Accidentally unplugged USB from phone. Now can't read SD card... - T-Mobile myTouch 4G Slide
While I was charging my phone via USB connected to my computer, I made sure it was selected on "charge only," mode and unplugged the USB from my phone.
Then got an error message on my computer saying, "..was not ejected properly..."
Now I can't access any of my photos, videos etc...
How can I recover the improper ejection? Is it even possible or am I SOL and have to reformat the card?
I know the data can be retrieved because I have a program to do it, but I'm wondering if there is anything that can be done to make it as if it never happened?
Not sure if you mean you can't read the card on the computer, or the phone.
Best case scenario - you power off the phone, pop the cover off the back, and remove the MicroSD card. Use a card reader (preferably a USB card reader, but a full-size SD adapter will do if you have the slot) to plug the card directly into your computer.
Then you can back up all the information onto the computer, reformat the card, and put your data back onto it.
When you put it back into the phone, and power it on, it should read fine and you can just keep right on going.
The phone is pretty sensitive, and if anything doesn't finish writing to the card properly it won't read in the phone.
No matter what state it's in, even charge mode only, you should always properly stop and eject the device from the computer. Otherwise you risk this happening every time.
Worst case scenario - the computer itself won't read the card through a standalone card reader (not the phone) and you have to re-format the card losing all your data.
In any case, reformatting the card will make it readable by the phone again.
You may not be able to reformat the card in the phone, and have to do it in a computer. Whenever you can make that happen, the phone will be able to read the card again.
DON'T pull the card from the phone without powering it off completely first.
MAKE SURE fastboot is turned to off in your settings menu BEFORE turning it off to remove the card. Fastboot is a hibernation mode, and removing the card when powered off with fastboot enabled could cause problems - especially if the card has different information on it then when you "turned it off".
Fastboot = hibernation, and it's still using a very minimal amount of power to keep the system at the lowest level of powered on.
Yes, you can turn it off and pull the battery and the card and stuff with fastboot enabled, but sooner or later you will run into a problem - most likely a corrupted memory card.
I really appreciate the quick response and your input. Thanks!
Right now I'm using a data rescue program and it's scanning as I'm typing this...
The SD card is a Lexar 32GB Class 10, yet it's still talking about an hour to do a deep scan. I can see that it's retrieving all the files as it's scanning...good news and as expected, for I've done this many times for friends in the past with diggy cameras.
Before running the scan this was the scenario:
Powered off the phone, pulled the card and put it in the lexar USB adapter it originally came with. The card mounted and read fine on my Mac, but in the folder it only contained very little stuff...it almost looked as if it was a regular stock card with normal folders that would usually come on the stock 8GB. It showed an android folder, picture folder etc...but it had nothing in it.
.
I think once the scan is complete and after backing up all the recovered files, I'll probably just reformat it. It's nice to start fresh anyways...heck maybe it was a sign to a certain degree, although it was my human error...
Question: Should I reformat it in the phone or through Disk Utility via Mac?
BTW: I had, or should say have, over 3,000 pictures on there for my food blog and some videos...was pretty filled up...
Thanks again...Cheers'
Blue6IX said:
Not sure if you mean you can't read the card on the computer, or the phone.
Best case scenario - you power off the phone, pop the cover off the back, and remove the MicroSD card. Use a card reader (preferably a USB card reader, but a full-size SD adapter will do if you have the slot) to plug the card directly into your computer.
Then you can back up all the information onto the computer, reformat the card, and put your data back onto it.
When you put it back into the phone, and power it on, it should read fine and you can just keep right on going.
The phone is pretty sensitive, and if anything doesn't finish writing to the card properly it won't read in the phone.
No matter what state it's in, even charge mode only, you should always properly stop and eject the device from the computer. Otherwise you risk this happening every time.
Worst case scenario - the computer itself won't read the card through a standalone card reader (not the phone) and you have to re-format the card losing all your data.
In any case, reformatting the card will make it readable by the phone again.
You may not be able to reformat the card in the phone, and have to do it in a computer. Whenever you can make that happen, the phone will be able to read the card again.
DON'T pull the card from the phone without powering it off completely first.
MAKE SURE fastboot is turned to off in your settings menu BEFORE turning it off to remove the card. Fastboot is a hibernation mode, and removing the card when powered off with fastboot enabled could cause problems - especially if the card has different information on it then when you "turned it off".
Fastboot = hibernation, and it's still using a very minimal amount of power to keep the system at the lowest level of powered on.
Yes, you can turn it off and pull the battery and the card and stuff with fastboot enabled, but sooner or later you will run into a problem - most likely a corrupted memory card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Firstly, good move on the recovery utility on the card. Probably the most sensible thing you could have done to ensure you get your data back with a minimal (if any) amount of corruption.
I'm running a windows box for everything i'm doing with this phone, and i'll be setting up a linux box as soon as I breakdown my NAS computer to work on android stuff.
I can't speak to mac, i've had very little interaction with them since the early 90's. Windows 3.1 came out and I dropped mac, ever since it's been something i've stayed away from.
I reformat all my cards in my windows computer, then put them in the powered off phone - it boots up and uses the cards fine.
I had one issue where I pulled a card before it popped up and said "safe to remove" on my computer, the phone wouldn't read the card. I pulled it and reformatted in the computer, and when I put it back in the phone it was fine again.
I'd say that formatting in the mac should be fine, try it out and see what happens.
I have used the phone to reformat the memory cards a few times, but it has always been when I did a factory reset on the phone. I would assume that is the same utility in settings that you can use to reformat the card on the phone.
Once you back up your data to the computer, my suggestion would be to reformat the card in the computer, then put all the data back onto it the same way it was before the format.
When you plug it into the phone, everything should be okay then, but check all your apps to make sure they still run right (if any had data stored on the card)
Theoretically this should work fine.
Are you rooted, and do you have a recent clockworkmod backup of your phone?
Edit - you can probably get away with not moving the pictures themselves back onto the phone.
That's a sizeable chunk of data there, USB transfer to the memory card off the computer will work many orders of magnitude faster then using a MicroSD to SD adapter into a card slot.
Backed Up / Restore complete and it pretty much got it all.
If I format it in the computer it should be a FAT32 correct?
I've always wondered about the encryption levels between formatting through the computer vs. SD card inside the phone (formatting)
Not that it really matters in my case (security wise), but do you know if formatting in the computer is better than reformatting w/ SD in the phone?
Would it be safe to say that reformatting inside the phone just does a single / simple pass through of putting 1's and 0's to wipe the data?
Whereas, reformatting in the computer you have different levels of pass throughs depending on the security level you desire.
-
Now taking it a step deeper, for me I've always wondered about the long term stability of SD Cards efficiency in general when doing the maximum pass throughs to erase the data instead of a simple 1 & 0 single pass through...
Kind of like painting a car:
If you paint directly on the bare bone primer sheet metal the paint will last longer without cracks down the road...ie.... cleaner, more organized data on a clean sheet of clusters of data.
If you paint over paint over paint with simple sand downs, then paint again over paint (thick).... over time it'll chip, crack and not last as long .... ie ..... higher probability of data corruption?
I've always had a piece of mind making it a habit to always do a fresh reformat with any SD cards I've had .... with the exception of this one for some odd reason... I guess I was in a rush to use it already to enjoy the Class 10 performance and speed.
I really appreciate your input and knowledge. It's nice to know there's people on here that can post intellectually...I was beginning to worry after reading all these posts with responses with no substance.
btw: You're either a major night owl or over seas being up at this hour? haha...kudos
Cheers...
Blue6IX said:
Firstly, good move on the recovery utility on the card. Probably the most sensible thing you could have done to ensure you get your data back with a minimal (if any) amount of corruption.
I'm running a windows box for everything i'm doing with this phone, and i'll be setting up a linux box as soon as I breakdown my NAS computer to work on android stuff.
I can't speak to mac, i've had very little interaction with them since the early 90's. Windows 3.1 came out and I dropped mac, ever since it's been something i've stayed away from.
I reformat all my cards in my windows computer, then put them in the powered off phone - it boots up and uses the cards fine.
I had one issue where I pulled a card before it popped up and said "safe to remove" on my computer, the phone wouldn't read the card. I pulled it and reformatted in the computer, and when I put it back in the phone it was fine again.
I'd say that formatting in the mac should be fine, try it out and see what happens.
I have used the phone to reformat the memory cards a few times, but it has always been when I did a factory reset on the phone. I would assume that is the same utility in settings that you can use to reformat the card on the phone.
Once you back up your data to the computer, my suggestion would be to reformat the card in the computer, then put all the data back onto it the same way it was before the format.
When you plug it into the phone, everything should be okay then, but check all your apps to make sure they still run right (if any had data stored on the card)
Theoretically this should work fine.
Are you rooted, and do you have a recent clockworkmod backup of your phone?
Edit - you can probably get away with not moving the pictures themselves back onto the phone.
That's a sizeable chunk of data there, USB transfer to the memory card off the computer will work many orders of magnitude faster then using a MicroSD to SD adapter into a card slot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
iunlock said:
Backed Up / Restore complete and it pretty much got it all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad to hear you got it all!
iunlock said:
If I format it in the computer it should be a FAT32 correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep.
iunlock said:
I've always wondered about the encryption levels between formatting through the computer vs. SD card inside the phone (formatting)
Not that it really matters in my case (security wise), but do you know if formatting in the computer is better than reformatting w/ SD in the phone?
Would it be safe to say that reformatting inside the phone just does a single / simple pass through of putting 1's and 0's to wipe the data?
Whereas, reformatting in the computer you have different levels of pass throughs depending on the security level you desire.
-
Now taking it a step deeper, for me I've always wondered about the long term stability of SD Cards efficiency in general when doing the maximum pass throughs to erase the data instead of a simple 1 & 0 single pass through...
Kind of like painting a car:
If you paint directly on the bare bone primer sheet metal the paint will last longer without cracks down the road...ie.... cleaner, more organized data on a clean sheet of clusters of data.
If you paint over paint over paint with simple sand downs, then paint again over paint (thick).... over time it'll chip, crack and not last as long .... ie ..... higher probability of data corruption?
I've always had a piece of mind making it a habit to always do a fresh reformat with any SD cards I've had .... with the exception of this one for some odd reason... I guess I was in a rush to use it already to enjoy the Class 10 performance and speed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not entirely sure about the different levels of security, or even if there are any advantages/disadvantages to this.
Your painting analogy is a real good one, and as someone who was a painter by trade for quite a few years, it's one I use a lot.
When I was doing memory speed tests in my Nook Color on flash memory, I always formatted the cards in the Nook Color, then again in the computer, ejected and re-inserted the cards before running the test using the computer.
Like what you are saying, it ensured a clean card and uniformity. I'd rather take an extra step that may or may not be unnecessary just to be sure. The focus of my tests at the time were on credibility and reliability of results, and the dual format meant that the cards always were the same.
Windows gets lazy sometimes, and if formatting a card that essentially looks no different then when it started, it might just skip over doing the work - coming from being formatted in the Nook Color meant that windows had to actually do something to the card to make it right, and made sure it would do it's work. Why leave anything to chance.
You're looking at hundreds of thousands of read/writes on modern flash memory before it wears out...a couple of extra formats aren't going to hurt anything when you look at the big picture.
When you're talking about moving a card to a device like this phone, where it's probably not going to come out much, then a fresh format first is probably a wise move. Why contaminate the new device with junk left over from other devices on the card. Everything will work better if you start fresh.
iunlock said:
I really appreciate your input and knowledge. It's nice to know there's people on here that can post intellectually...I was beginning to worry after reading all these posts with responses with no substance.
btw: You're either a major night owl or over seas being up at this hour? haha...kudos
Cheers...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad to be of help, I try to do whatever I can to help out, both online and off. I suffer from severe insomnia, and sleep very little. I have to do something to keep myself occupied, and the internet and computers in general give me something to do when everyone I know is sleeping.
The more I share what I know, the more I learn from other people who come by and add to it. No matter how much you know, someone else, probably many others know more on any given topic. With a board as big as XDA, and such a great community spirit, the amount of information here is just staggering.
I try to put what I know out there as completely as possible as much for myself as others. I'd rather have the tons of learned people browsing these boards add to what I know, instead of covering the same ground. It's one of the reasons I try to be so particular about the details in everything I post.
Something like this phone is especially exciting, because it's a new thing. In a sense, we're breaking new ground with some of the stuff we're doing here, and that amps me up even more.
I have a feeling This thread is going to turn into another in-depth flash memory review like what I was involved with in the Nook Color. Check it out, since you have one of those coveted 32gig class 10 cards and see if you can add anything at some point.
I'm looking forward to picking up some to test out, and figure out what a good way of benchmarking them through the phone will be to get some definitive comparisons. It'd be nice to be able to make suggestions for people who come by in the future about what are the good cards to buy if they want to get the best level of performance out of their phone.
I'm curious to know how it goes with your recovery of the memory card in regards to getting the data back on, and whether it hiccups or not when you put your device back together. I don't have a mac, and being able to tell others who come by that it works, or why it doesn't will be very helpful to the community in general.
Thanks again!
I'm reformatting the SD card now via the Mac using Disk Utility. For giggles I just selected the maximum 7 pass through, which will probably take a few hours. I'll just let it run while I sleep.
Here's another thing I've always wondered about:
When you install an app or game and let's say you uninstall it, I wonder how much clutter it leaves behind of the original app or game system files?
I'd figure over time all the 'dust' would add up to accumulate to something that may potentially have an impact on the performance of the SD card.
This has always been one of the biggest reasons I love reformatting a SD card when I can. It's like spring cleaning for me....starting fresh on a clean plate.
---
You're contribution is greatly appreciated and brings much value to the forums.
I think I too suffer from insomnia to a certain degree... yikes! It's 2:41PM HST right now...prob won't sleep til 5am ...
LOL, I don't think I've 'Safely Removed' any USB since USB 1.0 or 1.1 days..yeah, I like to live on the edge!
So far I've hooked my phone up to my computer 5 times to transfer MP3s to it. I just pull the plug when I'm done..no problems (yet)
Living on the edge there eh? I'm surprised you haven't had any issues yet...to be on the safe side, I'd make sure to safely remove it first.
Especially if you have important stuff on your card.
Good luck!
token2k6 said:
LOL, I don't think I've 'Safely Removed' any USB since USB 1.0 or 1.1 days..yeah, I like to live on the edge!
So far I've hooked my phone up to my computer 5 times to transfer MP3s to it. I just pull the plug when I'm done..no problems (yet)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
iunlock said:
Living on the edge there eh? I'm surprised you haven't had any issues yet...to be on the safe side, I'd make sure to safely remove it first.
Especially if you have important stuff on your card.
Good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
99.99999% of the time, you do not need to use safely remove hardware for usb mass storage devices (like a usb stick or a phone with an sd storage card). unless you have specifically configured the device to have write caching enabled in device manager (no reason to do this for a phone or usb flash drive), as long as there is nothing being written to the storage device, it's completely harmless.
Related
[Q] Please help data recovery on HD7 - desperate!
2 days ago my son was born and I used my HTC HD7 to take all pictures and videos of him and my wife, these were the most amazing and precious moments of my life and I captured them all on my phone. My wife and I both have identical HD7 phones, last night I took my phone home and charged a spare battery for her, today I took this to hospital and we both turned our phones off and waited until the "goodbye" sreen had vanished, and then swapped the batterys over in the phones so she had the fully charged battery and I had the low/quarter full battery. When she switched on her phone, everything was fine, but when I switched on mine I saw some screen flash up saying something about "pressing the volume buttons to erase your phone" I paniced at this point and did a stupid thing and took out the battery again. After I put it back in it booted up and gave me the "seup windows phone" screen. At this point I switched my phone off and havent swiched it back on since. Is there any hope of recoverying the pictures and videos? Apps, contactacts etc I dont care about, but these are the most important moments of my life I want to recover. I have no idea what happened, but at the moment I am very upset. I am an IT technician myself, and in the past it has been all stored on the memory card, but there is no way to remove the memory card on this phone. I am willing to destroy the phone to preserve this data if needed, Is there any way I could remove the memory card? I could try some data recovery software if this is the case. Please help, the might be a simple way to sort this I haven't been able to find. I have now been up 36 hours as my wife has had a lot of complications and lost a lot of blood last night and ended up having a transfusion. Sorry to be so personal, but I am really desperate to save these photos.
you might have accidentally held the volume button when you turned on the device, and that triggered that factory reset feature. I have done this accidentally with my trophy as well when i was running late for work, but instead of removing the battery, i held down the power button and tried again, but when it turned on it didnt show me a setup one where you type in your windows live id, instead my one was an image of a windows phone suggesting to connect to a laptop via USB cable, again i didnt panic and turned off the screen and held down the volume button and the power button and i did trigger the factory reset in purpose, once i was at the factory reset screen, pressing any other button (camera key, and sleep/wake/power key) apart from the volume keys disables the reset feature and will continue to boot to wp7. I dont know if Im helping, but thats how I resolved my situation.
How to remove memory card Hi Herr_ando, Firstly Congratulations on becoming a father Secondly do not worry all is not lost, if you cannot get the handset to boot normally you can remove the memory card (without voiding the warranty too) A lot of people figured this out when they had fist purchased the HD7 and have since used the following video clip to help them upgrade the memory card size: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EcGUX3NwnQ I have done this myself but had trouble when reading the memory card via a dongle (this is due to the differing format used by WP7) the way i got round this was either by putting the memory card into an old N97 nokia phone and using the pc software to remove the pictures from it or to use a flash drive recovery app found via google. Hope this helps, Creamy
It doesn't sound like you actually performed a factory reset so it's probably fine... but if you want to be safe, pull out the SD card like the previous post says. It might make you factory reset after putting it back in, but if you already save your pics and videos, who cares, right?
thesecondsfade said: It doesn't sound like you actually performed a factory reset so it's probably fine... but if you want to be safe, pull out the SD card like the previous post says. It might make you factory reset after putting it back in, but if you already save your pics and videos, who cares, right? Click to expand... Click to collapse It's okay to take out the SD card and put it back as long as the phone isn't turned on in the meantime and nothing is written to the SD card. So it's okay if you use the SD card to recover photos and put it back in, as long as the phone stays off in this time. @herr_ando: Congratulations on becoming a father!
Hi guys, thanks for the congratulations. I tried removing the memory card and plugged it into a card reader, no joy reading this card, in fact it wouldnt even detect. I also tried putting it into my Toshiba Camileo, which I know deffo supports SDHC cards of this size, was unable to see it at all. Also tried it in a new laptop, with a micro > full size adaptor, no joy, and a blackberry 8520 with mass storage enabled still cant read this card, when I choose disable mass storage it tells me the memory card isn't formatted. I know Windowsphone7 files on the memory card isn't supposed to be accessable outside the OS but this makes data recovery impossible for me. If this was a PC HDD or standard SD card I could run some data recovery software, and try to recover these files even if the card has been formatted. but I have no idea how to do this for this card... any ideas?
herr_ando said: Hi guys, thanks for the congratulations. I tried removing the memory card and plugged it into a card reader, no joy reading this card, in fact it wouldnt even detect. I also tried putting it into my Toshiba Camileo, which I know deffo supports SDHC cards of this size, was unable to see it at all. Also tried it in a new laptop, with a micro > full size adaptor, no joy, and a blackberry 8520 with mass storage enabled still cant read this card, when I choose disable mass storage it tells me the memory card isn't formatted. I know Windowsphone7 files on the memory card isn't supposed to be accessable outside the OS but this makes data recovery impossible for me. If this was a PC HDD or standard SD card I could run some data recovery software, and try to recover these files even if the card has been formatted. but I have no idea how to do this for this card... any ideas? Click to expand... Click to collapse Sadly, you need a Nokia cell as stated above, to read the card. Their OS is the only one that supports the partition format & password protection. I have 2 SD Cards that won't work on anything other than a Nokia cell because of this. They came out of a Nokia MusicXpress & Nuron my room mate had.
Hi mate So you reckon if I buy a Nokia 5230 or similar I should be able to read this card? I should be able to pick one of these up for £35 or so, well worth it to get these photos back. I have no experiance of nokia phones since the old days of my 3310. Do i need to use nokia software or does this present itself as a removable hdd in windows? Many thanks.
herr_ando said: Hi mate So you reckon if I buy a Nokia 5230 or similar I should be able to read this card? I should be able to pick one of these up for £35 or so, well worth it to get these photos back. I have no experiance of nokia phones since the old days of my 3310. Do i need to use nokia software or does this present itself as a removable hdd in windows? Many thanks. Click to expand... Click to collapse Creamy stated the n97. I'm not family with all this as I never done it, but there's a lot of threads regarding this. People using Nokia phones to unlock & reformat SD card so they'll work for other devices. As to what devices this work on, I'm not sure, but as long as the card hasn't been erased yet, it's possible that a Nokia phone will be able to read the card & transfer files to your pc. You can look through the forum for more information from people with experience. My experience only deals with trying to get these 2 SD cards working with other devices & will result in for formatting the cards. NOTE: Also, I do believe you need the nokia desktop software install to transfer file, but am not sure. Another thing, if you do find the sd card is empty, maybe reformatting it in the nokia phone, you'll be able to directly put the sd card in your pc & use your partition recovery tools on it.
Best Digital Media Recovery Software Hi, Congratulations on becoming a father! If the memory card is not recognized in the PC or it is impossible to access the data on it, the controller on the card is damaged. There is only one way to get the data back, digital media recovery and directly access their raw data with a programable digital media recovery tool. Have a look at: RecoverDataTools DigitalMediaRecoveryTool
Mozart not recognised by windows so can't backup please help!!
I was recently given a Htc mozart by a friend who had cracked the screen and bought a new phone, they said I could have it but would like their photos and vids off it so if I could back it up (easy as pie I thought!!!) The phone charges and functions fine (I changed the digitzer) but when plugged into a pc it displays usb unrecognized error code 43 (malfunction?). I have tried multiple cables, laptops and even os (xp, 7 32bit/64bit and osx), I have searched the internet and have seen some suggestions on wiping the phone (but I don't want to do this until the data is backed up) also looked at reading the micro sd but found you can't by conventional methods. I have also tried multiple apps - boxfiles, sendstuffnow,sharefile (they seem to allow one photo at a time but not videos), I also tried emailing them but again I can't email vids and the phone has over 500 pics! tried bluetooth and also yivosoft but it doesn't seem to be able to view the files (root access required??), tried a few other programs such as ftp and they just state the phone needs to be updated via zune (currently running 7.0.7004.0). I was thinking of sticking another microsd card in and formatting it etc just to see if it is then recognised in windows and poss update the firmware then put the old micro sd back in? would this work or is the firmware stored on the micro sd card and also if not when I update would it then state the old micro sd needs formatting or something? If anyone has any suggestions on how I can get the pics and vids off it would be greatly appreciated! I am an android user and this is my first experience with a windows phone so if I am way off my apologies. Thanks again
For sure don't mess with the uSD cards. They're locked to the device (the "S" in SD stands for "Secure" and refers to a rarely-used ability to lock an SD card). Even if you managed to make the card usable again, the data on it would be gone. Also, yes, the OS is at least partially stored on the SD card, and your switch-update suggestion would not work. WiFi sync would work, but if that's not already set up you'd need to connect the phone to Zune via the USB to set it up. There are some homebrew apps that would be able to lift the files easily enough, but unless you have something lile TouchXplorer or Advanced Explorer installed already, that's not an option (you need USB connection to install more homebrew). Sorry, man. This is one of the reasons why I plug in my phone to my PC every day or two and sync it; the tiny amount of time it takes is worth the reassurance. I realize that doesn't help now, though...
GoodDayToDie said: For sure don't mess with the uSD cards. They're locked to the device (the "S" in SD stands for "Secure" and refers to a rarely-used ability to lock an SD card). Even if you managed to make the card usable again, the data on it would be gone. Also, yes, the OS is at least partially stored on the SD card, and your switch-update suggestion would not work. WiFi sync would work, but if that's not already set up you'd need to connect the phone to Zune via the USB to set it up. There are some homebrew apps that would be able to lift the files easily enough, but unless you have something lile TouchXplorer or Advanced Explorer installed already, that's not an option (you need USB connection to install more homebrew). Sorry, man. This is one of the reasons why I plug in my phone to my PC every day or two and sync it; the tiny amount of time it takes is worth the reassurance. I realize that doesn't help now, though... Click to expand... Click to collapse Thanks for the reply, know what you mean I back up regular also but my friend didn't. I can't believe its so difficult to transfer the files without the usb connection :S also can't believe the updates are no ota :S was hoping there might be a method of unlocking the phone for homebrew like there was with the iphone at one stage. Ah well back to the drawing board unless someone can come up with any other ideas!
God Mode MicroSD Card
I have a SanDisk 64GB MicroSD card that I have used for about 8 months without any issue. Recently the SD card would write data, then the data would disappear. This was extremely frustrating after trying to backup phone data to make a switch and realizing that, even though I verified the existence of the backed up data including opening specific files, that when I put it into a different phone, the data was gone. Everything that was there before this started happening won't go away. I have deleted everything on the card multiple times and it keeps coming back.
I can't get the card to format for the life of me. I run a format through cmd and the card still returns to life as it's old self with all the data that doesn't wipe still fully accessible and usable. Now the thing is I can't format through any program besides cmd. In cmd I get a notice before I format that the card needs to be forced to dismount ("Volume is in use by another process"). I think the card is perma-stuck mounted to my old phone. No matter what I do nothing succeeds and I'm really at a loss. There's no write protection switch on the card and I don't know what I need to do to fix the issue. I'd really like this card back and not have to burn it (I mean that literally) and spend $50 for a new one.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
[Guide] How To Unbrick A Softbricked [F117 Tablet]
Here is a quick and easy guide on how to fix the infamous, "no brand", made in China, F117 tablet. Most everyone that has one had bought it off ebay because it was the cheapest 7" tablet available online at one time. Price was around $35. It has no identifying brand, and no volume buttons. On the back it simply says, "made in China" and "model F117". They are notorious for soft-bricking for no apparent reason, and most people had trouble with wifi on it among other issues. A family member gave one to me as it was useless to them, and I spent many days and countless hours trying to figure out how to get it working properly, or working better than before. It would power up and say "irulu" and then be stuck at "android" screen. I scanned the internet hard and saw at least 100 people had the same problem with no solution. I even contacted irulu and worked my way up to speaking with a top representative of the company. In the end he claimed it was not an irulu tablet! I could not believe it! I have come to believe that this tablet has a lot of mysteries surrounding its true origin. I eventually figured out a solution through a lot of trial and error, and translating websites from other countries. If you are reading this now, then you probably have not found any answer online like myself. Especially if you are from the USA. With that being said I cannot guarantee it will work for you, but at this point you probably have nothing to lose. There are slightly different ways to do this, but this is how I did it... *The only way I found to shut it off once it is stuck at the "android" screen, was to stick a thumbtack in the tiny hole on the back that says "reset", or to let it run out of battery. Obviously the first option is better! *Using a computer, I downloaded the "F117 en.ius" file next (I was scared to download to my phone, just in case it auto-booted!). You don't have to sign up or pay anything. Just choose the low speed, free download from this site... http://файлообменник.рф/download/folder/1229260 *I grabbed a 2gb micro sd card that I didn't care about, (it was the smallest one I had) and made sure I saved anything important on it to my computer. *I inserted micro sd card into regular sd card, and inserted into mmc slot in my laptop (running windows xp). *I opened up the "my computer" option on my laptop and located the drive letter that was related to my mmc slot. *WARNING! Make sure you know which drive is related to your mmc slot before going any furthur! Pop out the sd card and pop it back in again to watch it disappear and reappear! If you make a mistake and select the wrong drive in the next step, you could erase your hard drive! *I right-clicked on the drive letter that was related to my mmc slot and formatted it as fat32 (This will erase everything on micro sd card!) *I copied the f117 file I downloaded earlier to the drive related to my mmc slot (nothing else is required in this case to make the sd card bootable). *I unmounted the sd card by choosing the safely remove hardware option. *I inserted the micro sd card into the tablet and had to use a paperclip to push it all the way in until it clicked. *I held down the power button and the menu button at the same time until message popped up asking if I wanted to boot from sd card. *I hit the menu button to select yes, and it booted right up like brand new (but better because it upgraded android version!) and has been working great for a year now without any bugs! Please let me know if this worked for you, or if you have any questions. Thanks!
K1: Post 1.3 OTA, paired/married SD causes tablet lock, bootloops, and a ton of heat.
This is a strange one for me. Stumped. Been working on it all night, no improvement. New one for me, long-ish description (with detail), but a TL;DR too. Last night I applied the 1.3 OTA for the K1. Being my K1 was rooted, I followed the process I have always followed by restoring the system images to stock, applying the OTA via recovery, then re-rooting. Process: Shutdown tablet Swap married/paired SD card with temp SD containing flashables (OTA, SuperSU) Boot to bootloader, fastboot (re)flash tablet's current system images (recovery was already stock but flashed again for good measure, boot, system, blob -> staging) Boot to custom recovery using fastboot boot -recovery image- Flash OTA from temp SD, wipe caches, apply SuperSU Shutdown, replace married SD, boot, enjoy life This time I didn't immediately apply SuperSU, as I thought I'd flash 1.3 and let it go fully stock a bit to ensure no other updates were pending (nVidia seems to like incremental updates, so flashing to 1.1 won't give you an OTA to 1.3 directly, but to 1.2 first, then 1.3). I've also followed this process with the K1 for every update since 1.1 without a hitch, and although there haven't been many OTAs, it has still worked perfectly every time. Because of this and because I've done this a billion times on a million different devices with zero issues ever, I didn't take a backup before the update. Woe is me. When I rebooted this time after flashing the OTA (no root), it booted up seemingly fine to the "Android is upgrading" modal, so I left the tablet alone for a bit to let it do its thing. When I came back, the tablet was HOT, was at a completely black screen save for the status bar (no wallpaper/launcher besides the clock/wifi icon which showed a connection, that's it). I tried to interact with it and couldn't (totally locked up, also a first), then it rebooted on its own. Subsequent times, during troubleshooting, I noticed that it's totally locked -- NOTHING responds, unless you can get to it before it reboots and hold power to kill it. First thought was a bad flash. NBD, so went back and reflashed, double-checking everything and carefully following the same process. No dice. I did use a newer TWRP recovery from April of this year initially, which was a recommended version for the K1 specifically, rather than a really buggy but working one from last year. To test I did I try using the older TWRP on one of the next flashes thinking maybe the new one borked the partitions, or at least wasn't writing the partitions/symlinks properly (and the older one was the TWRP I had used for previous updates, with no issues). But, no change.. It took me a long time and many reflashes and cache formatting and digging before I realized if I pulled the married SD out, it booted just fine. Weird, and gets weirder. After leaving the married SD out and booting, and having the tablet working just as expected (except for missing the SD), Android shows a notification saying to reinsert the married SD. Once the married SD is reinserted, things seem OK for a few seconds before the whole system goes unresponsive again, heats up, and begins bootlooping. Before it sh'ts the bed, the message on the status notification asking to reinsert the married SD card doesn't change, but in the Storage settings, it shows it's "checking" the card, followed by a sudden hot death spiral into non-function. If you select the SD from Storage settings to take a look around its contents, the tablet basically locks up instantly. Inserting other SDs works fine (for the most part, still some other weirdness), it's just the married SD that totally kills the device without fail. Obviously I'd like to avoid wiping and reinstalling the whole thing if it can be avoided, not just because my dumb ass didn't take a backup so I'd lose a ton of app/game data, but also because it's a just huge pain. A lot of the sites that offered "fixes" for these types of problems say to just wipe data, which is not a solution and is the nuclear option (like telling someone to to replace a car due to a flat tire). Ideas? Is this as simple as recreating some symlinks that somehow disappeared and refuse to come back after all the flashes, and if so, how? I've been looking for hours and haven't found anyone with this particular issue or steps to correct. [size=+2]TL;DR[/size]: Applied K1 1.3 OTA, married/paired SD card is no longer recognized, causes tablet to hard-lock and enter bootloop when inserted (other SDs do not cause this issue). Other potentially pertinent bits: Initial flash was dirty, second and subsequent flashes included a wipe of system first Installed 1.2 images first, then tried going back to 1.1.1 and taking nVidia's OTAs to get back up to 1.3 1.1.1 does not recognize the married SD but doesn't kill the tablet, while 1.2 and 1.3 kill the tablet when the SD is inserted When married SD is not inserted, using shell or ES Explorer or otherwise, not seeing a /storage/emulated/0, or /sdcard, or /data/media, or any other familiar storage related directories When married SD is inserted, it dies too fast to look around much or try to do anything to check/fix the SD itself /storage is totally empty except for a folder called "self", and inserting a working SD creates a directory under /storage labeled with the SD's serial number (not an emulated/0 directory or anything similar) Not sure if this is expected behavior since the SD was married -- do those directories/symlinks live on the SD now since it's married, and won't show up in the device filesystem until everything's properly mounted? Tried following these steps, which although written in the N5 forum, still seemed relevant.. no change Tried the referenced SD permissions update with the card inserted and not, in case of the directories it touches only being visible/available with the card inserted, no change Noticed even within TWRP, going to the "mount" menu seemed flaky, labored, and didn't show what I expected, but this could be because there isn't a "proper" or official custom recovery for the K1 yet and things are just buggy ES File Manager still seems to think an /sdcard directory exists and tries to open to it, and just spins in an open directory.. as expected Going to /data in ES File Manager shows me an empty directory with a message stating the SD card is missing Using a working, freshly formatted SD in the tablet and trying to point Titanium to a directory on the SD gives me messages about the directory being unwritable, no matter where I go on the SD Titanium's app permissions (including r/w storage) are proper, SD is not write protected (freshly formatted on the tablet) Tried using SDFix, which also gave me an error re: "platform permission file is invalid" There's probably more I'm missing, but can't remember it all -- I have tried everything, I feel like, and have been at it for 13 hours now (apologies if this is written spotty, fighting to keep my eyes open). So is it totally hosed, or is this recoverable? Is there a way to fix the tablet to recognize the SD, or fix the SD itself if that's the issue (but I'd wonder how it got corrupted in the first place, since it has only been removed once fully powered down)? Is there at least a way to check the married SD for corruption or issues? Thoughts? EDIT: Formatting
You removed the sdcard that was set as internal storage? Well you probably broke it/the data on it because that's not what you should do at all
GtrCraft said: You removed the sdcard that was set as internal storage? Well you probably broke it/the data on it because that's not what you should do at all Click to expand... Click to collapse And why is that? When the OS is running, sure, you can't. It'd be equivalent to just deleting /data while the OS was running. It seems pretty unlikely that removing and reinserting it while it's powered off, though, would make it suddenly unable to read the SD or forget its pairing. Adopted storage is "married" to the device via a generated encryption key, which is stored on the device's internal storage. It's all handled in software, not like the SD fuses itself to the device Removing the SD (while off) would not (and does not) break this pairing method, unless the internal storage or SD decides to spontaneously erase itself while the device was off. The process outlined is the recommended process for upgrading rooted devices with adopted storage. I've followed this process on multiple tablets/phones with adopted storage with zero issues, including this one several times, like I mentioned. If it WERE the case that simply removing it (again, while off) made it forget the SD, I could understand the tablet reading the card and saying "nope not going to accept it, you done f'd up" and spitting out a dialog telling me to format it or whatnot.. lesson learned, if that were the case. However it's completely hard-locking the device (again, NOTHING works, no physical buttons, screen is unresponsive, only holding power to kill it works) when it's just reading the SD, and apparently pinning the CPU when doing so (hence the absurd heat)..? It's not just a matter of the tablet forgetting the SD
grivad said: When the OS is running, sure. Maybe that is the case, but it seems pretty unlikely that removing and reinserting it while it's powered off would make it spontaneously unable to read the SD or forget its pairing. This is the recommended process for upgrading rooted devices with adopted storage. I've followed this process on multiple tablets/phones with adopted storage with zero issues, including this one several times, like I mentioned. If it WERE the case that simply removing it (again, while off) made it forget the SD, I could understand the tablet reading the card and saying "nope not going to accept it, you done f'd up" and spitting out a dialog telling me to format it or whatnot.. lesson learned, if that were the case. However it's completely hard-locking the device (again, NOTHING works, no physical buttons, screen is unresponsive, only holding power to kill it works) when it's just reading the SD, and apparently pinning the CPU when doing so (hence the absurd heat)..? It's not just a matter of the tablet forgetting the SD Click to expand... Click to collapse Still, you better off formatting it Sent from my XT1562 using XDA Labs
Been running adopted storage in my mxpe since mm was released and have never removed the card to flash. Sent from my SHIELD Tablet using Tapatalk
lafester said: Been running adopted storage in my mxpe since mm was released and have never removed the card to flash. Sent from my SHIELD Tablet using Tapatalk Click to expand... Click to collapse Cool. Regarding the YOU CAN'T REMOVE IT belief (which is categorically false), if this were a serious issue like people speculate it is, Android would simply not ALLOW you to remove it. Meaning if it was ever detected as being removed or missing, first time, Android would tell you "too bad, now it's unpaired", and would also make it REEEEALLY clear not to remove it at all, ever, during the pairing process, which it does not. Nor would it let you eject adopted storage, which you can, safely. Like I mentioned above, when booting without the SD present, the system runs fine and has a persistent notification asking you to reinsert the paired SD, and begins to check the SD as soon as it's inserted so it can be remounted. If you select the notification before putting the SD back in, it takes you to a panel explaining how the SD has all your apps, so you really should put it back in, or you can choose to "forget" the SD and you're back to square one. If you REALLY weren't supposed to remove the SD EVER, none of this would exist. Additionally, pretty much every piece of documentation around adoptable storage says it can be removed just fine (but is only readable/usable by the device it was paired to), but the system kinda needs it to, you know, run all the apps you put on the thing, and will persistently remind you to reinsert it, unless you choose to break the adoption. So there's that. Storage adoption isn't this magical, complicated thing. It mounts certain directories to your SD instead of internal storage (e.g., /storage/emulated), generates a key, then encrypts the card to prevent it from being read outside of the device it was paired with. That's really pretty much all there is to it. None of those things necessitate a or even imply that removal of an adopted SD would lead to sudden disaster. That's like believing if you take your hard drive out of your computer, but then plug it right back in, that it's going to be unbootable and dead. Doesn't work that way. I appreciate you guys trying to help, but the problem is not simply that I removed the SD so now it's broken. The thing that should get your attention is that when the SD is inserted, it begins to scan the SD and subsequently HARD-LOCKS. And PEGS THE CPU. Also that I cannot write to a working SD with Titanium. These things are pretty abnormal for Android devices, to say the least. There is something else going on here besides "You took the SD out and you weren't supposed to."
grivad said: Cool. Regarding the DON'T REMOVE IT belief, if this were an issue like people speculate it is, Android would simply not ALLOW you to remove it. Meaning if it was ever detected as being removed or missing, first time, Android would tell you "too bad, now it's unpaired", and would also make it REEEEALLY clear not to remove it at all, ever, during the pairing process, which it does not. Nor would it let you eject adopted storage, which you can, safely. Like I mentioned above, when booting without the SD present, the system runs fine and has a persistent notification asking you to reinsert the paired SD, and begins to check the SD as soon as it's inserted so it can be remounted. If you select the notification before putting the SD back in, it takes you to a panel explaining how the SD has all your apps, so you really should put it back in, or you can choose to "forget" the SD and you're back to square one. If you REALLY weren't supposed to remove the SD EVER, none of this would exist. Additionally, pretty much every piece of documentation around adoptable storage says it can be removed just fine (but is only readable/usable by the device it was paired to), but the system kinda needs it to, you know, run all the apps you put on the thing, and will persistently remind you to reinsert it, unless you choose to break the adoption. So there's that. Storage adoption isn't this magical, complicated thing. It mounts certain directories to your SD instead of internal storage (e.g., /storage/emulated), generates a key, then encrypts the card to prevent it from being read outside of the device it was paired with. That's really pretty much all there is to it. None of those things necessitate a or even imply that removal of an adopted SD would lead to sudden disaster. That's like believing if you take your hard drive out of your computer, but then plug it right back in, that it's going to be unbootable and dead. Doesn't work that way. I appreciate you guys trying to help, but the problem is not simply that I removed the SD so now it's broken. The thing that should get your attention is that when the SD is inserted, it begins to scan the SD and subsequently HARD-LOCKS. And PEGS THE CPU. Both of those things are pretty abnormal for Android devices, to say the least. There is something else going on here besides "You took the SD out and you weren't supposed to." Click to expand... Click to collapse Well you tried with another sd and there is no problem. So the cause of the freezing problem is your sd. But be my guest and find another solution. I just gave an answer to your question and a solution for the problem. If you don't believe that then you shouldn't ask it in the first place
GtrCraft said: Well you tried with another sd and there is no problem. So the cause of the freezing problem is your sd. But be my guest and find another solution. I just gave an answer to your question and a solution for the problem. If you don't believe that then you shouldn't ask it in the first place Click to expand... Click to collapse It's not that I don't believe the solution, I don't believe the premise because it is provably false There is absolutely nothing unsafe about ejecting adopted storage, which is why the OS lets you do it, even while it's running and using the storage. Even less of a risk if the thing is off. The "solution" offered wasn't much of a solution, and in the OP it was stated that I wasn't looking for that answer (already know that's an option, which is why I mentioned in the OP). I appreciate you trying to help, but simply saying "format it", again, is the nuclear option. Not what I'm looking for. Either information as to what's happening (if anyone else has dealt with this) with a justification as to why it's irrepairable, or things to try based on the information I gave. Spending a lot of time being thorough just to get a "format it" response, to be frank, isn't very helpful It's like telling someone to reinstall their entire OS because they can't figure out how to install a driver, or to raze their house because a painting fell off the wall. The SD didn't spontaneously corrupt itself in the 5 mins it was out of the device. No gamma bursts or EM storms in my area that I know of, either Because the only thing that changed was installing the OTA, this really seems to be a software problem (albeit a bit bizarre, to me) so it should be fixable via software. The fact it's pegging the CPU when the SD is inserted makes me wonder if it's getting stuck in a loop, maybe due to partition changes (looking for a file or partition it can't find). If that's the case, again, that should be fixable via software, with instruction from someone knowledgeable on how the Android FS and mounts work. Again thanks for trying to help. I know formatting is an option (the easiest one), but I'm looking for just that -- options.
You did update the firmware with the sd out, nothing to do with lightning or gamma bursts. Did you try downgrading firmware back to where it was?
lafester said: You did update the firmware with the sd out, nothing to do with lightning or gamma bursts. Did you try downgrading firmware back to where it was? Click to expand... Click to collapse True, the SD was out, however this is how I've both read to do it in multiple places, and how I've applied every OTA so far without issue (with the same adopted SD every time). As part of my troubleshooting, I did try flashing the OTA with the adopted SD inserted, though. It didn't make a difference. I did try downgrading.. When I started the tablet was on 1.2, OTAd to 1.3. Every time I'd reflash I would do so to 1.2. I did try flashing down to 1.1.1 (the "recovery OS image") and OTAing back up, and like I mentioned that allowed me to use the device with the SD inserted, but it wouldn't recognize it as the adopted storage.. just kinda did nothing, as if the card wasn't inserted at all. This happened in 1.2 as well (OTAd from 1.1.1), and once it got up to 1.3 from 1.2 it all started all over again. I'm creating an image of the SD right now (using dd) to try restoring it to another SD. I've read that doing this preserves the pairing information, so if it's a bad SD, this would hopefully fix it. I also wanted to try flashing directly to 1.3, but the images aren't available yet Only 1.2 and 1.1.1..
Honestly I would divorce the card before update then redo it after this whole method is janky anyway no reason to remap the data links like they do and all it would be required is if app devs were forced to comply with a data space method... The feature of installing to SD card should be available to non married storage.
Old thread, haven't been on in a while, but thought I'd post an update. The problem ended up being a hardware issue. I contacted nVidia after absolutely nothing I tried resolved the issue (different SDs, different OS versions, different process to set up, etc.). I simply explained the problems I was having and my troubleshooting attempts, asked if it was a known issue or if they had any suggestions, and they immediately responded with RMA info, no questions asked. The replacement turnaround time was very fast (within a week IIRC), and the new K1 has had zero issues.