I have several retired Windows Phone devices from family and friends, screen cracked, battery inflated, etc. Now most of their owners have moved on, and the parts don't even look useful anymore, except for one part: the internal storage. I want to harvest the SD cards from a mix of Windows Phone 7 / Windows Phone 8 / 8.1 devices.
I know that with Windows Phone 7, the file system was LOCKED in a way that not many card readers / devices even recognized. Taking an internal SD card out of a damaged Windows Phone 7 device gives a perfectly normal looking 16GB class 4 microSD card... that can not be accessed, erased, deleted, nuked, formatted, or used, by anything. I've tried countless friends phones, tablets, computers, readers, UBCD, DBAN, utilities, tools, you name it. I have also looked high and low, and have never seen one of the fabled Nokia devices in the wild that can gently format these locked-up microSD cards.
My question for this forum is does Windows Phone 8 also lock the internal SD card filesystem in the same way that WP7 did? Can I extract and harvest the internal 32GB SD cards of some Lumia 920s for use in other devices? I know that 32GB microSD cards are cheap, but that's not the point. I just don't like to see these 32 GB cards go to waste. I'm hoping that I can just take a hammer to my Lumia 920s and pry out the SD card, format it with a card reader, then drop it into my 1520, my tablet, my wife's Galaxy Note 2, etc for extra storage.
A random thought I had was: could it possibly help if I subscribe my company email to the Lumia 920 before smashing it? My company's policy enforces full-disk encryption. I'm curious if the full-disk encryption will help the card be "formattable" as I definitely won't care about the data that's contained on the card. I don't have any dev-unlocked windows phones, and have never sideloaded anything, but I would be open to it if I could get these SD cards to be useable. Some of the WP8 devices turn on and could possibly be manipulated, some can not.
Any help is appreciated!
P.S. - I also have a stash of 16GB SD cards from WP7 phones that I have almost given up on using, but if someone has knowledge about wiping those, I would love to hear it. I have no working WP7 phones, so the solution can't be from any app sideloading.
wp 7 cards can be formatted with a few old Nokias : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1242071
wp8 cards aren't looked at all , you can just pull them out and use ( not even the need to format them.
ceesheim said:
wp 7 cards can be formatted with a few old Nokias : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1242071
wp8 cards aren't looked at all , you can just pull them out and use ( not even the need to format them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the help, ceesheim.
Just to provide an update on this, in case anyone else gets a similar idea. So far I've taken apart a Verizon HTC 8X, and a Nokia Lumia 920, and neither of them had internal MicroSD cards. Both had eMMC implementations, which mean they are not removable. My Nokia Lumia 920 had a Toshiba THGBM5G8A4JBAIM which is a 32GB eMMC chip.
The lesson here is that microSD cards are cheap, and harvesting them from old phones is not worth it!
Related
This forum is for chat about cool HD7 accessories
Micro Sd Card Slot
Hi, I no some windows phone 7, phone have micro sd card slots but it was not confirmed that the HD7 has it. Do you know anything??
I believe it won't come with and SD Card slot.
You can't use your own SD cards with Windows Phone 7. So even if the Phones have something like a reachable slot, it's only made so OEMs can equip the phone with larger pre-built cards.
Chrissicom said:
You can't use your own SD cards with Windows Phone 7. So even if the Phones have something like a reachable slot, it's only made so OEMs can equip the phone with larger pre-built cards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not true. WP7 phones equipped with a SD card slot can be upgraded to a bigger card. BUT you will need to hard reset the phone in order to get the new card recognised.
There are several sites out there reporting this.
http://wmpoweruser.com/htc-hd7-microsd-slot-exposed/
there seems to be a card slot under the bit of plastic on the back - the lower half of the battery cover section, the part with hd7 and windows phone written on it - but you need to take out a bunch of screws and one of them has a void sticker on it - so guessing it voids the warranty if you do
A little warning :
after you upgraded your phone with a new sd card you can't use that card any-more ad this time (your pc won't recognize it and you can not format it to )
This may just be a case of me being genuinely unlucky in my purchases but humour me anyway!
Like you lot I have an SGS and with all the recent mods regarding sound I like to use it as my mp3 player, so buying a micro sd card for additional storage was a must.
I had a spare 4gb class 2 card lying around so I've been using that for some months. Finally decided to upgrade to a more meaningful 16gb class 4 card.
Ordered one off Amazon through a seller. As soon as I put the card in the phone, it refused to recognise it but my PC, digital camera, old blackberry 9000 and n95 saw it just fine. So I formatted the card in the pc using the downloadable SD Card formatter as some googling suggested this might return the card to a working state. After that the phone saw a 16gb card, so I copied some music onto it, it worked for about 30 mins and then the card died totally. Upon reinserting it into the pc, windows only saw an 8mb card in RAW format and nothing I've done since has recovered the card. Card was dead.
Anyway I contacted the seller who posted me a nice shiny Kingson 16gb class 6 card right away.
New card arrived last night, appeared in the phone straight away as a 16gb card. Great start.
Plugged the phone in, started copying some music on it - the write speed was incredibly slow. I mean really slow, 100mb of mp3s was taking the best part of 3 minutes. Popped the card in the PC, same problem.
I find that I can actually write data to the card till its full (albeit slowly) but once you've written more than around 4gb of data, the files start to vanish.
I know it sounds incredibly stupid but anything written after around the 4gb mark just doesn't appear when I plug it into the phone or the PC. The card claims it is full, but only 4gb of data is visible, let alone accessible. I've done the usual formatting of the card and changing card readers etc etc but the result is the same and this is starting to grow boring.
So, question. Am I just incredibly unlucky in my purchases or is my SGS killing cards? Because I'm quite weary of buying yet another card now.
Funny enough my old 4gb card still works just fine like it has for years.
I know you'll have a FAT (file allocation table) that usually reserves a predetermined amount of space on the card for file locations. But your memory card should not be able to accept more than whats available and should be displayed correctly no matter what your using. IE pc or phone. Kingston are fairly reputable, but is your dealer reputable. There are a lot of counterfeits out there. I don't believe the phone itself is damaging these cards. Since your stating your old trusty card still works like a champ
Sent from my GT-I9000M using XDA App
Hi guys
i once had a HD7, i upgraded it with a 32GB Sandisk class 2 card. The card worked like a charm. Later i had to sell off the HD7 so i kept the card with me, safely in its own little box.
My big question is no card reader recognizes it, Blackberry bold 2 with OS 6 wont recognize it, Sony Ericsson Experia x10 with android 2.3 wont recognize it, even my cute little Motorola Defy with android 2.2.2 wont recognize it.
What am i doing wrong here? was i supposed to format it before pulling it out of HD7? Is there a way to bring it back to life?
please advise
Thanks in advance
partition
i am guessing you have a partition on their which is un-formatable, but you may be able to see and delete it in disk manager (in computer manager), not the same thing as right click / format. only a guess.
You are not doing anything wrong; Windows Phone 7 locks the microSD card with an encrypted passsword and there is nothing I know of that will break that encryption except for a Nokia phone with the Symbian operating system. Nothing else you put it in will even recognize the card, but the Symbian operating system is somehow able to reformat it and make it usable again.
You need to find a Nokia phone somewhere with the Symbian operationg system to reformat your card so you can use it again in other devices. I currently have two cards (16GB/32GB) that I need to have reformatted!
I've also heard that a digital camera can reformat them, but I don't know if that's true or not.
Dennis
dmw_4814 said:
You are not doing anything wrong; Windows Phone 7 locks the microSD card with an encrypted passsword and there is nothing I know of that will break that encryption except for a Nokia phone with the Symbian operating system. Nothing else you put it in will even recognize the card, but the Symbian operating system is somehow able to reformat it and make it usable again.
You need to find a Nokia phone somewhere with the Symbian operationg system to reformat your card so you can use it again in other devices. I currently have two cards (16GB/32GB) that I need to have reformatted!
I've also heard that a digital camera can reformat them, but I don't know if that's true or not.
Dennis
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cheers Dennis
i ll dig a Nokia and report back the result soon
You've got to use a partition program, like partition magic...
argentocruz said:
You've got to use a partition program, like partition magic...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you stick a microSD card that was used in a WP7 handset in a PC, it doesn't even show in Windows Explorer, does it? I know if you put it in an Android phone, it says SD card not present.
Dennis
HI guys
SWEET SUCCESS
the symbian trick worked like a charm
your a lifesaver @ Dennis
this card was taken out of a HD7 windows phone so the pc was not even recognizing it @ argentocruz
the best part is i used an old Nokia E90 to recognize and format the card, and now its running very smoothly in my Moto Defy
to anyone who has a problem - its really worth it to register on this forum and ASK
xda rules
Hello there,
me again, i fear i do not have much luck with my note....
this happened to me with 2 different 32 GB sd cards (same type though) now. First time i thought the card itself was the problem, but now i doubt it.
When i first inserted the card, everything was fine, i copied several gb of music on it without problem, could access al files from phone and via Windows.
Played some files with MortPlayer the other day, and after the next restart of the device (had to shutdown for flight) it suddenly complained that i had removed the card while the system was running.
This does not happen at all with my old 8 GB sd, though, it's running fine whatever i do.
Cannot access the card anymore from phone, camera or PC (Win7 x64).
Runnning german stock rom ICS 4.0.3 rooted on the phone.
Did this ever happen to anyone else and/or is there i way to get that card running again? It does not show up under Windows at all anymore, not even as unformatted or so.
Any help or hints appreciated, thanks in advance.
Try paragon partition manager to format the sd card then see if it works if it does reformat on the phone. I read somewhere that you could format to ntfs and back to fat 32 to get it recognised
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2
thanks for the quick answer.
the problem is (don't have paragon where i am atm, but tried with Acronis Disk Director & HP USB Repair Tool and i guess it would be the same with paragon?) that i simply cannot see the device anymore via such tools, same is for the windows disk/storage management.
So reformatting it seems not to be an option here, was more or less hoping that someone knows another "trick" how to get the thing back to life - and of course a reason why my Note might have "destroyed" the 2 cards.
did you buy these SD cards new ? if so was the seller a reputable one ? there are a lot of fake / dodgy Sd cards on the market nowadays
Do you use a card reader via a usb port ? if so try a different port, like one on the back, direct to the PC's motherboard, finally if that fails, try someone else's PC.
If all the above fail I guess the SD is completely dead. I dont know how the Note could have caused this unless the card was a fake, People are using 64GB SD's with no issues at all.
both were brand new cards, bought directly from Amazon.
Could of course be possible that they both were from a bad batch... Gonna ask amazon if there have been any issues with that product so far, could not find bad ratings for it though when i checked.
I'll try to get hands hands on another cardreader, left for vacations yesterday and just have my Netbook with internal USB based card reader, the Galaxy Note and a Nikon D7000 with me, which all do not recognize it, but the backup 8 gb sd card .
thanks for your time
S.
Amazon are friendly, If you havent had the cards long just explain to them the situation and im sure they will refund / replace.
You could be right about a 'bad batch' unfortunately with all the technology we have, it still happens
Hope you get it sorted :good: keep us posted !!!
Samsung NOTE - dead 32gb SD card
first - apologies - I am not an XDA developer (I am a retired architect... and a noob)
This thread came up when I searched "Samsung note destroys SD card". I will simply report my experience in the hope that others may find it useful.
I get a Samsung NOTE G-N7000 in late August & buy a 32Gb SD card from amazon (specifically getting a Samsung one to avoid any incompatibility)
I load about 7gb of music tracks onto it from my PC; it works perfectly& gives me good quality music playback until a week ago; then all playback form the card becomes impossible with an "unrecognised file type" message. I format the card in the phone. I dismount it. I slot itn to my PC, where "my computer" says that it has zero gb capacity, & will not format it. I mount it in my old Blackberry Curve which says it has 29.2 gb capacity - I format it - & the curve says it now has 1.2 gb capacity. The PC still says it has no capacity.
The only possible cause I cant hink of it is that I seem to remember there had just been an Android software uprgrade (to 4..0.3.?)
I find Samsung phone help, ring them, and get very badly run around - several times I am given a phone number for "Samsung SD cards" which is actually the UK "Orange" help number. I have rung three or four numbers at least threet imes each before I get through to Samsung SD cards help. They ask for photos of both sides of the micro SD card - having (I presume) established that it is a genuine Samsung product they e-mail me a product return form & code.
I have sent the card off to Florijn in the Netherlands.... I am not holding my breath.
It has not been a good week for memory...
- Outlook Express started to compact messages as the computer was closing down (so I have no e-mails before 15th Nov 2012)
- this SD card died on me
- & I forgot to go to a folk music dinner &music session that I had booked a week previously
I begin th think alzheimers might be a welcome release....
Your "watch this noob" video... perhaps one of the funniest videos I have seen for a while ... and certainly the most annoying... andyou expect "thanks"?
Well thats something really unusual. Because i am using my note for a year now and bought a 16 gb card with it. I onky encountered 3 errors where my n7000 stopped Reading the memory saying bad memory and what i did was to take it out of the slot and then reinsert it again and It worked fine.
The only advice i give to everyone. Dont plug ur phone to the pc or any other device always keep ur phone wireless with other devices so thst the malware cant replicate to ur storage. I use kies air or bluetooth exchange in cases there is large data i cooy it to the usb and then plug that usb to my phone and it works ok.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda app-developers app
I have been trying to find the best method for getting a 64gb SD card to work with my phone, and it has not been all that successful. I have formatted in NTFS, exFat and FAT32, all with varying degrees of success. Either copying files over leads to data corruption, or I cannot write from and to the SD card when it is being accessed by my device. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I am currently running CMPrime ROM v1.1Beta with the included kernel. I have also tried using it with Unnamed Kernel.
I just received my Samsung 64gb EVO MicroSDXC UHS-I card this morning. I popped it into my phone and it asked me to format before I could use it. So I clicked yes and then after that it just worked.
I am not sure what would be different for a custom rom as IU use the offical Lollipop 5.0.2. It shouldn't be much different though.
FAT32 is your best bet. I have a 64GB Lexar card formatted in FAT32 working fine with Titan Prime.
It's possible that something is wrong with the card. Does the card work fine in other devices? What brand is it?
Could also be a hardware issue with your phone, have you tried other cards?
Use fat32 no other file system
thisisjason said:
FAT32 is your best bet. I have a 64GB Lexar card formatted in FAT32 working fine with Titan Prime.
It's possible that something is wrong with the card. Does the card work fine in other devices? What brand is it?
Could also be a hardware issue with your phone, have you tried other cards?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I bought a no-name SD card from a Chinese manufacturer, because I figured "why not." I know quality of SD cards vary across manufacturers, but since it's an established technology and relatively easy to make, I thought it'd be worth a chance. Some quick Google-Fu showed that it is not a completely isolated issue related to SD failure.
I have a 32gb card that I'm using without any issues. I'm asking specifically about 64gb, because 32gb seems to be the max size for external storage.
mauley said:
I just received my Samsung 64gb EVO MicroSDXC UHS-I card this morning. I popped it into my phone and it asked me to format before I could use it. So I clicked yes and then after that it just worked.
I am not sure what would be different for a custom rom as IU use the offical Lollipop 5.0.2. It shouldn't be much different though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I usually give ROM info, because it is common courtesy for dev communities. I have read that formatting through the device only accomplishes a rather crude job, and that file structures can be unsound. I know FAT32 is the standard, but it is an old format that has size limitations.
vikasb32 said:
Use fat32 no other file system
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But what about the limitations regarding max. file size and data transfer speeds?
I believe you should be able to use NTFS or exFAT with the kernal you're running, though I don't know if there might be any bugs or compatibility issues with some cards. If even FAT32 isn't working correctly, my suspicion if that you have a bad MicroSD card. As a rule of thumb I always buy brand name from reputable sources when it comes to microsd cards. I know those cheap ones look tempting, but the quality issues with them are legit, so it's a real crapshoot.
And yes, you'll run into the same old limitations with FAT32 in terms of file size, etc., but I use it anyway since it has the widest support across devices and I sometimes swap my cards.
thisisjason said:
I believe you should be able to use NTFS or exFAT with the kernal you're running, though I don't know if there might be any bugs or compatibility issues with some cards. If even FAT32 isn't working correctly, my suspicion if that you have a bad MicroSD card. As a rule of thumb I always buy brand name from reputable sources when it comes to microsd cards. I know those cheap ones look tempting, but the quality issues with them are legit, so it's a real crapshoot.
And yes, you'll run into the same old limitations with FAT32 in terms of file size, etc., but I use it anyway since it has the widest support across devices and I sometimes swap my cards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am inclined to call this a bad SD card, but I want to rule out all other possible reasons. Null Hypothesis and all that.
In terms of performance of FAT32, it is registered by the ROM, and it is visible in recovery. But my music files are not readable in Google Music or any other music app. I've tried moving them to /sdcard1/media/music and it is still balls. This kind of behavior leads me to think that it is an actual formatting issue.
mrbubs3 said:
I am inclined to call this a bad SD card, but I want to rule out all other possible reasons. Null Hypothesis and all that.
In terms of performance of FAT32, it is registered by the ROM, and it is visible in recovery. But my music files are not readable in Google Music or any other music app. I've tried moving them to /sdcard1/media/music and it is still balls. This kind of behavior leads me to think that it is an actual formatting issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google Music would actually register and access the music files in NTFS.
mrbubs3 said:
But what about the limitations regarding max. file size and data transfer speeds?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Max file size for fat32 is 4GB-1byte. Should be not a problem unless you plan on putting e.g. large hd-movies on the card. Speed isn't affected by the partition type (actually it is, but it's negligible in this case). No-name sdcards are often manufactured with low quality check standards. They sell cards that would normaly get tossed into trash. I use a 64gb card with no problem whatsoever. On windows use http://www.easeus.com/partition-manager/ because windows will only allow up to 32gb. On linux use gparted.
doppelhelix said:
Max file size for fat32 is 4GB-1byte. Should be not a problem unless you plan on putting e.g. large hd-movies on the card. Speed isn't affected by the partition type (actually it is, but it's negligible in this case). No-name sdcards are often manufactured with low quality check standards. They sell cards that would normaly get tossed into trash. I use a 64gb card with no problem whatsoever. On windows use http://www.easeus.com/partition-manager/ because windows will only allow up to 32gb. On linux use gparted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I occasionally save audio recording/mixing sessions as OMF files, which can end up being really large, particularly if I export at 64-bit sampling and 96khz frequency. So the 4gb limit can be a bit annoying to deal with, in that regard.
I wasn't aware about the cheaper SDcards potentially being of b or failed stock. I'll probably buy a new card under a trusted brand, and report back.
mrbubs3 said:
I occasionally save audio recording/mixing sessions as OMF files, which can end up being really large, particularly if I export at 64-bit sampling and 96khz frequency. So the 4gb limit can be a bit annoying to deal with, in that regard.
I wasn't aware about the cheaper SDcards potentially being of b or failed stock. I'll probably buy a new card under a trusted brand, and report back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Acquired a Sandisk MicroSDXC Ultra UHS-1 64gb card. Tried using it in my android phone. I am able to load files onto the SD card as before, but I still experienced the same issues with Media Scanner failing to account for my music files on External SD. Worse yet, my Titanium Backup files became corrupted when trying to access them via the device. I did a Nandroid Backup and tried a clean install to rule out any potential conflicts with my ROM, only to find that the issues remained, and the Nandroid disappeared from the TWRP backup folder.
At this point, I'm starting to think that it's an issue with the phone itself. WHY CAN I NOT HAVE 64GB OF SPACE, MOTO G!!!?
I bought a sandisk 64gb card off amazon on black Friday, immediately put it in my phone and let the device format it.
Later, I put the SD card in my computer so I could create a 2nd partition for ext4 storage.
The phone had formatted the card Fat32...has been working just fine since then.
agentaaron said:
I bought a sandisk 64gb card off amazon on black Friday, immediately put it in my phone and let the device format it.
Later, I put the SD card in my computer so I could create a 2nd partition for ext4 storage.
The phone had formatted the card Fat32...has been working just fine since then.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I try to mount the SD card in the phone, it does not register. It only works after I format to FAT32 using TWRP. So I will probably try that.
So 32gb in FAT32, then 32GB in Ext4, and leave back-ups/other files there?
64 card files wont all play
Hi I have a new moto g, I also put in a 64 sd card, while the music files seemed to play fine, video and other files the phone reads some of them not others, I put the same file internally and on the sd card and it reads the internal version of the file. I gather from this forum (though I may be wrong) I need format the sd card, I have no idea how to do that, any help would be appreciated.
mrbubs3 said:
When I try to mount the SD card in the phone, it does not register. It only works after I format to FAT32 using TWRP. So I will probably try that.
So 32gb in FAT32, then 32GB in Ext4, and leave back-ups/other files there?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My understanding is that, if you have a FAT32 SD Card, then larger files (4gb+) cannot be read. ExFAT and NFTS should solve this problem, but I am still dealing with issues of reliability with my card accessing my music files post-formatting.
Finally discovered the problem. I downloaded SD Insight from the Play Store, and I found that the SD cards I got off ebay were invalid (including the Sandisk SD Card). I picked up a PNY High Performance 64GB Micro Secure Digital Extended Capacity (microSDXC) Flash Media Card from a local computer store, and after formatting to FAT32, everything works.
Moral of the story: buy your **** from a store.
I'm currently using CM 14.1 20161225 with a 32 GB SD NTFS formatted and experiencing some weird problems with Camera/Gallery, Music, etc. when on the SD.
So before I go back to FAT32 on a 64 GB SD I now have I would like to ask if anyone can comfirm exFAT would be working fine on titan CM14.1 or LineageOS?
ChriMo said:
I'm currently using CM 14.1 20161225 with a 32 GB SD NTFS formatted and experiencing some weird problems with Camera/Gallery, Music, etc. when on the SD.
So before I go back to FAT32 on a 64 GB SD I now have I would like to ask if anyone can comfirm exFAT would be working fine on titan CM14.1 or LineageOS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Format your card to EXT4, works fine with any rom and has no file size limitations.
..::X-FILES::.. said:
Format your card to EXT4, works fine with any rom and has no file size limitations.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry no good option when pushing files over and back from Win10 so I would prefer to know exFAT experiences since Win10 should be working fine with it.
ChriMo said:
Sorry no good option when pushing files over and back from Win10 so I would prefer to know exFAT experiences since Win10 should be working fine with it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's strange, i have no problems with mtp in win7, looks like win10 doesn't worth updating. Btw, i tried exFAT before and it strangely limited file size to 4 GB like in FAT32.