and folders and maybe you'll be lucky.
Only with Windows XP and 7 based systems as im at a cousin's place. Found this problem when he wanted some songs from my card. I did scan the SD card using AVG. During the scan i noticed that the current files being scanned included those that i couldn't see using windows/commander file explorer. Hope that helps
Edit: A little messing around and i got it!! Folder Options > Hidden Files and Folders > Unchecked "Hide Protected Operating System Files"
Thank you for all your help
This thing I find really annoying. If I've moved all my pictures/videos (including WhatsApp pictures etc.) and other data from my old phone's micro SD card (HTC) to the internal storage, a lot of the dates got adjusted. So a lot of my old pictures gets the date of today (just as a new picture) when I copy them to the internal storage. This is annoying because the pictures/videos doesn't show in the right order. For example a picture from 2011 shows like it's a picture from March 2013 -.-.
If I leave the pictures etc. on the micro SD there's no problem. But I prefer to use it without micro SD card.
I've tried copying with the app "ES File Explorer" and on the computer, but both give the same results. I really hope someone got a good solution for this.
Am I the only one who find this is annoying?
I think this is just the way it should be, when you copy a file it changes the 'creation date' of the copied file.
Because you duplicated the file and it was written.... today.
However if you zip a folder then copy it and extract it, files inside will keep the origninal creation date. (Also after extracting.)
Little work around and not easy to use on the go, but I guess you just want to copy your pictures once.
Kind regards, Stefan.
Thanks for your reply, but I've already tried that but it didn't work ;s. At least not for all photos. I've tried it on the computer and with ES File Explorer.
Alright, that is strange just tested and it works here without a problem.
Are you sure you do it like this:
- Use winrar to RAR or ZIP your pictures folder on the SD you want to copy them from.
- Once the archive is completed copy the ZIP or RAR archive to your internal storage.
- Once done, extract it from here.
Kind regards, Stefan.
Step 1 yes
Step 2 yes
Step 3, there this is a problem in MTP mode. On the computer I can't extract it to the internal storage or SD card storage.
I did succeed to extract it with ES File Explorer (app on my phone), but this also doesn't keeps the correct dates.
I've tried a few things. Switching between MTP en MSC mode, it makes difference. I've also tried copying photos in MTP mode from Internal memory to SD card, but this also effects the dates. Buttt if I copy the photos to my computer first and than switch to MSC mode and copy the photos to the SD card the photos are all OK.
But the problem is.. in MSC mode it doesn't support internal memory. So I still haven't a solution.
I noticed not all pictures got this problem. For example the photos which you have taken by yourself and have a "taken at" date in the photo doesn't have this problem. But the downloaded photos, like WhatsApp photos etc. does have this problem, because these have other date settings. The "modified at" date got changed in MTP mode.
http://android.stackexchange.com/qu...roid-jelly-bean-device-while-preserving-the-o
Still haven't a solution ;(
Tried another thing. If I use the app Vaulty I can hide the photos and it gets encrypted. If I copy the encrypted files to the phone and open it in Vaulty all the timestamps seem OK. But if I let Vaulty to unhide the photos The problem with the timestamp got back. So the problem still isn't fixed.
It seems you are right, when I write or unzip files to the internal memory it does change the creation date.
I tried to zip files on and to the SD of the phone, thinking it would not make any difference if doing so to internal memory.
But I was wrong, sorry for that.
Installed AndoZip File Manager:
- Zipped a file from the SD card and extracted it to the SD card again, creation date IS NOT changed all good.
- Zipped a file from the SD card copied it to the internal memory and extracted it there, creation date IS changed no good.
- Zipped a file from the SD card and extracted it directly to the internal memory, creation date IS changed no good.
Think using zip or rar will not solve this problem.
Perhaps anyone else has a good idea to copy files but not change the creation date?
Kind regards, Stefan.
Thanks for your contribution
Yeah I would be really thankful if someone has a good solution for this. I find it really strange that no one is complaining about this.
Hi all,
So last night I decided to check out the PC Companion program on my laptop. I opened File Explorer and noticed that the phone created a folder called "Storage/legacy" and "Storage/0" on my internal sd. Inside, only 3 songs I transferred to my external sd thru settings\storage\transfer files to SD.
As I am familiar with how Android mounts storages it seemed a bit odd. As my previous action was the transfer to sd, I assumed my Xperia made a mistake by copying the songs and creating a new folder tree, on my internal storage. So I deleted these folders, because I don't need triple copies.
Selected folder, hit delete, PC Companion crashes... Turns out after deleting, BOTH INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL SD EMPTY!! Luckily I managed to restore 95% of my micro sdcard (12 hours later).
Questions: Can someone point out what I might have done wrong here? Or, explain me why the phone mirrors the internal and external storages, but showing only the 3 copied files on the internal storage? Is this a bug?
Sent from my C6903 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app