Cannot connect to sdcard

[Droiduga]

No matter what I try I cannot connect to my sd card to transfer files from my computer. This worked one time when the phone was new but now I cannot get it to work. I have tried two different computers - desktop(Vista) at home and laptop(XP) at work. I no longer get the message to mount the phone. I get 4 choices:

PC Mode
Windows Media Sync
USB Mass Storage
Charge Only

I get a popup window on both computers when i select USB Mass Storage wanting to know what I want to do. I select "Open folder to view files" and I can see some files but not the sdcard or system folders I am looking for. When I select Charge Only the phone says "preparing SD card" briefly so it appears to be unmounting and mounting to the phone correctly. Does anybody have any ideas?

 

[Abe21599]

use USB mass storage to see your SD card like an external drive

 

[Droiduga]

I selected USB Mass Storage but I cannot see system files. I want to drag and drop some additional ringtones into the /system/media/audio/ringtones directory. I do not see the /system folder in the list I get.

OK I think I understand the problem. The files I want to see are not on the sdcard but on the built in memory of the phone. I see them using Astro on the phone. Is there any way to access those system files from a computer without rooting?

 

[HEADCASE]

I am a complete noob

I have read all I could find here about this, and I still am lost. As soon as I connect to my computer, my SD card disappears. Do I have to fomat it? Do I need to download something in order to see the SD card as a drive? Do I need to change a setting somewhere?

Can someone please go over the process step by step? I just got this phone and it is my first real "smartphone", and it is kicking my ass...

 

[HEADCASE]

anyone?????

 

[Abe21599]

I have read all I could find here about this, and I still am lost. As soon as I connect to my computer, my SD card disappears. Do I have to fomat it? Do I need to download something in order to see the SD card as a drive? Do I need to change a setting somewhere?

Can someone please go over the process step by step? I just got this phone and it is my first real "smartphone", and it is kicking my ass...

plugging it in makes it into an external drive. only your pc can use it at the time so your phone wont be able to see it.

just eject it and let it find it again and you should be fine.

 

[Gene Hirschman]

Had the same problem. I found that I had to go to:
Menu> Notification>USB Connection>select PC Mode>OK
That allowed me to see my SM card as a drive and move files to and from it.
Hope that helps.
If your using PDAnet you have to change it from PC Mode back to USB Mass Storage mode.

 

[HEADCASE]

OK, So after searching here and Verizon, I was able to change my notification to a custom tone.

I clicked the app icon and found one called "Files". Looking at these, they were the same ones that show up on one of the drives I get when I connect to my PC using the "Mass storage" option.

So I connected my phone to the PC, opened the first drive, created a new folder named "Media", created a subfolder in Media called "Audio", created subfolders in Audio called "Ringtones", "Notifications", "Alarms", and "MP3s". I then moved all the ringtones I had downloaded for notifications from a folder called "Downloads", to the Notifications folder.

I disconnected the phone from the PC, clicked the menu-settings-sounds-notification ringtone, then chose my downloaded tone. Tested and working properly.

Thank you for the help.