Help:: Milestone- SD card always not reading - Motorola Droid and Milestone General

I have a month old Milestone (GSM) which replaced my HTC Diamond. I did an OTA update to 2.1 update1 (SCHOLS_U2_02.36.0 build). Phone came preinstalled with an 8GB MicroSD card.
I have a major problem now: the SD card almost never works. Neither does any app which needs the sd card. "Sd card & Storage" settings does not open and hangs till it is force closed. It is detected on booting up the phone (Initializing SD card), but after that invariably turns to "sd card unexpectedly removed" if I try to access it (through File Manager/Settings/ASTRO/anything else).
System occasionally asks me to format the sd card saying "corrupted sd card", i have done it only once. Every other time I turn the phone off, remove battery & sd card, reinsert both and start the phone back up. The boot up recongnizes the SD card again, but the whole cycle repeats if i try to access the sd card or use an app that requires sd card functionality.
Also, connecting the phone to my laptop and trying to read the card also results in "SD card removed unexpectedly" and the laptop hangs if I try to enter the drive.
I have not tested a different MicroSD card (not possible to for some time). I have seen many instances of this problem elsewhere on the internet, and none seem to have any resolution. XDA is my last hope.
Please help.
PS: Maybe it's related, but the Camera doesn't work either. When accessed, the camera (and the camcorder) just show up as black screens and nothing else (no menu, no settings). It has to be force closed each time.

I have a very similar experience. The funny part is the card is mounted, but not visible.
Let me explain :
1. If i try any generic app which tries to access the SD card, it says it's not there.
2. Settings>SD card & phone storage says Unavailable to everything, like if the card is not mounted.
3. Fun starts now - Ghost Commander has no problem reading and opening directories and files on the SD card.
4. if i connect the phone to computer via "Charge only" option, i have no problems to view the SD card contects via "adb shell", "ls /sdcard" commands.
I suspect that this is another of the superb Motorola firmware updates, where at least 1 thing must break, or it wouldn't be Motorola Milestone firmware.

Same here. I only have a milestone since a few days, did you guys have that problem before the latest software patch already?
At least i know now that it is not my sdcard that makes problems.. seem to be a common bug

Just wanted to add that I'm having the same problem on my Milestone running the 2_02.36 build for Singapore.
I've noticed that Astro can still see the SD card and all the 3rd party apps that write to the SD card work fine as well. It's only the built-in Android apps (Camera, Settings etc.) that don't work.

It is a well known problem
I've been researching the last 2 days and found tons of complaints about the SDCard problems, there are a few lac fixes out there, but this is where the real problem starts.
Since my SCCard unpredictable unmounts or corrputs itself constantly, it is not even possible to install open recovery because after the reboot, the sdcard causes some problems that interrupt the process of a clean install (started with the exploit downgrade). And most fixes that "might" work, require Open recovery due they are scripted for that purpose and also enable a "roll-back" this way.
However, there is a solution to it, but since Motorola Europe has announced that from Ocober 18.th they begin with the froyo rollout, I'll wait.
Anybody that still wants to give it a shot, here's how I'd go for it:
- Root the milestone with the 1-click-rooting tool
- Install a console and su as root
- push the files via adb to the sdcard and execute the according how they are set up in the .sh

Ok, here's my fix: Downgrade to 2.0, not with the vulnerability sbf, but simply download bootloader and rom from here: http://and-developers.com/sbf
Fire up RSD Lite, start phone and press d-pad, once you're there, connect phone, downgrade bootloader and os.
There are differend sbf: System and non-system. The ones that are not system files, will completely restore your phone to original. I've chosen that option, now it works flawless, no missing features or apps, except the Xing app, which i couldn't care less.

In my case the card comes back after few reboots and then keeps working until next reboot, so if it comes back i try not to run off the battery .

This was not the case with the previous software version. This thing started after the software update.
Its effing annoying because half the functionality of the phone goes for toss if the sd card is not reading!

I have tested all "official" releases for the milestone. The only one that does a good job is 2.0. No battery drain, no sdcard unmount or whatever. Of course i also checked out the G.O.T. 2.2.1 Froyo.. some awesome performance increase, but then again, if i can't get of the house without carrying my charger, because within less than 8 hours its empty, it is simply not ment as an everyday phone. So i rather stick with the older, but solid version, which btw. is a common thing in IT anyway.. trying to get of this "version-junkie" trip ;-)

MenoDev said:
I have tested all "official" releases for the milestone. The only one that does a good job is 2.0. No battery drain, no sdcard unmount or whatever. Of course i also checked out the G.O.T. 2.2.1 Froyo.. some awesome performance increase, but then again, if i can't get of the house without carrying my charger, because within less than 8 hours its empty, it is simply not ment as an everyday phone. So i rather stick with the older, but solid version, which btw. is a common thing in IT anyway.. trying to get of this "version-junkie" trip ;-)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FYI, 2.0 has a problem of its own too - the camera autofocus bug.

No doubt about that. Ans release bug free? I still like the os for the fact tust its young and "beta"...with a great potential. (My personal opinion)
Sent from my Milestone using XDA App

Hey Guys,
I myself have been having this issue ever since the latest update. Lets see, i got this phone in April this year and i have been having a lot of problems with the phone. The music player and camera auto-focus bug in 2.0, for instance, and the service centre in Singapore are not helpful at all till around August when they actually employs a Manager. Customer service picked up though after that and finally in Oct, after i called up Starhub and Motorola to scr*w them up, they are willing to exchange my milestone with a new one and i updated it to SHOLS_U2_02.36.2 and thats when my sd card problem started.
So 3 weeks later, yesterday, i had enough of the sd card problem. The problem just keeps getting worse. I almost wanted to slam my phone. Back to what i tried, I have tried to restore to factory settings, change my sd card (even though i doubt its the problem), and finally found the fix.
I flash my phone with Vulnerable Recovery for my bootloader, used RSD to downgrade my sbf to SHOLS_U2_02.36.0 and it worked. Oh and for those who doesn't want to lose any data, use the service version. I used the service version and it is working fine for almost a day now. No sd card unexpectedly removed, or any error message pertaining to sd card.
This is going to be my last Motorola phone ever. Sorry about the long post =X

Related

How to perform a full / clean format with custom rom

Hi,
I'm new to Android and SGS is my first android phone. I got it a week ago and love it, not just the phone but also the OS compare to what iphone offers. so please excuse if I ask something silly.
Poping in a 8GB sdcard for and for the first time I see that Android / SGS does media scanning on the internal SD and external card (which I've never seen with Iphone). SGS informed me to format the external SD and I did, but for the next couple boots, it asked me the same thing again. However to me 16GB is more than what I need so I decided to remove the external to save some boot time and not to see the annoying formatting notification.
Kies lets me update to JM3, and then I found XDA and this forum custom roms. Tempting and immediately go straight from JM3 to JM5 using ODIN and Hackalair (update.zip), apply 1clicklagfix by Ryanz.
My first experience with the custom room was fast, very impressive but I figure out there's no Google voice search with Hackalair as he's removed most of the bloatwares from the origin package. Trying the external SD again to see if it's any better. It's sorta worse, the phone seem not to recognize the external SD card anymore, and then luckier after couple boots, the phone notifies me to format the card and never be able to complete the task.
I found Samset 1.9f, download it and update.zip from Hackalair to Samset, I got 2082 quadrant score, not sure if it's fast but compare to the chart it shows me, this is twice faster than the original SGS score. Bad thing, still no luck with the external SD card and no Samsung AP app (not sure if samset removed it)
So my question is this the phone hardware problem? Knowing that I have no problem using this card on my Blackberry. I've got the phone and have no issue to format & reinstall the ROM, is there anyway to do a proper format on the internal SD card and install the custom rom with google voice + Samsung AP app (i need these 2) and wonder if doing so will help me fix the thing.
This is off topic a little but I get used to Iphone's app that vibrate the phone when the outgoing call picked up. Can we have something similar with SGS? I also want to find an app that allow me to map a hotkey to compose SMS (i can press volume up on iphone to have a new sms compose screeen). Beside this, I found Android is more like a PC to me than iphone in many ways.
Thanks for the help guys.

SD doesn't always detect and issues installing apps

Guys, I've been searching for the last couple of weeks for solutions to what I believe is a unique problem with N1, so here I am ...
Basic details of NI:
Mod: Cyanogen 6.0.0
Kernel: 2.6.34.5
Baseband: 5.08
Build: FRF91
Issue number 1: Intermittent detection of SDcard.
A few weeks ago the N1 was not detecting my SDcard. I searched the web and tried a number of solutions. What has worked for me is to shut down, reseat the SDcard and hope for the best. Sometimes this would work after a couple of attempts other times I'd try this over days...
So I decide to buy a new card. Kingston 16gb SDHC. I format this for FAT32 copy my files across and pop it in. It gets detected, but once again intermittently, though it is detected after a shutdown and reseat more often than the previous card.
Now here is the uniqueness of my issue which I haven't been able to find in other places.
Even is the card is detected by the system and loads all the applications that are installed on it, if I go to 'manage applications' and select an application the 'total', 'application' and 'data' fields under storage show "computing..." and this doesn't change no mater how long I leave it. This is also the case for 'cache'.
Also, if I go to 'sd card and phone storage' it show the total space and available space no problems, but if I try to unmount it stalls then crashes out of settings.
I have no trouble reading either card on my Windows 7 machine.
Does anyone have any ideas on this particular issue?
Issue number 2 is that I can't update my apps ... it always gets stuck on 'installing ...'. I suspect however that if I sort out issue 1, issue 2 will also be solved.
Any help is much appreciated, as I'm rather at my wits end...
Ok, so an update on this. I've done a bit more reading, and discovered that my problem isn't so unique after all. Have tried a number of things, but nothing has worked perfectly for me yet.
I've wiped the card, reformated and the phone now detects it.
When I copy across all the files again the card stops being detected again.
So then I delete everything but the .android_secure folder and it still doesn't detect.
Does anyone know what app could be causing this?
I've seen some success by formatting the SD with a specific PC based program. Formatting from the phone gives mixed results.
Unfortunately, I can't remember the name, so you'll have to search...
If I remember, I'll post back...
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
Try SD Formatter.
http://www.sdcard.org/consumers/formatter_3/
So after tinkering around with this issue a little bit, I ended up deleting the .android_secure folder.
After this everything seemed to work again. I could install apps and the card was being detected just fine.
Now, a couple of weeks later, I am having the same issues and it is again driving me nuts.
Does anyone have an idea of what the app is that is causing this problem?
I have the same problem since yesterday!
Btw I have rooted stock Froyo FRG83D, locked bootloader.
I think the app I installed yesterday was SetCPU. I don't know if the problem appeared because of that..
My apps installed on the SD Card are not recognized but I can see my photos in the Gallery which are stored on the SD Card as well! WTH!
Also I cannot install anything from the market..
Any solutions anyone?!?
I think what is screwing up the apps is using CM's ability to move apps to the SD card.
I have reinstalled all the apps using Titanium and have only moved those that you can natively. Will see how this goes.

My refurbished N1 randomly reboots and loses SD Card

My orignal N1 had problems with a pink tinge on all photos, erratic touch (surprise!) and very slow wifi speed (it could take up to 30s to load a page from a high speed wifi connection).
I finally sick of this and so called HTC and requested a RMA. Since Ididn't want to be without my phone I chose the option where they send you a refurb, put a hold on your CC and wait for you to send one back.
Anyway got the replacement phone, put the SIM card and SD card in and sync'ed it back with Google. Most of the apps installed okay and there was a firmware push to 2.2.1 [As an aside, I lost data on most of my apps so the Google sync doesn't seem to sync the data in applications]
The new phone seemed to work better with faster browsing and hardly a trace of the pink tinge but now randomly reboots. What's worse is when it reboots, it goes into a reboot loop and the only way out is to remove the battery.
Also when it reboots, often it cannot find the SD Card and I have to reboot again.
Finally when I move apps from Phone memory to the SD Card I get a message error in moving application (or words to that effect) but I can try again and it works. The SD Card is fine and I have done a CHKDSK under Windows to make sure it has no errors.
So I called up HTC and they are going to send yet another one. I sure hope this one works okay else yet another RMA.
What sort of QA do HTC do anyway?
Just for s---s and giggles did you try backing up sd card, reformatting with sdformatter outside the phone then copying data back onto card. If you do use full erase option on sd formatter.
Of course, if you have an ext you will need to repartition before copying data back to card.
No because just powering the phone off and on again gets the card back. So it's unlikely the card is faulty.
Just a thought--these phones don't seem to do the logical
Maybe I will crack open my Nexus S and try that out instead
There ya go!
Don't look for an sd card though

Another HD7 SD Card Issue

My unbranded htc hd7 has been working perfectly for a couple of weeks now, but recently started to have problems. I switched it on after changing sim cards (which i believe i did perfectly, didnt drop or do anything wrong) and it then says..."storage card cannot be read", not allowing me to go any further. I then try to hard reset the phone, which gets the phone to start up with no problem, but now says it only has 12.5mb of storage available (my sd is 16GB, and is the same one issued with the phone).
I've already counted my losses with the stuff i had on it and i'm willing to format the SD card if it means fixing this issue. But Is there a way to fix this via bootloader or something else that will not void my warranty by me having to physically dissasemble it. Your input is very very much appreciated...
There is an option in Zune which lets you wipe all your data on the sd card:
Settings\Phone\Synchronization Options
Nah that didnt seem to work. When i click on erase, it erases the 12.5mb doesnt seem to find the sd card
Sounds like the SD card has become unseated or corrupt somehow
Let me know if you find a way of formatting the SD card without removing it.
Similar Problem
Markmutai said:
My unbranded htc hd7 has been working perfectly for a couple of weeks now, but recently started to have problems. I switched it on after changing sim cards (which i believe i did perfectly, didnt drop or do anything wrong) and it then says..."storage card cannot be read", not allowing me to go any further. I then try to hard reset the phone, which gets the phone to start up with no problem, but now says it only has 12.5mb of storage available (my sd is 16GB, and is the same one issued with the phone).
I've already counted my losses with the stuff i had on it and i'm willing to format the SD card if it means fixing this issue. But Is there a way to fix this via bootloader or something else that will not void my warranty by me having to physically dissasemble it. Your input is very very much appreciated...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
even im facing similar problem with an additional issue of sim error. i have gone ahead with replacing the sd card but still the problem exist.... i will be great full if any one in this forum could help me in fixing this issue......
Phone HTC HD7 - Tmobile
loomx said:
Sounds like the SD card has become unseated or corrupt somehow
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your input.
I suspected the same thing, so i removed the back cover and the battery, then used a "caveman fixing tactic" of banging the bottom part of my phone with my hand (didnt want to damage it by hitting it with something harder and again didnt want to open it), and its working. Tried banging it again after that to see if it will stop working again but seems to be fine now.
I know this is just a minor (silly) fix and will go to htc to complain about this fault and see if its loose in there because i've never hit the phone hard before this (besides hitting on my hand of course, which is the first and last time i'm doing it) and nor have i ever dropped it. I still havent ruled out the possibility of a faulty sd card, or an error that seems to be appearing with others after the recent NoDo Update.
hd7 sd card issue
I have exactly same issue, the first time (from new) i turned on it did see the sd card and then i inserted a SIM and did a reset and now it just reports 12.5Mb memory always. I have opened it, voiding warranty to remove the 16gig sandisk card and re-insert it many times but still doesn't see it and yet never reports any error like 'cannot detect sd card'. Next i flashed from O2 to a unbranded ROM (from this forum) and still the same and now doesn't even detects the SIM! Next i tried a new 1gig sandisk card.. still does see it (not sure format is required for wp7).. the orignal 16gig card cannot be read or formated on a PC tried using a pc dos format, low level format, sd format programs but pc never assigns drive letter to it.. so hd7 is scrap unless someone can suggest something to resolve.. i suspect the SD card interface from phone is faulty.. gona try the banging on table method next and hope is smashes to bits put it out of its misery!
Had the same issue with my phone. now stuck in bootloader mode. now have given up and using lg optimus one.
Mine is doing the same thing only showing 12mb even with the stock sd card. Did anyone ever get this fixed?
What version of WP do you guys are on? I noticed after each update, the system seems to grab more space on the card. That said, there is a option in Zune settings to change the available storage via slider, may be you have got that set to 12gb somehow... May be try to change it and c what happens then. I personally don't have this problem, even after modifying my hd7 so I can swap sd cards as needed (hard reset required but kind of useful)
Sent from my HD7 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App
I modded my hd7, too. But I never had this problem.
Did you mod with goldcard method or hspal/rspal???
the sdcard has password on it and can only be read through the phone unless you somehow did something to file system and lost the password than you can fix it.
Fix 12 MB
it fix my sd
enjoy your HD7
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1263347&page=6

[Q] Reboot constantly when External SD is in. Logging Possible?

Hello
Recently upgraded my Tab to Overcome 4.1.0.0. Upgrade went fine. Everything also was running fine. When I restore everything to the external SD the Tab seems to go into a cycle of rebooting where tab will come up, you can get in, it runs slow but eventually reboots. If I take the external card out it runs fine. I have formatted the card a couple times and it seems to format fine. Is there a way to turn on some sort of permanent logging to see what is occuring just before the tab reboots.
Ric
Grab a different card and try it first.
Sent from my GT-P1000 using XDA App
Don't Think it was the card
Just did a wipe and load of my tab. Loaded cm9 ICS card is in there mind you nothing on it yet but the tab is not rebooting. Unless it is just a certain sector or that I had too much data on it somehow as dumb as that sounds. Still no real answer though. Thanks for the help though.
Ric
bad sdcard can be a real problem.
A new one isn't costing that much, or just grab any from your old phone, even a 2GB one, and try.
you side-tracked it by loading ICS.
The solution could be real.
For anyone arriving here due to a search, the problem is not related to a bad SD card. I had this same problem and took it as an excuse to upgrade to a new Class 10 Lexar. That didn't fix the problem. It's apparently also not related to no-wipe vs wipe; I did a full wipe and restore, and that didn't fix the problem. I eventually tracked the problem down specifically to having apps moved to the SD card.
Overcome 4.1.0 is apparently *really* sensitive to having a lot of apps moved to SD. With no apps on the SD card, it appears to be perfectly stable. It may be possible to have one or two on the SD card without it breaking; I haven't found the exact limit. I do remember that the Kratos edition of Overcome was also a little glitchy with a lot of apps moved to SD, but mostly in that icons wouldn't load properly, not that the system always rebooted.
The fastest fix (which won't require a wipe but WILL require good backups, hope you've been using Titanium Backup regularly) is to drop the external SD card into your computer and delete the ".android_secure" directory. This will require you to restore from backup any of your apps you moved to SD. Unfortunately, if you're like me, only about half of them will fit, so you now get to be choosy (it might be time for some spring cleaning anyway), or start looking for another ROM, as the maintainer of this one has moved on to other things and there will be no further fixes coming.

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