Problems with Droid X SD card

nbr

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Hey everybody --

I'm new to the forums. Here's my problem. I've owned a Droid X since last July, without any real problems. It's not rooted. In the past two days it seems like the operating system has lost access to most of what's on the SD card. Mainly, I've moved many apps to the card, and now I can't run them. All their homescreen shortcuts have turned into those generic screen-and-cogwheel "app" icons, and when I try to tap one of them, I get the toast message "Application is not installed on your phone." None of those apps appear in the app drawer either.

At the same time, though, the SD card still seems to have all its contents intact. I can open up ASTRO File Manager and browse through the card and everything seems to be there. Also, I ran SwiFTP last night and was able to pull a bunch of files off the card via wifi with no problem. So it's not that the card itself is bad. (SwiFTP, if you don't know it, is an open-source utility that allows you to connect to your Droid's filesystem via Windows Explorer or any FTP client at swiftp - FTP server for Android - Google Project Hosting -- currently not being developed but works great.)

This all seems to have started yesterday when I connected the phone to my computer (Windows XP) via USB. I had it set to "Mass Storage" for the USB connection. Here's what happened then. Two drives appeared in My Computer, a CD-ROM drive labelled "Motorola" and a "Removable Disk." The Motorola drive had the drivers on it, and I ran them those installers. It them prompted me to download and install Verizon's VCAST desktop software, which i didn't do. When I tried to open the new "Removable Disk" icon, which I assumed was where the SD card files would be, Windows gave me the "Please insert a disk into drive L:" message. So apparently Windows recognized that there was a drive there but couldn't see that it had a volume mounted, or whatever (not sure I'm using the right terms).

Anyhow, after disconnecting, I've had this problem. Android doesn't seem to be able to access the SD card files, even though I can see them in ASTRO and in SwiFTP.

Here's what I've tried --


  • The "Unmount SD Card" command in Settings does nothing, and the "Format SD Card" command is grayed out
  • "Manage Applications" allows me to see a list of apps on the SD card but can't produce any information about them (icon and app name won't appear, memory usage is stuck at "Computing..." the "Move to phone" button is grayed out)
  • As an experiment I tried uninstalling one of the apps on the SD card from the Manage Applications screen. I got "Uninstalling" and the barbershop-pole progress bar, and it just stayed like that without ever finishing uninstallation


So it seems like something went wrong while connecting the phone to my computer - like the card somehow got unmounted and then didn't get remounted again. (Oh, and yes, I've power-cycled the phone numerous times with no change.) What I want to know is, is there some way to get the operating system to re-recognize the SD card? Any suggestions? I just want to get it back the way it was before without having to do a factory reset. Last time i had to do that, it took days to get the phone back to the way I had it set up.

Thanks for reading this long post, and thanks so much in advance for any suggestions. I really appreciate it.

Nathan
 
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whatllitbenext

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Hi Nathan --

<<So it seems like something went wrong while connecting the phone to my computer - like the card somehow got unmounted and then didn't get remounted again. (Oh, and yes, I've power-cycled the phone numerous times with no change.) What I want to know is, is there some way to get the operating system to re-recognize the SD card? Any suggestions? >>

I had the same problem: took the card out, put it in a reader and backed-up the contents to my pc, formatted it on the pc and re-installed it to my DX -- no luck.

What I wound up doing was having to use a new card, copied the backed-up files to that card and it was fine. I now use the old card as a USB drive.

That's probably not what you want to hear, but mebbe someone else has figured out why the old card won't work. Seems to me a DX bug?

Whatever you do, I'd immediately back-up your card!

Good luck.
 

13th angel

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My mom had that happen when she got her d2g after coming from a BB storm 1. Only thing that worked was getting a new card =/.

Sent from my RubiXed D2G
 
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nbr

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Thanks folks. True, that's not what I was hoping to hear. But at least I know I'm not missing something obvious. I'll keep poking around with it for a bit, but I guess I may have to resign myself to replacing the card.
 
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nbr

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Okay, one more quick question. What's the best, most reliable way to back up the SD card? I tried copy-and-paste to my PC, but it ran into a file it couldn't handle (a problem with the filename) and stopped halfway through. Now I have a folder on my PC with a backup of half the files on the card, but I don't know which half. Is there an easy way to do the backup without having to copy files individually?

Thanks again --
 

13th angel

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I think you'll have to do it file by file, sorry that doesn't help. Although when you do that try to clear it and put it back it your phone, the file it wouldn't move sounds corrupted and might be causing your issue.

Sent from my RubiXed D2G
 

whatllitbenext

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How are you trying to back up your SD card?

You shouldn't have to do it file by file...
 
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nbr

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Happy ending (... for now)

Well, here's the latest ... I pulled the SD card from the phone, put it in a card reader, and used Windows XP backup utility to make a .bkf of everything on the card, which is now sitting on my PC. This took a while since there was a lot on the card. In the meanwhile i had my phone running with no SD card installed (just to make and receive calls, etc.). After it was done, I turned off the phone, replaced the SD card, and started it up again. It got to the "droid eye" screen and froze. I pulled the battery, waited a minute, and tried again. Lo and behold, my SD card seems to be working again. As far as I can tell, everything seems to be back to normal.
dancedroid

Needless to say I don't want to count on this card not to fail on me again sometime soon. Anyone have any recommendations for apps that will back up my phone reliably?

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone.
 
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nbr

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Don't you need root for that? I haven't taken that step yet ...
 

jzman1

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Storage to sd card.

Does anyone out there know how I set my lg vortex (droid ver.2.2) to store pictures,,etc. to the sd card/
 
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