Database Info

[Q] Undelete/recover data from internal memory after wipe

My mom's Transformer TF101 spontaneously (I presume) wiped itself while she was traveling.
I'm trying to see if I can undelete some photos that where stored in the DCIM directory on the internal memory.
I haven't really found any Android apps to do so, so I was thinking to mount the TF on windows as a drive and use something like Recuva to see if the data is still there. Problem is that the TF shows up as a device in Windows and not as mounted drive, as such recovery apps don't see the it.
So, here's the questions:
What could cause a spontaneous wipe?
Is there an Android app that I can use to recover media files from the internal flash memory?
Can I mount the internal flash memory as a windows drive (say using ADB)?
I've searched for the last couple hours for the answers to these and haven't really found anything of any use, so I'm asking here.
Thanks.

Any luck with this. I am facing the same problem...
lost lot of data mostly docs etc...

[Q] One X Phone Storage question

Okay so this phone has an internal memory that is split into internal storage (2GB) and phone storage (10GBs). I've been going through the memory and trying to clear it out because it always seems full. After freeing up some space it says I have 1.43GBs being used on my phone storage for all my apps, music (which is really just a couple of podcasts consisting of 550MBs), and my gallery only 90 photos. This leaves only 1.6GB free out of 10 on that partition? Where is all this missing space? I completely cleared the app cache and like I said there is no video or music of any kind. I figured the OS was part of the internal storage as well so what could be taking up the other storage?

I forgot exactly how its split up, and I think whether your are ICS, JB or AOSP it gets displayed a bit differently. But I think its 2 GB for apps, 4 GB for the OS, and 10 GB is user accessible storage (basically an SD card, just internal or "virtual"). I don't think the OS takes any of the 10 GB of user accessible storage ("phone storage").
Are you rooted/bootloader unlocked, and have TWRP backups or Titanium Backup data, because both of those take up lots of space on the SD (phone storage).
Do you have any apps, like games, that may have had additional content data downloaded after you started up the app the first time? These can often take up a lot of space on the SD (phone storage) as well. You will often see them in folders specially named after the app or the software company (such as Gameloft). This data is obviously needed to play the game or run the app.
Also take a look and see if you have a LOST.DIR folder. Sometimes corrupted files will get dumped in here, and never deleted until you do it manually. I think I found a couple hundred MB worth of files in here once. Unless you know you have corrupted files that you want to recover (like photos you took), this data is safe to delete.

Also use es file explorer. Go menu -> manager -> sd card analyst it will tell you where your storage is being used
Sent from my VENOMized HoxL

area51avenger said:
Also use es file explorer. Go menu -> manager -> sd card analyst it will tell you where your storage is being used
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great tip. Thanks. I love ES File Explorer, and its my go-to file browser app for the time being. But I don't think I ever knew that feature existed.

[Q] Rooting and SD Cards.

Hello, I wanted to know about how SD cards and Root and all the stuff that is associated with rooting (ROMS, backups, etc) interact. I am on Verizon, currently have a Droid X2, which is a really bad phone, and am due for an upgrade already. I am considering choosing between the HTC One and the GS4, but leaning towards the One because of the design/speakers/snapiness/etc. But there is one thing that I'm concerned about. It doesn't have expandable storage. No expandable storage = no SD Card. I wanted to know because I've seen a few reviews and some of them say that Rooters should stay clear of the One because it doesn't have an SD card.
Another thing: I currently own a Nexus 7 which is rooted, so no SD card there either, but I never realized that I won't be able to quickly restore all of my apps through titanium like I do on my X2, because I realized that all the backups are saved on my X2s SD card, so whenever I factory restore or change ROMs, it's convenient to have my apps and the app data on the SD card. So if I were to wipe my Nexus 7 or change ROMS, the backups would be gone because they are stored on the internal storage, right?
So my questions are:
What role does an SD card have in the Rooting processes and root related things? Is it necessary? What are the advantages of having an SD on the device?
Can any of the roles an SD card has be worked around without one?
Can I have my backups backed up to the cloud or other method in which they can be quickly restored, like on my X2 with the SD card?
Why do the reviewers stay to stay clear of devices without SD card slots?
Should I get the One, and now that I think of it, should have I got my Nexus 7 since I'm a rooter and might change ROMs/have to factory reset?

So my questions are:
What role does an SD card have in the Rooting processes and root related things? Is it necessary? What are the advantages of having an SD on the device?
Nothing; the advice about the One just meant that people who root and ROM their devices tend to horde a lot of phone-related files, so expandable storage is a plus since it allows you to cost-effectively add storage as needed. As for advantages? Being able to add storage as you need it, for cheap, and the ability to seamlessly move your files from phone to phone or computer easily. Plus, apps require internal storage, so another plus of having external storage is that you can put all of your media and other files on external storage to save app space.
Can any of the roles an SD card has be worked around without one?
Sort of; both phones (One and S4) support USB OTG. It's a cheap, $2 cable on eBay that's a microUSB adapter on side (goes into the charger port on your phone) and a full-sized USB port on the other. It lets you plug in flash drives, keyboards, mice, etc. There's also this: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andyfei/mini-microsd-reader-for-android-smartphones-and-ta
Can I have my backups backed up to the cloud or other method in which they can be quickly restored, like on my X2 with the SD card?
If by backups you mean Titanium Backup, yes. Titanium Backup has a native export to cloud option that supports Google Drive, Dropbox, and other providers. If you mean Nandroids (full device backups), just copy them off your phone to your computer. They're saved in a folder on either your SD card or internal storage (guessing your SD card on your Droid X2). I don't recommend at all restoring app backups from two different devices, let alone two completely different versions of Android. It's guaranteed to screw up your ROM in one way or another. It's fine to restore an app to a different device/version of Android, but not the data with it.
Why do the reviewers stay to stay clear of devices without SD card slots?
A few reasons, though none of them have to do with the ability to root:
- If your phone dies (completely, due to damage or just having a bad unit), the data is pretty much gone and unrecoverable. If you were using a microSD card, you could have just pulled it out of the phone and called it a day.
- You can expand the storage for cheap; one of the biggest flaws of the iPhone is that going from 16GB to 32GB costs $100. A 16GB microSD card is like, what, $10? Nuff said.
- Apps can only be installed to internal storage (unless you use some root apps that are a pain in the butt). If you offload all your media (photos, music, videos, etc) to your external storage, you can have room for all your apps. Remember that games are starting to take up over a gigabyte each in some cases. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Need For Speed: Most Wanted, Asphalt 7, etc.
Should I get the One, and now that I think of it, should have I got my Nexus 7 since I'm a rooter and might change ROMs/have to factory reset?
It depends on your preferences. The One is a great phone in itself; it depends on you whether or not the lack of microSD card slot is a deal-breaker. It won't affect your ability to root the phone, but consider the answers to your questions that I gave you (I'm not swaying you from or towards it). The Nexus 7 is a great tablet; again, having a microSD card slot has nothing to do with the ability to root your device.

Product F(RED) said:
So my questions are:
What role does an SD card have in the Rooting processes and root related things? Is it necessary? What are the advantages of having an SD on the device?
Nothing; the advice about the One just meant that people who root and ROM their devices tend to horde a lot of phone-related files, so expandable storage is a plus since it allows you to cost-effectively add storage as needed. As for advantages? Being able to add storage as you need it, for cheap, and the ability to seamlessly move your files from phone to phone or computer easily. Plus, apps require internal storage, so another plus of having external storage is that you can put all of your media and other files on external storage to save app space.
Can any of the roles an SD card has be worked around without one?
Sort of; both phones (One and S4) support USB OTG. It's a cheap, $2 cable on eBay that's a microUSB adapter on side (goes into the charger port on your phone) and a full-sized USB port on the other. It lets you plug in flash drives, keyboards, mice, etc. There's also this: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andyfei/mini-microsd-reader-for-android-smartphones-and-ta
Can I have my backups backed up to the cloud or other method in which they can be quickly restored, like on my X2 with the SD card?
If by backups you mean Titanium Backup, yes. Titanium Backup has a native export to cloud option that supports Google Drive, Dropbox, and other providers. If you mean Nandroids (full device backups), just copy them off your phone to your computer. They're saved in a folder on either your SD card or internal storage (guessing your SD card on your Droid X2). I don't recommend at all restoring app backups from two different devices, let alone two completely different versions of Android. It's guaranteed to screw up your ROM in one way or another. It's fine to restore an app to a different device/version of Android, but not the data with it.
Why do the reviewers stay to stay clear of devices without SD card slots?
A few reasons, though none of them have to do with the ability to root:
- If your phone dies (completely, due to damage or just having a bad unit), the data is pretty much gone and unrecoverable. If you were using a microSD card, you could have just pulled it out of the phone and called it a day.
- You can expand the storage for cheap; one of the biggest flaws of the iPhone is that going from 16GB to 32GB costs $100. A 16GB microSD card is like, what, $10? Nuff said.
- Apps can only be installed to internal storage (unless you use some root apps that are a pain in the butt). If you offload all your media (photos, music, videos, etc) to your external storage, you can have room for all your apps. Remember that games are starting to take up over a gigabyte each in some cases. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Need For Speed: Most Wanted, Asphalt 7, etc.
Should I get the One, and now that I think of it, should have I got my Nexus 7 since I'm a rooter and might change ROMs/have to factory reset?
It depends on your preferences. The One is a great phone in itself; it depends on you whether or not the lack of microSD card slot is a deal-breaker. It won't affect your ability to root the phone, but consider the answers to your questions that I gave you (I'm not swaying you from or towards it). The Nexus 7 is a great tablet; again, having a microSD card slot has nothing to do with the ability to root your device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for replying so quickly, I appreciate that! I know that SD cards don't affect rooting whatsoever, but some features that you need to root like titanium backup for restoring app data/apps.
As far as cloud backups go, I know how to backup my applications and app data to the cloud, but how would you go about restoring the apps and data? I'm asking because if you have an SD card you find the location on the SD card where your backups are and you just restore straight from titanium. Since they're in the cloud, would you have to manually move them from PC to the internal storage folder? Or download them from the cloud one by one to you're device? (I know you can create a flashable zip file, but last time I tried it on my X2, it boot looped, so I had to factory restore it.)
That's my main concern is backups and restoring data. How do you do it from the cloud that's as fast as from an SD card? Or how do you perform restores at all from the cloud? Thanks so much!
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

Thank you for replying so quickly, I appreciate that! I know that SD cards don't affect rooting whatsoever, but some features that you need to root like titanium backup for restoring app data/apps.
On phones running Ice Cream Sandwich and above, the internal storage shows up as an SD card (the phone may not say it, but if you go into Android's root directory with a file browser, you'd see /mnt/sdcard/ , which is really just the internal storage. If you put a memory card into a Galaxy S3 or S4, the card shows up as /mnt/extsdcard/. Most technical apps allow you to choose where to save/load to and from. Titanium Backup is one of those apps. You can copy your backup folder from the memory card in your X2 to the internal storage in the One. Or you can even use one of those USB OTG cables to put it on a flash drive or card reader directly into the One (remember, a USB OTG cable gives you a full USB port).
As far as cloud backups go, I know how to backup my applications and app data to the cloud, but how would you go about restoring the apps and data? I'm asking because if you have an SD card you find the location on the SD card where your backups are and you just restore straight from titanium. Since they're in the cloud, would you have to manually move them from PC to the internal storage folder? Or download them from the cloud one by one to you're device? (I know you can create a flashable zip file, but last time I tried it on my X2, it boot looped, so I had to factory restore it.)
To be honest, I haven't used Titanium Backup's cloud feature because my home internet isn't too fast, so uploads would be slow, so I don't know much about restoring from the cloud. But I would assume you'd be able to do so. A quick Google search should help you out.
That's my main concern is backups and restoring data. How do you do it from the cloud that's as fast as from an SD card? Or how do you perform restores at all from the cloud? Thanks so much!
Well pulling files over the internet will always be much slower than reading them from local storage; like I said, you can specify to Titanium Backup where your backups are located. You can even export certain app backups into one file (if you hit Menu in TB, you'll see the option if you scroll down a bit). Then you can import it to your One. Or like I said, just move the TB folder on your memory card to your One's internal storage. Like I said, I don't have experience with cloud backups for TB or Nandroid, so Google or someone else would get you a better answer than I can give you.

Just lost 200 photos from some cloud crap

What the hell is this cloud crap on my S7
i like my files to be either on my my memory card or on internal storage. plugged in USB cable to get pics off my phone and nothing was there, all my folders were empty
so some webpage says disable cloud, and now all my pics are gone completely what the hell!
then i tried to free up my memory card and moved a 2GB music files folder to internal storage and now theyre all hidden or disappeared
what the hell
and i cant delete folder off my internal storage now
my whole routines are now sickened and ive lost data
is there anyway to restore deleted pics off this cloud thing
S7 Nougat

I hate that. I know Verizon Cloud will do that and Google Photos as well. There may be copies there so you might still be able to access them. You should be able to switch off that functionality so it doesn't happen again. Sorry I don't have more specific instructions.

Adoptable Storage now available in Pie update, but it corrupts files

The good news: Adoptable Storage (aka using an SD Card as Phone Storage) is now available in build 00WW_3_206_SP01 (for the TA-1045).
The bad news: Using this expanded storage will corrupt your files.
After the update, if you insert an SD Card that the phone doesn't recognize as usable (ex. a wiped card, one used as 'phone storage' for another device, or one formatted as EXT4 or NTFS), you will get a notification. Tap that notification and you will be sent to a settings screen with a Format this SD card dialog already popped up onto it. Tap CANCEL on the dialog and you will be able to select Phone storage as shown here: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/move-android-apps-sd-card/ (Just tap CANCEL between steps 1 and 2).
After the procedure, it will seem like everything went swimmingly. However, if you had a lot of files on the internal SD Card and chose Move content, many of the images/apps/data that had been building up on the device are now corrupted. Images don't load, apps crash, and so on.
I have reproduced this on two different 6.1's and two different brands of SD Card. The files appear to get corrupted at random 4096-byte boundaries.
If you are a new phone purchaser or one who hasn't yet used an SD Card with your device, configuring expanded storage (which is what many 6.1 owners will want) will corrupt the apps, images, and other data that gets moved to the adopted storage.
I sure hope Nokia fixes this soon. It will be a nightmare for some users.

Yeah, it's really buggy atm. It keeps deleting all my pictures and apps take ages to load.

Gravarty said:
It keeps deleting all my pictures and apps take ages to load.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It looks like the pictures are deleted, but worse than that, they have actually been corrupted. When I transfer images back to my PC (via adb pull), I can see that the files don't match the originals and the corruption always begins at a multiple of 4096 bytes.
I hope you have backups of your pictures.

Hello !
Very happy to see I'm not the only one to have this problem.
I just bought a Nokia 6.1 and tried the feature. My files was indeed currupted
Could you let us know if you have some news about the correction ?!
Thanks you !
Abou Ilyès

Nokia 6.1 Pie 9 did not fix adoptable storage for internal formating
I contacted Nokia support today. They are not aware of any fix for including internal formating in the future. I intend on checking with a different Nokia Support rep later to see if they have different reply.

Hello. Any news about it? My phone is ruined after this

So I guess Nokia does not want to own up to this?
I've been told that my only option is to unlock bootloader, root the phone, and then look for what might be left from the data on the phone. My guess it's corrupted inside the phone as well? It is pricey, and there is a chance the phone will be bricked. Right now I have the files on sd card that are not readable, AND the phone memory is also full, since the files where not properly moved, they are still there but inaccessible. If I go to settings-memory I see that I have 15 GB under Images, but no way to access it.
Anything you can add about this?
Thanks.
---------- Post added at 03:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:27 PM ----------
One more question. Is my only other option to do a factory reset to get the phone memory back, and forget about the files I lost? Since there will be no chance, even a small one, to recover anything ever after I do a factory reset...

I had this nightmare a few months ago. Fit my SD card, thought I was clever selecting the internal storage option and proceeded to migrate my files across. Seemed fine and didn't pay attention to it, then I started noticing that my photos weren't saving and files received through WhatsApp were screwing up.
I didn't fix it per-say, after much angst I tried to copy everything from my phone to my PC through ADB for later recovery and then proceeded to format the SD card to stop further corruption. To my surprise all the files that were there on my internal storage originally remained after formatting the card. The only things that were lost were the new files since I had installed the SD card.
It seems that the migration step doesn't actually migrate any files across and so there's a intact copy left on your internal storage and a corrupt copy on the SD card. I have no idea if the files that were stored in the internal storage can be overwritten, but I figured this tale might be helpful to you.
I'd recommend steering clear of the internal storage option on this phone or at very least backing up all your files before testing it. Other than the file encryption, it doesn't add that much functionality anyway.

is this still an issue please?
And is it just when migrating files please?
Though I must say I'm not surprised, I had an issue with a device pre-update (with normal storage that wasn't even quite full!) and was recommended to clear the storage app and boot loop it

Anyone have any luck with getting around the file corruption? On my 6.1 all apps moved to SD do not save data and most pictures are corrupted and unreadable. Thought I could clear everything off the SD, reformat and try again but don't know if it'll work.

Adoptable Storage is not going to work
In case it helps anyone still trying to get Adoptable Storage to work, I thought I'd contact Nokia support, and they told me that this feature is no longer supported even though their FAQ on their website provides instructions on how to enable it.
I'll leave the email thread down below if anyone wants to read it.
From: Nokia Mobile Care
Sent: Saturday, July 13, 2019 8:44 AM
Subject: Re: MicroSD card as internal storage
Dear alonsogonzalez1997,
Thank you for your feedback!
Referring to your inquiry I would like to explain that this option on Nokia phones is no longer active. It is not possible to set the SD card as an internal storage because the SD card is not internal (SD), but only the copy is created. As a result, there is less memory space, and the phone software then relies on a third-party application just to work properly, what causes the phone to stop working.
Please if you are interested in freeing up space on your phone. Move files to SD card (you know you can move everything except applications). Or, you can back up your files to a Google Account.
This new features we brings to the phone with the latest updates in order to prolong phone life.
If you will have more questions feel free to contact us again.
I wish you a lovely day!
On Fri, 12 Jul at 10:26 PM , alonsogonzalez1997 <> wrote:
Google’s Android Developer website still lists it as a supported feature:
Nothing on that webpage suggests it is a deprecated feature; in fact, that webpage suggests that they made improvements to the functionality of this feature in Android Pie.
And I have screenshots where your website instructs myself as the consumer on how to format an SD card as an internal storage device. I would not have purchased a device like this with a limited amount of built-in storage had I not known I would not be able to format an SD card as internal storage. I also cannot maintain my files on two separate filesystems on this device.
Next time I need to purchase a new phone, I will be purchasing one that is not a Nokia device, but for now, I still need to know how to unlock the bootloader on my Nokia 6.1 so I can test aftermarket firmware options. Simply running an “oem unlock” command in Android fastboot does not unlock the bootloader even with OEM unlock enabled in Developer Options.
From: Nokia Mobile Care <
Sent: Friday, July 12, 2019 1:26 AM
Subject: Re: MicroSD card as internal storage
Dear Alonso Gonzalez,
Thank you for contacting Nokia Mobile Care.
We understand the inconvenience of the situation you are facing and we are sorry that you feel that way.
It is good to know, that after updating to Android Pie it was developers decision to remove the option for formatting SD cards as internal storage due to customer safety reasons.
We hope that this information would be useful to you.
If you have any further questions, please, do not hesitate to contact us again here.

Does anyone know if the sd card can be used as internal storage or that the option to move apps to the external sd card will be available in android 10?
I'm getting really tired of the fact that my phone's internal storage is full

Sorry, I wish I could help. I gave up on it. I initially hacked it to make adoptable storage work but then ran into issues with Android updating save data to the card for any app I moved over. Then Nokia BRIEFLY, officially, supported adoptable storage and I switched to that. That was an even bigger train wreck. Files, photos, apps, were randomly disappearing or if you did find them they were corrupted.
But I did finally fix all these issues - dumped the Nokia and got a Samsung Galaxy 10e. I really liked the Nokia too and it was a very good Android One phone. The lone, single, solitary issue of not having any storage options was the only thing that pushed me away. I loved everything else about the phone.

The option to format the SD card is still there with OS 10. Has the mounting option been fixed I wonder?

This happened to me a while ago. Do not despair if this is you because there IS A FIX for this problem.
The error at 4096 bytes is thankfully one that goes both ways. So I saw that my photos were corrupted on my SD card after using the Nokia SD transfer.
Then I used the same option on the phone that allows you to transfer BACK to the phone memory. Whoever wrote the code for this must have summoned the reverse of the first process because ALL of the photos appeared on the phone.
Please try this before wiping your SD card.