Hi. A friend of mine was moving pictures from the internal sd of her phone to a external sd using Samsung's My Files app. But now they've seem to be gone, all that's left on the internal sd is some files she didn't move. However, on the external SD the folders (DCIM, Pictures, etc) are present but empty.
I can't seem to find the reason for those files to disappear. I saw in a post (http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3/help/tried-to-photo..) that they could be in lost.dir folder. I have to check that out since I don't have the phone nearby, but I would like to get some suggestions for my problem.
I don't know if the files could be in the internal SD but hidden. The same way in the external SD. Or the worst case scenario, lost at all.
a_lleras said:
Hi. A friend of mine was moving pictures from the internal sd of her phone to a external sd using Samsung's My Files app. But now they've seem to be gone, all that's left on the internal sd is some files she didn't move. However, on the external SD the folders (DCIM, Pictures, etc) are present but empty.
I can't seem to find the reason for those files to disappear. I saw in a post (http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3/help/tried-to-photo..) that they could be in lost.dir folder. I have to check that out since I don't have the phone nearby, but I would like to get some suggestions for my problem.
I don't know if the files could be in the internal SD but hidden. The same way in the external SD. Or the worst case scenario, lost at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. use a root file explorer like ES File Manager (free) and show all hidden files/folders
2. i think your friend didn´t copy the pictures, but delete them (worst case), so they aren´t there anymore.
Good luck
MJ
Related
Hello and thanks for reading. This being my first android im a bit confused as to how the storage works. From what I can tell I have Internal phone storage of 1.66GB , Internal SD of 13.03GB and external SD of 1.84GB. Now I know the External SD is the one i placed into the phone. I recently did a factory reset and re-formated the external sd.
The problem im having is when trying to place pictures, music, ect onto the external SD card there is no files whatsoever. So I have no idea where to place the files. Also with the internal sd and phone storage I have no idea what files are needed and what ones are left over from apps ect I previously uninstalled. So does anyone know what files are supposed to be on the external sd and what files must be on the internal/phone storage? Thanks in advance.
Ok so i just changed the camera option to save on SD card...took a random pic, and the DCIM file was created. Still would like to know what the default files are on the internal and phone storage if anyone can help. Thanks.
It doesn't really matter where you place them, media scanner will pick them up.
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?
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 There,
I updated yesterday to KitKat (Commercial And Journalists version).
Since then I noticed that on the external storage Android creates folders such as Android/data, Android/obb and fills them up with several root folders for apps though they are not used. Within those root folders KitKat creates then a files, cache or files/cache folder which remains empty. In the obb section the root folder remains empty. Same is with DCIM which I don't need as I use internal storage for my photos.
Our XZ has enough internal storage which I use for all such things and I don't need to fill up my sd cards, which usually have media on it. If I use that card later in another device such as in my car I have that silly folders appearing...
Is there any chance to get rid of those empty directories and prevent Android doing so as it was no issue up to 4.3?
Thx for help!
Best Regards,
Andreas
andiling said:
Hi There,
I updated yesterday to KitKat (Commercial And Journalists version).
Since then I noticed that on the external storage Android creates folders such as Android/data, Android/obb and fills them up with several root folders for apps though they are not used. Within those root folders KitKat creates then a files, cache or files/cache folder which remains empty. In the obb section the root folder remains empty. Same is with DCIM which I don't need as I use internal storage for my photos.
Our XZ has enough internal storage which I use for all such things and I don't need to fill up my sd cards, which usually have media on it. If I use that card later in another device such as in my car I have that silly folders appearing...
Is there any chance to get rid of those empty directories and prevent Android doing so as it was no issue up to 4.3?
Thx for help!
Best Regards,
Andreas
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try a game with obb file. And put the obb in external sd then install apk. If the game worked so you got free internal to external app made from nothing LOL
Sorry for bad EN
androidfreak70 said:
Try a game with obb file. And put the obb in external sd then install apk. If the game worked so you got free internal to external app made from nothing LOL
Sorry for bad EN
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting idea... but it does not work. The app fc and only starts once I moved the obb part from external to internal.
If anyone has more ideas. (-:
andiling said:
Interesting idea... but it does not work. The app fc and only starts once I moved the obb part from external to internal.
If anyone has more ideas. (-:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
App FC means the obb not found(sometimes the app say need to download bla bla...) So you should put them is internal memory.
If you installed any apps or games so Try delete all files and folders in android/data in your external card. After that if you see any of your apps is back as you installed them first time (means data wiped) so the apps data path is now in your external card
If you tried to put the OBB in the both external and internal and the app didnt worked so that means there is something wrong in your rom...
androidfreak70 said:
App FC means the obb not found(sometimes the app say need to download bla bla...) So you should put them is internal memory.
If you installed any apps or games so Try delete all files and folders in android/data in your external card. After that if you see any of your apps is back as you installed them first time (means data wiped) so the apps data path is now in your external card
If you tried to put the OBB in the both external and internal and the app didnt worked so that means there is something wrong in your rom...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
oh, it works if the obb is in internal memory... but not external. This was in reply to your idea.
If I delete all folders (and there are only folders but no files in it) the system recreates them by time...
andiling said:
oh, it works if the obb is in internal memory... but not external. This was in reply to your idea.
If I delete all folders (and there are only folders but no files in it) the system recreates them by time...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats really strange problem but flash your rom or try another ftf that all what i can say now:cyclops:
Any chance that you may have found a fix for this in the past year? My i9100 does the exact same thing and I've scoured the web to try and fix it. Cyanogenmod 12 / 5.1.1 and I have completely the same problem, every app creates an empty folder under Android/data or Android/obb on my external sd. For no discernible reason I can see.
Hi,
I'm feeling really stupid and I hope someone can make sense of this for me.
I've always been confused with the virtual paths that recent Android versions use in the file structure, and am having a hard backing up my SD card to my PC.
I actually want to copy this file:
/storage/emulated/0/AuthenticatorPlus/authplus.db
to my PC so I can copy it to a different device, but would like to a backup at the same time.
I inserted the card into my PC and copied everything onto the PC, only to discover that I couldn't find the folder or the file. Worse yet, I realized that while I have what looks like hundreds of folders on my SD card, I have exactly SEVEN in my backup folder on the PC.
And now I'm having a hard time matching up the files on the PC to those on the SD card. For example, I found a file in the Downloads folder on the PC. I found it on the SD card, but the path is given as
/storage/3737-3334/Downloads
Huh? Can someone make sense of this for me? How can I copy my authplus.db file to my PC, or better yet, back up my entire SD card and make the backup look like what I see on the card?
Thanks!
P.S. I just decided I'd try uploading the file to Dropbox and when I selected the SD card, Dropbox showed me the same folders I'm seeing on the PC! What am I looking at?
MagicSpeller said:
Hi,
I'm feeling really stupid and I hope someone can make sense of this for me.
I've always been confused with the virtual paths that recent Android versions use in the file structure, and am having a hard backing up my SD card to my PC.
I actually want to copy this file:
/storage/emulated/0/AuthenticatorPlus/authplus.db
to my PC so I can copy it to a different device, but would like to a backup at the same time.
I inserted the card into my PC and copied everything onto the PC, only to discover that I couldn't find the folder or the file. Worse yet, I realized that while I have what looks like hundreds of folders on my SD card, I have exactly SEVEN in my backup folder on the PC.
And now I'm having a hard time matching up the files on the PC to those on the SD card. For example, I found a file in the Downloads folder on the PC. I found it on the SD card, but the path is given as
/storage/3737-3334/Downloads
Huh? Can someone make sense of this for me? How can I copy my authplus.db file to my PC, or better yet, back up my entire SD card and make the backup look like what I see on the card?
Thanks!
P.S. I just decided I'd try uploading the file to Dropbox and when I selected the SD card, Dropbox showed me the same folders I'm seeing on the PC! What am I looking at?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's because /storage/emulated/0 is considered a virtual SD card meaning a fake SD card and this is usually where downloads go.. The other one /storage/3737-3334/ is the actual real SD card that you put in the phone yourself.. The SD cards name is 3737-3334 that's why it shows up like that.. Basically the system downloads everything on to the fake SD card and it's your choice to copy it and paste it into the real SD card because anything that's in the fake SD card will get erased if you have to factory reset or anything.. Both of them the fake SD card and real one should both have to close to the same folders in them like music, music pictures, pictures media, media etc. etc. You get it? You manually HAVE to move the files to your real SD card FIRST and then you can remove it and copy it.. Just highlight everything in the fake SD card and then copy it over to the real one it's really easy.
MrMike2182 said:
That's because /storage/emulated/0 is considered a virtual SD card meaning a fake SD card and this is usually where downloads go.. The other one /storage/3737-3334/ is the actual real SD card that you put in the phone yourself.. The SD cards name is 3737-3334 that's why it shows up like that.. Basically the system downloads everything on to the fake SD card and it's your choice to copy it and paste it into the real SD card because anything that's in the fake SD card will get erased if you have to factory reset or anything.. Both of them the fake SD card and real one should both have to close to the same folders in them like music, music pictures, pictures media, media etc. etc. You get it? You manually HAVE to move the files to your real SD card FIRST and then you can remove it and copy it.. Just highlight everything in the fake SD card and then copy it over to the real one it's really easy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow, I've seen that 3737-3334 before but I have never heard this explanation. I knew we were dealing with virtual paths but had didn't know I had access to a location. This makes sense. Thank you!