What happens to internal SD when you insert an external SD card?
Why does it disappear?
When I go into 'My Files' after I've inserted an external SD card, I can now see the files on my SD card, but my internal SD is now missing!
Mysteriously though, when I remove my external SD card, my internal SD files become visible again in 'My Files' !!!
Yes, both internal and external SD are mounted in Settings.
TIA
in File Manager app
/sdcard/ = internal SD
/sdcard/sd/ = external SD
AllGamer said:
in File Manager app
/sdcard/ = internal SD
/sdcard/sd/ = external SD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe our phones are a little different?
When I don't have my external SD in the phone and I go into 'My Files'
I see at the top /sdcard/
and below that I see:
albumbthumbs
bluetooth
DCIM
Android
SD (internal)
When I have my external SD in the phone and I go into 'My Files'
I see at the top /sdcard/
and below that I see:
albumbthumbs
bluetooth
DCIM
Android
SD folder with a white symbol (indicating external SD card)
what if you navigate to /sdcard/sd/
what does it shows?
AllGamer said:
what if you navigate to /sdcard/sd/
what does it shows?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It shows all of the folders on my SD external card (nothing at all about internal SD card).
not sure what's the cause of the problem, but that is one weird bug indeed.
So when you go to /sdcard/ without an external SD card you find all the files on your internal SD card (albumbthumbs, bluetooth, DCIM, etc.)
And when you go to /sdcard/sd/ with an external SD card you find all the files on your external SD card? I don't see a problem.
You said without the external card you see "SD (internal)" in My Files, does it actually say internal or are you assuming? That should actually be external.
ShezUK said:
So when you go to /sdcard/ without an external SD card you find all the files on your internal SD card (albumbthumbs, bluetooth, DCIM, etc.)
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Click to collapse
Well let's first make an important distinction here.
There appears to be an internal SD card section that is *separate* from another part of the phone's memory.
So *without* the external card in the phone I have the following at /sdcard/
-bluetooth
-albumthumbs
-sd (internal) (with a bunch of test files that I placed here)
-DCIM
-Android
You seem to be lumping all of the files that are not on the external SD card as 'sd internal'. This is not the case!
Now, when I place the external SD card back in the phone and go back to /sdcard/, this is what I see:
-bluetooth
-albumthumbs
-DCIM
-Android
-sd (white marker external, with all of its subfolders and files)
And when you go to /sdcard/sd/ with an external SD card you find all the files on your external SD card? I don't see a problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct. See above, there is a problem. My SD internal is now gone (with the test files that I placed there).
You said without the external card you see "SD (internal)" in My Files, does it actually say internal or are you assuming? That should actually be external.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It simply says 'sd'. I know for a fact that it is 'sd internal' because of the test files that I placed there, and because there is no little white icon next to the sd folder.
When I tap on this sd icon I see the test files and I don't see any of my 'SD external' folders/files.
i was always under the impression that the the place where the
-bluetooth
-albumthumbs
-DCIM
-Android
folders IS the internal SD card and the SD card folder shown in there is the external?
I'm assuming i've been incorrect all this time then?
makamiso said:
i was always under the impression that the the place where the
-bluetooth
-albumthumbs
-DCIM
-Android
folders IS the internal SD card and the SD card folder shown in there is the external?
I'm assuming i've been incorrect all this time then?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes by all indications you have been incorrect.
Let's put it this way. If someone paid an Android OS programmer to develop the most confusing way to set up the SD/file system on this phone, they couldn't have come up with something more complicated than what we have.
I just tried out some new experiments, but before I get into them, I notice in your example above you have left out the 'sd folder' under /sdcard/. Is this because you can't see it listed with the other folders listed above?
How big is your internal memory and is your internal SD card mounted?
Here's my latest experiments:
I went into settings/sd card and phone storage/ and Unmounted my External sd card.
Then I went into 'My Files' and this was the list under /sdcard/
-00001.vcf (a backup of my phone contacts)
/bluetooth
/albumthumbs
/sd (in here are some of my test files)
/DCIM
/Android
I couldn't see my external SD card because I unmounted it, but I COULD see my internal /sd folder now (mentioned above).
Next I went back to settings/sd card and phone storage/ and Unmounted my Internal SD card. It's Interesting to note that the message on the front notification panel said "Internal SD card safe to remove; The internal SD card can now be safely removed" !!!! Yeah right!
Next we go into My Files and it says "Your phone does not have a SD card inserted. So even though I believe the internal SD section is separate from the other phone storage memory (DCIM, Android etc.) they are still tied together so that when you Unmount the 'internal SD card' you are unmounting both of them at the same time.
Next I went back to settings/sd card and phone storage/ and Mounted my External sd card and left my Internal SD unmounted.
But before I could do that I had to physically remove the SD card from the phone and re-insert it! The phone will not allow you to Mount the external SD card unless you pull it from the machine (unlike the internal SD card).
Or should I say I tried to Mount my external SD card. Get this!!!
After I removed and then re-inserted the card and went back to the home screen there was a message on the front notification panel that said "Can not mount External SD card; Mount point absent or incorrect. Please unplug USB".
!!! Holy cow. USB! I haven't been able to get my USB to connect to my computer. What's the deal now??? There is nothing plugged into the USB!!!
Back to "My Files'. "Your phone does not have a SD card inserted" Yeah right.
Back to settings, sd card and phone storage/ and Mounted my internal SD card.
Guess what happened on this same screen when I mounted my internal SD?
Yes the Internal SD card said mounted, but what about the External SD card?
It was now mounted too!!!
OK back to 'My Files'. What do you predict will show? I know what I'm betting on.
You guessed it. Back to square one. Only the External SD card and its files are showing:
/albumthumbs
-00001.vcf (another backup of my phone contacts)
/bluetooth
/DCIM
/Android
/sd (with WHITE icon, and all of my subfolders and files inside)
Now you go figure this one out!
The folders layout on sgs makes PERFECT sense. Before the sgs there was no other phone that had built in storage of 8-16gigs so a external card would be named /sd card/ and apps where written to expect that folder if they ever needed to access external cards. Now along comes sgs with its built in mem, rather screw up all the apps out already they was smart enough just to do a soft folder link from /dev/whateverhardware/ to /sd card/sd/ and save everyone trouble. So if you dont have a card inside probe you are actualy viewing a folder called sd but when system sees the external card the folder turns into the ext card and links it while the original sd folder goes hiding. Your basic linux file handling knowledge would have told you. Simple
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ickyboo said:
... Now along comes sgs with its built in mem, rather screw up all the apps out already they was smart enough just to do a soft folder link from /dev/whateverhardware/ to /sd card/sd/ and save everyone trouble. So if you dont have a card inside probe you are actualy viewing a folder called sd but when system sees the external card the folder turns into the ext card and links it while the original sd folder goes hiding. Your basic linux file handling knowledge would have told you. Simple
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You obviously have a lot more experience with this OS than I do and I think you are pretty close to on the money. There's just one or two things I still don't understand though.
For fun and to see if I could get to the heart of this, I re-named the sd folder (when I didn't have my external Sd card inserted) to 'sd-internal'.
And soon after that (not immediately), and new folder popped up on its own, called 'sd'. Interesting.
Then later when I re-inserted my external sd card, I could now (for the first time) see the sd-internal folder (with my test files inside) BUT.... the new 'sd' folder was again hidden!
So I still don't quite understand what's happening.
Also, when you go into Phone/SD card storage you see the sizes of internal SD, external SD and phone memory. For me it's approx. internal-6G, external-8G, phone-2G.
So please, besides explaining why the SD internal comes and goes, can you explain what is considered 'internal SD' (the 6G of space) and where this storage space is? Is it ANDROID + DCIM + other + SD, or is it just 'SD' or ???
TIA
well when you're doing an update.zip, people say put it on the root of your internal sd card. Which is the screen you go into when going into astro or my files. I mean that whole directory is called /sdcard, that IS your internal SD card.
I have no damn idea what the SD folder is before you put an actual external sd card in as that folder then has that little white sd card icon on it indicating that its the external card. I believe the folder beforehand is just a placeholder or something similar. Basically when you want to put stuff on your internal, you put it in your main folder where stuff like the "Download" folder and alike is. At least thats what i do.
makamiso said:
well when you're doing an update.zip, people say put it on the root of your internal sd card. Which is the screen you go into when going into astro or my files. I mean that whole directory is called /sdcard, that IS your internal SD card.
I have no damn idea what the SD folder is before you put an actual external sd card in as that folder then has that little white sd card icon on it indicating that its the external card. I believe the folder beforehand is just a placeholder or something similar. Basically when you want to put stuff on your internal, you put it in your main folder where stuff like the "Download" folder and alike is. At least thats what i do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Makamiso I believe you've got it!
After much deliberation I believe we have solved the Internal SD card puzzle/mystery.
Here's how I see it.
As you said, that SD folder that you see inside the /sdcard/ is simply a placeholder, nothing more (actually it is a little more).
That was my mistake!
When I first saw it, I thought IT was the entire Internal SD card.
So when I had some files that I wanted to transfer to the phone that's the place I logically thought I should place them in!
It ALLOWED me to place files inside it! Therefore it's not simply a placeholder.
And when I inserted my external SD card into the phone, the 'SD' placeholder folder turned into the external SD folder (the only difference was the white icon next to it).
BUT, the files that I had placed into the 'placeholder' SD folder were gone!
Couldn't access them.
Later I renamed the 'sd' folder to sd-internal (I know it's a bad choice of name now) and when I did this a new sd folder was created automatically (the new placeholder).
NOW when I had my external SD card inserted, I could access the files in the 'sd-internal' folder.
So to summarize;
-the /sdcard/ IS the Internal SD card.
-the sd folder is a dummy/placeholder folder used simply to confuse users like us.
-when you insert an external sd card, the sd folder becomes a real folder (and has a white icon next to it).
-DON'T be tricked like me and place any files inside the SD folder (when you don't have an external card in the phone!!!)
*This last paragraph should become a sticky for new users!
I really have no idea how to fix this.
I have the EXACT problem.
Hi,
What would be making the files on my external SD invisible to my phone?
When I was running stock 2.1 JH7 on my Captivate I was able to access files on my 16gb class 2 external SD card just fine.
However after flashing Cognition 3.04 and then Perception I am unable to see any of the files on the external SD card. When I browse to /sdcard/sd the file browser reports accurate memory stats (3.67 gb used) but say no files. Via USB I'm able to mount both internal and external SD cards and perform file management via my PC (such as copying files from one internal to external and vice versa).
I have removed the external SD card from my phone and formatted it fat32 and copied files back onto it and reinstalled in my phone and still can't see any files on the card from the phone.
Shot in the dark... Is there an issue with the lagfix file system and the fat32 on the external sd?
Any suggestions would be appreciated!
thanks,
Fred
check /sd/external_sd
This happened to me just once in my last 50 flashes....only thing I did was reflash and it started working. Sorry this doesn't help since you already flashed again and still have the issue.
psyopstt said:
check /sd/external_sd
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That led me to the right spot. On my phone my external SD is at:
/sdcard/external_sd
Where /sdcard/ is the internal SD card
What then is /sdcard/sd ? This is where I looked before for external SD data... does the path change with various ROMs?
think they changed the mount points of the external sd from 2.1 and 2.2 around a bit
in 2.1 the external is /sdcard/sd
in 2.2 its /sdcard/external_sd
psyopstt said:
think they changed the mount points of the external sd from 2.1 and 2.2 around a bit
in 2.1 the external is /sdcard/sd
in 2.2 its /sdcard/external_sd
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks again.
/sdcard/sd is still on my system but I can't see any files. Oh well.
yeah you will still see a /sdcard/sd folder in your explorer but that /sdcard/sd is not pointing to your external sd card after the froyo update. My guess is that they made a directory /sdcard/sd for backwards compatibility with older apps.
Hi
Can anyone clarify the layout of storage on the SGN?
I have a 16GB removable SD card in the Note.
In Root Explorer I can see /SDCARD, beneath which I have /SDCARD/external_sd and /SDCARD/usbStorage. This structure is visible as drive F: on my PC when storage is connected to PC.
I also see a drive G: which appears to be mapped to /mnt/sdcard/external_sd.
Can you tell me which is the removable SD card and which is internal phone memory?
Is the 'external_sd' label being used for two different places?
As you can tell, I'm not an expert in UNIX-style folder allocations!
Thanks.
SD card is internal memory
SD card/Ext SD card is your ext memory card
SD card/USB storage is device attached with OTG cable
Thanks - that helps hugely!
Disregard the rest of this I've answered my own question!
Hi guys,
I tried partitioning my external sd card to linux swap, and something must have gone wrong. Now,a notification on my Galaxy S reads "Damaged SD card - SD card damaged. You may have to reformat it." This was the first thing I tried, but the Internal SD is formatted instead when I try. (Rom bug?). When i mount my phone via USB, only the formatted (damnit) internal SD is found.
I'm currently on TiramiSlim (best rom!!) with Devil 0.94. If you have any help it would be appreciated, any further questions don't hesitate!
yahoo907
In first i think that partition ext sd card is useless but it's my opinion.
In fact if you want to recover your ext sd i advise you to reformat your sd card with the windows disk utility: you select all volumes, delete them and recreate a new one with ntfs format (android will do his work when you'll insert your sd in the device).
If it doesn't work try to make the same but with a Linux system (Linux is powerful ^^).
Please reply me your results.
Have you tried to format the SD card with an SD Adapter & then make sure that USB debug is enabled on the device.
I had this issue.
Sometimes it shows that the card is damaged & then it reads it later on!
I plugged the Card into my Digi-Cam Formatted it.
Changed the Rom.
Now it works.
Anyways safely remove the drive when plugged into a computer!
i don't have an sd-card adapter unfortunately, the only way i can plug it in is via my phone. I cannot seem to find a disk utility on windows that will read the external sd, i can only find the internal from my computer.
i will try and get hold of an sd-adapter and let you know if it works
fixed the problem!
yahoo907 said:
fixed the problem!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how did you fix the problem?
My phone recognizes the internal storage but i keep getting "sd card is damaged, try reformatting it" in the notification bar.
when I click on format, it says "unmounting sd card" but nothing happens.
Thanks,
Luke
*edit.. nvm.
I put my SD card in my old x10 and in settings/storage I erased my SD card.
Works fine now
I have just installed the official CM10 nightly from http://download.cyanogenmod.com/?device=p990
First of all used this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1975274
Took me a while to find the external sd card, it is listed as storage/sdcard1 but I can't access any internal sd card, I assumed it would be listed as storage/sdcard0 but clicking that just gives me an empty folder.
When I attach the phone to the PC only the external sd card shows up. CWM-recovery can't mount the sd card either (I have tried with CWM6 and CWM5).
I tried mounting the sd card from "settings-device-storage" and it starts to do it and then stops.
I could maybe live with this but I use Sygic for a satnav and that is telling me there is no sd card present, so I can't use it.
edit
it's ok now http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=34086129&postcount=30