I am going travelling and want to make I have a backup micro SDHC card (SanDisk 8 gig) of my progs/data just in case. Whats the best procedure for making a copy? Backup and Restore? Straight copy (via HD)? Presumably best to use a card reader and keep activesyn out of it? Or is it...
I'm a little worried that some things might not copy (e.g. TomTom maps etc) perfectly because of anti-piracy code within the software. (All my software is legit).
Thanks
If you want a convenient way of making a backup of your storage card, use Sprite Backup to back it up.
Quickest, safest and most reliable way of doing it would be to simply put it into a card reader and copy the files off it. Don't bother trying to do it via the mobile device syncing or any other software. Taking the card out of the phone ensures that all files are closed and the device isn't going to be updating them as you're trying to copy them.
Oh and I should have said that I recently did this when I upgraded from a 2gb to an 8gb card. I already had both CoPilot (which came with the phone), and TomTom installed on the card (both legit!), and they both worked fine once I'd put the newly copied 8gb card into the phone.
*moved to android section*
Edit: sorry to dig up such an old post...
I'm new to Windows Mobile devices, having previously only used friends' before. I have orderer the Touch Pro, but I think this is more a general question, so I'm posting it here.
Is it safe to swap the SDHC cards while the device is on? I have ordered an 8GB card, but I also have a 4GB card already. I was wondering if I can put movies for example on the 4GB, while having music and everything else on the 8GB. This means I can bring more data with me.
Some programs will be installed on the storage card, so what happens when the card they are installed on is removed?
Also, is it best to install most things on the storage card or internal? I've seen reports of some programs not working well or at all unless installed internally. Is that common? Id rather not fill up the internal storage too fast.
Thank you
sum notes:
ur 4 gb card will prolly load up the appz much faster then the 8gb , i hate how slow my sandisk 8gb card is compared to my 4gb patriot card
definitely try to get the more xpensive higher speed cards
sum progs only work if u install it to the device memory and not the SDMMC
when u take out ur sdcard , and put in another one, u prolly gotta reboot so the pda can refresh/view it
to transfer files i use softick card exporter v3.12
GL
ok, but what happens to programs? are the links still in the programs folder after the sdhc card they were installed on is removed?
if i have tomtom on the 4gb card and the rest on the 8gb card, will everything work ok without having to restart between swaps?
Jiggs1337 said:
ok, but what happens to programs? are the links still in the programs folder after the sdhc card they were installed on is removed?
if i have tomtom on the 4gb card and the rest on the 8gb card, will everything work ok without having to restart between swaps?
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Click to collapse
Any program you install on a card, if you remove the card, of course the program icons won't work. Just plug the card back in, no need to soft reset and it will work.
I suggest, use your 4 GB card for ALL your programs including TomTom with maps, so you can place all your videos and music on the bigger 8 GB card. I doubt you can fill the 4 GB with just programs, unless TomTom's maps are bigger than 4 GB. That way, the only time you have to insert the 8 GB card is during music and video playing.
Better yet, try installing ALL your programs on the 8 GB card, even music and video files. I am sure you will keep all your music files. For the video files, if you are like myself who after watching the converted DVD files, deletes them off the card so to place a new DVD movie file to watch. THERE IS NO NEED TO TAKE OFF THE CARD FROM THE DEVICE, all you need is WM5torage which is a FREE program that will let you view the card as an External Disk Drive. In other words, WM5torage turns your device into an instant card reader without removing the card itself from the device with just a push of a button. So deleting or file transfer is WAAAAYYYYY faster than using active sync.
What exactly is the problem? Im thinking of getting the focus and I keep hearing these SD card issues but what "exactly" is the problem? I understand that once you put it in, your SD card is done, and that if you want to remove it you have to wipe everything, I understand all that, but what are the problems that arise? I have a 16gb micro sd that I have used on all my devices no problem, do files get corrupted or something? Does it just not read it?
There aren't any problems in that sense. The only real "problem" is that not all MicroSD cards work with WP7. In addition, hot-swapping isn't supported, because in effect, the MicroSD's memory is added to the internal memory, and the system then doesn't differentiate between storing on the sd card and that that's built into the phone, and thus stuff is spread all over all of them.
There aren't any "problems" as such that I know of though.
On an ending note - WP7 is awesome ^__^ Honestly the best user experience I've ever had with a phone (esp. having come from Android >.<) ^__^
loading a microSD card will turn it into a secure card. once this happens no other device will even read it (except a nokia n8) making it extremely difficult to format if it doesn't work nicely with windows phone 7. That is the main issue. rest already mentioned.
GenkaiMade gave his version which is correct but I thought I would explain it my way.
Take your average memory card and device. What are some of the default expectations you have when using one?
1) You should be able to get any MicroSD card on the market and be able to put it into your phone with it working.
2) You should be able to remove the memory card from the device and put it in a different device (such as another phone or PC) and have it still work like normally.
The problem with Windows Phone 7 is that it breaks these two rules.
1) Many of the higher rated MicroSD card flat-out don't work on WP7. This is because of the method WP7 uses to read/write to memory card. You can find more specific details on why this is but I will just keep it simple. There are many user-created lists which list which MicroSD cards do work with WP7.
2) You can NOT hot-swap your memory card once it is inserted into phone. Why? SD stands for Secure Digital which means there is a security aspect capable on the card. Microsoft takes advantage of this in WP7. Once you put your new card in your phone automatically reformats and locks it down. If you then take out the card and place it in another phone or a PC it will not be recognized, almost as if it is invisible. And the worst part, there is nothing* you can do about it. Once you pair a memory card and WP7 phone they are joined for life.
Why does this suck? If you buy a 8GB card now you simply can't upgrade to a 16/32Gb one down the road without losing all of your data and having a useless MicroSD card. The old card would become a better Frisbee than data storage device. This is why most WP7 phones don't let the users have access to the memory card. Microsoft knew this would happen and thus pushed manufacturers to not have the card easily accessible. There is even much talk that the memory card in the Samsung Focus was meant to be glued to the phone to prevent swapping but somewhere along the line that idea was scrapped.
* Note: Technically there is ONE thing you can do. If you own or have access to a Nokia N8 phone it can read the locked down MicroSD card and reformat to something any device can recognize. Essentially undo the problem. But how many people have easy access to one? The answer, almost nobody.
Quicksilver4648 said:
GenkaiMade gave his version which is correct but I thought I would explain it my way.
Take your average memory card and device. What are some of the default expectations you have when using one?
1) You should be able to get any MicroSD card on the market and be able to put it into your phone with it working.
2) You should be able to remove the memory card from the device and put it in a different device (such as another phone or PC) and have it still work like normally.
The problem with Windows Phone 7 is that it breaks these two rules.1) Many of the higher rated MicroSD card flat-out don't work on WP7. This is because of the method WP7 uses to read/write to memory card. You can find more specific details on why this is but I will just keep it simple. There are many user-created lists which list which MicroSD cards do work with WP7.
2) You can NOT hot-swap your memory card once it is inserted into phone. Why? SD stands for Secure Digital which means there is a security aspect capable on the card. Microsoft takes advantage of this in WP7. Once you put your new card in your phone automatically reformats and locks it down. If you then take out the card and place it in another phone or a PC it will not be recognized, almost as if it is invisible. And the worst part, there is nothing* you can do about it. Once you pair a memory card and WP7 phone they are joined for life.
Why does this suck? If you buy a 8GB card now you simply can't upgrade to a 16/32Gb one down the road without losing all of your data and having a useless MicroSD card. The old card would become a better Frisbee than data storage device. This is why most WP7 phones don't let the users have access to the memory card. Microsoft knew this would happen and thus pushed manufacturers to not have the card easily accessible. There is even much talk that the memory card in the Samsung Focus was meant to be glued to the phone to prevent swapping but somewhere along the line that idea was scrapped.
* Note: Technically there is ONE thing you can do. If you own or have access to a Nokia N8 phone it can read the locked down MicroSD card and reformat to something any device can recognize. Essentially undo the problem. But how many people have easy access to one? The answer, almost nobody.
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Click to collapse
You're wrong. It has nothing to do with what you said. Lol @ breaking rules. They aren't breaking anything...
SD Card DRM is in the spec, it is only given to people who license it. That's what WP7 uses. It's locks down the storage system with a DRM key and that's why other devices (barring Nokias) can't see it - most SD Card clients don't support SD Card DRM.
Nokia (Symbian, and maybe Maemo, but I'm unsure on that) is the only other mobile OS that supports it, and that's why it can reformat the card (but cannot read any data on it, of course, since it doesn't have the decryption key). When you power on the phone, the WP7 pre-boot environment unlocks the card via a key on the device the same way you unlock an encrypted system drive on a PC. If a device cannot supply this key, they cannot mount the card.
If you swap the card, you have to hard reset the device because the storage is spanned and the decryption key on the device no longer corresponds to the SD card in the device (but due to spanned storage the device would malfunction even if it were to boot up). The new card is encrypted and added to the pool on a hard reset, and the [new] key is put on the device so that it can be mounted when the device is powered on.
It's pretty damn simple, and has been written in plain English in many threads; yet people still FAIL to understand it.
Have you ever thought there must be a reason why they call them SECURE Digital Cards? Or did you think Secure = taking it out one device and just plugging it into the other and taking the data off of it?
The Storage in WP7 was never meant to be swappable. Microsoft has always said it would not be. It's your own business if you want to play around swapping cards like Russian Roulette.
As far as which work with WP7. It requires higher Random I/O speeds than most SD Cards provide, and that doesn't correspond to Class Type. Also, a card can work fine for sometimes weeks at a time and then start to fail, so replacing it yourself is at your own risk.
And most manufacturers and carriers will void you warranty if you mess with the SD Card.
In that respect using memory cards is nonsense on WP7.
If you cannot do what you want with this, what was a rule and still is a rule on the market today,
they should just build devices with inbuilt memory like iPhone and don't talk about memory cards anymore. That would be simple.
Current situation is a mess.
So what cards are compatible now? I Googled it and the first response was 'San Disk Pulls WP7 compatible memory cards' and I figured that wasn't a good sign.
williammel said:
So what cards are compatible now? I Googled it and the first response was 'San Disk Pulls WP7 compatible memory cards' and I figured that wasn't a good sign.
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Click to collapse
they only pulled it because MS wants to do official testing and release an official list.
refer to this webpage for more info: http://mobilitydigest.com/the-sd-cards-that-dodont-work-with-windows-phone/
Here it is in KB form from Microsoft:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2450831
N8ter said:
You're wrong. It has nothing to do with what you said. Lol @ breaking rules. They aren't breaking anything...
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Click to collapse
It was a figure of speech. I know Microsoft didn't break any real "rules". This is what I posted:
Quicksilver4648 said:
...
What are some of the default expectations you have when using one?
...
The problem with Windows Phone 7 is that it breaks these two rules.
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I said "rules" I implied "expectations". Microsoft did nothing wrong, outside of communicating with the end users, with how WP7 manages MicroSD cards.
And I clearly know why certain MicroSD cards will or wont work. I just didn't feel like explaining it because it would take a lot of time.
It's time to start expecting people to use these technologies in a secure manner.
The media industry does not support platforms that leave them open to be attacked by software pirates.
Information is power, and no one likes their info stolen.
There are many reasons.
iOS phones encrypt their storate. And the reason why they don't support external storage cards is probably the same reason why Microsoft uses the SD-DRM and encrypts the WP7 storage.
I don't know how Symbian handles its storage, but I'm pretty sure that OS at least supports Encrypting the file system on SD cards. It supports pretty much everything ele.
Right, let me give my own perspective on this.
Until recently I was a WM6 user. I regularly upgraded my phone, and the last one was an HD2. WM phones never came with any real amount of storage, just a piffling amount of internal memory (what, 500MB?). I was therefore faced with the added cost and hassle of having to purchase a memory card and insert it into the phone. This was a bit like buying a PC without a hard disk and having to buy and install your own. It was an added hassle and expense.
Once you had your SD card inserted, you were then faced with the decision of where to store the data for each of your apps. Take email - do you store all your emails and attachments on the internal memory, thus using up a good chunk of that precious resource, but having it work quickly, or do you store it all on the SD card, where there's a lot more room but it's slow and clunky, and if anyone steals your phone they can pop the card out and get at the data? When you install apps, you're again given the choice of where to install it. Do you go for the speed of internal storage? Do you put it on the SD card, knowing if you ever pop out the card, your app will be unavailable? Decisions, decisions.... Too much damned complexity. The average user shouldn't be faced with these choices, if I install an app, it should just go on the phone wherever, period.
Not only that, once my card was in there, I never once removed it. The majority of my apps were on it, my emails, and all my media. I totally filled it with media. Popping out that card would more or less break my phone. My apps wouldn't work, my emails would be missing......so I never did. Nor did I ever use it as a mass storage drive....because there was never any free space on it. Instead I had a 32GB USB memory key hanging from my keychain - that was my portable mass storage solution.
Not only this, if I wanted to put media onto the card, I had to connect to the PC and drag and drop my stuff directly onto the phone. What a hassle! Doing this didn't optimize the size of the photos for the phone's screen. It didn't drop the bitrate of my mp3s, it didn't convert videos to the right size and format. All that had to be done manually, and I never bothered, so my media took up a lot more room than it had to. So inefficient.
So, given that I never removed the card, and that doing so would hose my phone, and that it was always full, so never got used as mass storage, and that it was insecure, and an added expense and hassle, and putting media on the card was a manual process, what would I have done in a next generation phone to cure all these issues?
Well, I would have made sure the phone came with plenty of onboard memory, and I would have removed the distinction between internal memory and the "card" so it was all one storage container. I would have secured the memory so even if it could be removed, the data couldn't be read in another device. I would have made sure the memory was fast enough to deal properly with a modern OS. I would automate the process of converting and downsizing media by using software on the PC to automatically perform those tasks. I'd also make the process wireless and fully automatic. I'd.......oh wait, that's what Microsoft already did in WP7.
So I'm happy, even if you lot ain't.
I just got 2 Focus's for the Wife and I. Using the SD card sticky in the Focus forum here as a general help, I purchased a PNY 8Gb C4 for the Wifes, and a Patriot 16Gb C2 for mine (Frys, and the Patroit was the last one in the store from the Display! No one buys C2 anymore).
The back overlay on both devices mentions memory cards, and quick startup quide shows you how to install them and what happens if you remove them.
I put the Cards in last night (phones just arrived yesterday), formatted (hold the Power/Camera/Vol Down at the same time, answer questions) and in a few seconds each system was formated. Both are working fine right now.
Right now though doesn't mean much, many in the SD thread are having issues after several weeks, though it seems it more prevalent with the 32Gb cards. YMMV...
What I find goofy about the whole thing is that it has been stated that 7 needs random read/write, which is not measured by class rating, and can vary even within the same type of card, but very few people have posted numbers showing that they tested their cards at all before gleefully sacrificing them to the hungry maw of the Focus. Seriously guys, do more testing and post more numbers before rendering your cards unreadable to a PC. It'll help us all to better understand what works and what doesn't.
This bites.. I always knew that the card inside the wp7 was secured, but I always had faith in the power of this forum. Especially in recovery situations. Now I have lost a lot of irreplaceable data, like dozens of pictures of my young child. It seems I had a little too much faith.
Thank you for this information. it was very helpful. I have already moved away from Windows phones to android, and am going to start using nandroid. Hopefully this won't happen again.
so i have a sandisk micro sd 16gb class 2 .. and im having a couple issues with it . for one
after i transfered my folders from my old card (by copying them to my computer then copying them to my new sd card ) it worked fine for couple months then when i plugged my phone in to the computer...and all of a sudden all my folders on my card were just shortcuts , and when i would try and open them(the shortcut folders) the directory it looked in was win32 and it would just open my documents folder on my computer. but the wierd thing is, on my phone it never had any problems finding anything and in my file manager everything is there. i can open the folders open the files etc.
and second
now ... when i plug my phone into the computer, it shows the right amount of free space but when i open my sd card theres only 3 files.
(all my files are not hidden ive gone through that process)
now what im really trying to do is make a backup of my sd card on my computer.as im waiting for a patriot 32gb class 10 to get here.so i want to transfer my files over to my new card and also have a backup of everything on my computer. i use titanium backup for all my apps but its my pictures, videos, music, pdf files, notes, personal files etc. stuff i cant just download again that im trying to back up. now once again in my file manager on my phone all my files are there , i have access to them and all they're content. so i know its there.
does anyone know whats happening here? in both cases? and also does anyone know a way to send folders from my sd card to my computer via email, an app, some way ? even if i have to do one folder at a time.
oh and my device is the 3vo and none of my sd cards were purchased on ebay or amazon anything like that . first card was the stock 8gb and the 16gb was purchased from the sprint store. and my 32gb was purchased from Frys electronics. which on a side note there having a sale on patriot 32gb class 10s until 12/13/11 $65 plus $20 rebate (which by the way takes 8 to 10 weeks !!!! ) i ordered online (frys.com) and it was shipped for $71 class 4s are on sale for $60 with no rebate. just thought id put it out there haha
well i hope someone can help me with my dilemma. sorry its so long just wanted to get al the info needed in ...and then some haha
You could use dropbox or box, to upload from their app, if you install to pc, you would be able to get them. I use it, to transfer files.
Hit that thank button if I helped!
Same problem with my phone :S
used a memory card reader all is there
Did you try using dropbox?
Hit that thank button if I helped!
soory i took forever for the thanks but although Dropbox didnt help with my issue it helps with preventing the issue again
so i dont know if youve fixed the issue as this is rather old ... but i fixed it by (if it shows up while sd is in phone.. getting a file explorer and copying and pasting all folders(not just the files in folder but the whole folder itself) into one new folder so its all together. then deleting all the old folders leaving only the new folder which contains all the copies of your folders. then move all the copies back to where the old folders were.and try inserting your sd into your computer via diskmode or directly.. and see if everything is there . hope it helps .
Desperate/long shot here. I have a miniSD card that was used in my MotoQ9m years ago. This card may have some photos of our daughter (now deceased) and I want to know if any devs know of a program that will open this card in Win 7.
Thanks in advance, Keith
kge420 said:
Desperate/long shot here. I have a miniSD card that was used in my MotoQ9m years ago. This card may have some photos of our daughter (now deceased) and I want to know if any devs know of a program that will open this card in Win 7.
Thanks in advance, Keith
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't need any program, if it's a mini SD card as long as you have the slot to plug it into your computer Win 7 will be able to read it like a USB.
kge420 said:
Desperate/long shot here. I have a miniSD card that was used in my MotoQ9m years ago. This card may have some photos of our daughter (now deceased) and I want to know if any devs know of a program that will open this card in Win 7.
Thanks in advance, Keith
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Normally you don't need any special program, only a usb card reader (if you don't have a card reader already in your computer).
If your reader is for normal SD only, you can buy an adapter for it. It's cheap.
If you already tried this without luck, it means your card is probably corrupted.
There are specialized companies for that, where they can get data form the card even when the hardware itself is bad. That's a most expensive solution though... I just mention it first, because other methods can make the situation worst, removing even this possibility...
In the 90% of the cases you have data corruption, but otherwise the card is fine. Then you can try some software yourself:
The first is GetDataBack. It saved me at least 4 times in the last 10 years. It will try to reconstruct the whole filesystem. It won't write the sdcard, but in case of success you can copy your files to your computer easily.
It's not free, but you can try the free version, which can show you if it can find the files, the paid version needed only for the actual copying.
And there is PhotoRec.
It won't try to reconstruct the whole filesystem, but tries to find the files in the raw data. It can recognize more than 440 file formats, so it should find your images if there are any...
Good luck.
tr3w, the card being corrupted is my feeling. I have tried card in a few card readers on different computers all with the same result. I will try your suggestions. Thanks, Keith