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 try to restore my apps with titanium backup.
But i discovered that i cant find any missing apps in my phone
Those apps' data are in my external sd card
So how can i set the sd card as main storage?
Assuming you only want to restore your backups, simply enter Titanium Backup, click Menu/Preferences/Backup Folder location, click Detect, click Whole Device, then choose the correct backup folder and click "Use the current folder".
After exiting preferences you should be able to restore your TBs.
As for the mounts, I've yet to see anyone successfully create a CM-like mounting scheme for stock ROMs.
Now there is all this new progress with unlocked Ativ S' can some clever hacker please allow apps to be installed direct to SD card. Maybe via a registry edit. This was done for the Microsoft Surface so may be possible in the Ativ S. The following is taken direct from my hints and tips thread for the Surface...
52. Install Apps Direct to SD Card
By default only media files can be installed to the SD cards and apps are installed to internal memory. If you have a 32gig tablet, you will realise internal memory is precious and limited. Free up internal memory by changing the location of where apps are installed. Run Regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Appx and change the location path of the PackageRoot key from C:\ProgramFiles\WindowsApps to say D:\WindowsApps (where D: is the drive letter of your SD card and WindowsApps is the name of a folder you created in your SD card). You may need to change permissions on the Appx registry folder so that you can edit the key. You can also change the app repository to another directory by changing the PackageRepository key in a similar manner.
PLEASE!!!
Currently, we can't even browse the SD card, much less install apps there. It's not even mounted at a visible path. I'll post if I find a way, though.
GoodDayToDie said:
Currently, we can't even browse the SD card, much less install apps there. It's not even mounted at a visible path. I'll post if I find a way, though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you sir! Good luck!
tboy2000 said:
Thank you sir! Good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looking at the fs directly, i'd say that everything is mounted through Mount point, like android/Linux do.
Don't be too sure it's a user-mode visible mount point, though. There's a special DLL in System32 for accessing the SD card. It may just be mounted on a different drive letter - -WOLF-'s hack accesses C:\ specifically, though it could access others - but there's no reference to an actual path for it anywhere that I can see.