Following today's system upgrade my SD card won't mount - Onetouch Idol 3 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I've had my Idol 3 for a couple of weeks now and I just love it . . . so do my 'green' friends! However . . .
My Idol 3 got a major upgrade today, and now the phone won't permit mounting of the SD card . . . home of many apps!
The option under Settings/Storage is not greyed out, it's just that when I tap 'Mount SD card' nothing happens. I'm also getting a continuous notice, i.e. "SD card safe to remove".
The card was not removed either before or after the upgrade, but since I have had the above problem I have done reboots, restarts and hard reboots, and and have removed and replaced the card a couple of times . . . . I'm at a loss on this one!
Does anyone have any suggestions that will help me get the SD card mounted please?
Many thanks!

Just maybe a very strange coincidence here. I have been using the same 32gb sd card since I bought this phone and never had a single issue with the card or the phone (related to the sd card). This morning I checked to see if there was an update, I did not download or install it (since I'm rooted) but man ever since that moment I have been having f-ed up sd card issues. The same types of problems with it randomly unmounting the card and telling me the card is safe to remove, finding the card unmounted and touching the Mount button does nothing and just now I removed the card and my Chromebook is asking if I want to format it... WTF?
All this makes me wonder if Alcatel secretly installed some updates in the background today even though I did not intend for a system update. Hmmm.

I had similar issues with a sandisk microsd.....with it randomly losing everything on the sd....I switched to a samsung microsd and the issue went away so I think it's just very picky with the cards and you should try different manufacturers...also fat32 seemed more reliable than exfat. Samsung and Adata are two I had good results with outside sandisk which I previously considered the gold standard.

Thanks folks.
At this time I don't think it's an SD card issue unless the update corrupted it.
I mean, it was fine before the upgrade guvnor!

phototraveler said:
Thanks folks.
At this time I don't think it's an SD card issue unless the update corrupted it.
I mean, it was fine before the upgrade guvnor!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Backup the data to pc...format the card in the phone...copy the data back.

Same happened to me on the first OTA update and on this OTA update. I took my SD card out, put in a computer, copied all my files to a desktop folder, re-formatted the SD card, moved all my files from the desktop back on to the SD card once the format was complete and the phone mounted the card no problem. Total PITA and will consume about an hour and a half of your time to do all this. Not sure why this keeps happening on OTA updates, but next time, if Alcatel releases another OTA update, move all your apps back to the phone and remove your SD card prior to initiating an update. Only think I can think of?

Thanks both. Formatting is apparently the only way to go except that my computer wouldn't read the card via the phone.
Soooooo, I have mounted the micro SD in an adapter, and the card is currently being copied to my computer.
I'll let you know how that goes after I've done the format and copied things back.
Maybe just removing the SD card prior to an upgrade will prevent corruptions, or do you think that the upgrade 'needs' the SD card in place?

phototraveler said:
Thanks both. Formatting is apparently the only way to go except that my computer wouldn't read the card via the phone.
Soooooo, I have mounted the micro SD in an adapter, and the card is currently being copied to my computer.
I'll let you know how that goes after I've done the format and copied things back.
Maybe just removing the SD card prior to an upgrade will prevent corruptions, or do you think that the upgrade 'needs' the SD card in place?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As the external sd is considered "optional" there is no reason you can't pull it prior to doing an upgrade to eliminate the chance of it getting corrupted.
If you have TWRP flashed and your situation is like mine was you'd find IT could read the card just fine and adb access while in TWRP copied off the data for me so seems related to the actual rom.

The solution
As some of you may have expected, and suggested, I was able to resolve my issue by . . .
1 Backing up the data on the SD card
2 Formatting the SD card
3 Copying my data back to the SD card
However, the .android_secure folder on the SD card was 'locked' by the phone, so I removed it and using Windows Explorer I copied the contents - all my apps that had been moved to the SD card - manually.
If you go this route yourself, your 'favorites' that you dragged to the home screen will be missing, so you'll have to re-do that process. It only takes a matter of minutes.
I want to thank those of you who responded with suggestions that pushed me all the way to the top of my 'success' mountain. The view is great!
Now if only the upgrade hadn't corrupted my SD card in the first place. Grrrrrr!
However, for those that don't realize it, the Idol 3 is a terrific phone that is soon to increase in popularity and recognition.

phototraveler said:
As some of you may have expected, and suggested, I was able to resolve my issue by . . .
1 Backing up the data on the SD card
2 Formatting the SD card
3 Copying my data back to the SD card
However, the .android_secure folder on the SD card was 'locked' by the phone, so I removed it and using Windows Explorer I copied the contents - all my apps that had been moved to the SD card - manually.
If you go this route yourself, your 'favorites' that you dragged to the home screen will be missing, so you'll have to re-do that process. It only takes a matter of minutes.
I want to thank those of you who responded with suggestions that pushed me all the way to the top of my 'success' mountain. The view is great!
Now if only the upgrade hadn't corrupted my SD card in the first place. Grrrrrr!
However, for those that don't realize it, the Idol 3 is a terrific phone that is soon to increase in popularity and recognition.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You might consider installing syncthing and running it on the pc and phone...it uses p2p technology to sync folders between devices....open source version of bittorrent sync. Glad you are back up and running.

Related

new SD card: now error: Application not installed on your phone"

Just moved from a 8 GB to a 32GB card. And cannot use it...
First I unmounted the old SD card on the phone, and put in the new, unformatted 32GB. I then choose to format it in the phone. Its a Galaxy S GT-9003i with firmware I9003XXKPN v2.3.5
It formated fine. Then I unmounted the new card, plonked in the old card and connected the phone in USB mode to the Macbook. I also connected the newly formatted SD card via a card reader, and it promptly showed up, with the correct free space (although there was a directory on it already called LOST.DIR)
I then copied all apps from the phones 8GB SD to the 32GB card, using the laptop (drag and drop). This also went fine and without a glitch. I then shut down the phone, swapped out the SD cards and booted the phone on again. As expected, it went to do the usual Scanning USB memory. It completed. The space appears to be taken up, but all apps that are on that USB are inaccesible. Their icons grey Androids with a small SD logo in the bottom right corner.
All other apps (the ones on the phone) work fine. The SD card can be used to copy files to on the computer and to take pictures...
Phone is not rooted.
PLease help, if you have a solution to this...
Many tHanks
oranabana said:
Just moved from a 8 GB to a 32GB card. And cannot use it...
First I unmounted the old SD card on the phone, and put in the new, unformatted 32GB. I then choose to format it in the phone. Its a Galaxy S GT-9003i with firmware I9003XXKPN v2.3.5
It formated fine. Then I unmounted the new card, plonked in the old card and connected the phone in USB mode to the Macbook. I also connected the newly formatted SD card via a card reader, and it promptly showed up, with the correct free space (although there was a directory on it already called LOST.DIR)
I then copied all apps from the phones 8GB SD to the 32GB card, using the laptop (drag and drop). This also went fine and without a glitch. I then shut down the phone, swapped out the SD cards and booted the phone on again. As expected, it went to do the usual Scanning USB memory. It completed. The space appears to be taken up, but all apps that are on that USB are inaccesible. Their icons grey Androids with a small SD logo in the bottom right corner.
All other apps (the ones on the phone) work fine. The SD card can be used to copy files to on the computer and to take pictures...
Phone is not rooted.
PLease help, if you have a solution to this...
Many tHanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried rebooting your phone? If it still does not work, try to unmount your SD Card via settings and then wait for it to successfully unmount and then mount again
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
Application not installed on your phone
saywhatt said:
Have you tried rebooting your phone? If it still does not work, try to unmount your SD Card via settings and then wait for it to successfully unmount and then mount again
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, yes tried this one. No luck.... Its a Samsung mirco SD card (Model: MB-MSBGA) class 10
Anyone else..!?
Did u done app2sd in ur phone with the 8 gig 1
Sent from my GT-I9003 using xda premium
No not much.
DONT FORGET TO PRESS THE THANKS BUTTON IF HELPED YOU IN ANY WAY
ah ha
So, I cannot even find the app2sd app under My Apps on the Google Play store... weird. Its also not listing under Manage Applications. Would this really be the cause of the problem!?
Anyone else have any ideas, why the phone cannot load the apps copied from the other SD card...!?!
First of all u have to move all apps from the old sd card to the phone. Or while inserting ur new sd, the apps you moved to your old sd will not work
DONT FORGET TO PRESS THE THANKS BUTTON IF HELPED YOU IN ANY WAY
Mebin Robin said:
First of all u have to move all apps from the old sd card to the phone. Or while inserting ur new sd, the apps you moved to your old sd will not work
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, but I canot make sense of this. Firstly all apps on the old SD card will never fit onto the phone (8GB, vs 2GB space), and secondly elsewhere online they always talk about copying files to the new card and then inserting that instead of the old one....
mmmh...!? Whilst I apprecite your post - its not working for me
When apps are moved to the SD card, it isn't entirely moved to the SD card. Only part of it is, that's why when installing apps the space for apps still decreases. Therefore you should use titanium backup or similar backup programs to move the applications.
bscraze said:
Therefore you should use titanium backup or similar backup programs to move the applications.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks,I had a look at titanium backup, but it requires root access (my phone has not been rooted). I really dont think one should need to root their phone to move from a small to a larger SD card without having to re-install all apps from scratch...!?
oranabana said:
Thanks,I had a look at titanium backup, but it requires root access (my phone has not been rooted). I really dont think one should need to root their phone to move from a small to a larger SD card without having to re-install all apps from scratch...!?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Without root you will not be able to backup data(AFAIK)
bscraze said:
...Therefore you should use titanium backup or similar backup programs to move the applications.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, so I rooted the phone and used Titanium Backup. It created a backup file on the phone memory. I thought, voila, I am good then, popped in the new SD card, formatted it, and did the restore from Titanium Backup... but:
still getting a lot of greyed out files in the application folder and on the home screens... I really cannot believe all this work is needed to swap out SD cards from a smaller to larger capacity! what a pain in the •••
I have the same problem on my new samsung 32gb 10 class micro sd card and still searching for the solution. If anyone have a solution, please, share it for us. Thanks!
martynas393 said:
I have the same problem on my new samsung 32gb 10 class micro sd card and still searching for the solution. If anyone have a solution, please, share it for us. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same problem to, just backed up my old 16gb card to my pc, installed and formatted a new 32gb card in my S4 and copied the data back over and all the apps that are on the sd card are showing up grey.
Ok, after a quick google, i've found that making a clone of the card and then copying the clone to the new card works
you can use HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool to do this (you'll have to google it as I don't have enough posts to post external links)
heathen666 said:
Ok, after a quick google, i've found that making a clone of the card and then copying the clone to the new card works
you can use HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool to do this (you'll have to google it as I don't have enough posts to post external links)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! Yeah that works perfectly! (Apparently there are some "secure" folders in the SD card that start with a period, and the contents do not get copied at all. Those hold the apps and data.) However after using HDD-Raw-Copy it will create an exact replica of the smaller SD card on the larger one and the larger one will appear to be small too, so you must resize your partition or you won't gain anything, your new card will be exactly the same as the old one! You can use MiniTool Partition Wizard home edition which is free to do this: partitionwizard.com :good:
I had the same problem but I was able to fix without extra software. Took old card out of my phone and installed both externally via flash readers to my pc and copied files from one to the other. View hidden files is turned on just in case any hidden items is also copied. This work great for me all apps are accessible now. Hope this helpped
Here is the step-by-step solution: http://www.tomsguide.com/forum/id-2545604/move-data-card-samsung-galaxy.html
There are two ways described to do it successfully:
METHOD 1 uses the xcopy (or xcopy32) command in a Cmd Prompt windown on Windows. The /h switch used on the command allows the hidden and system files to be copied!
METHOD 2 uses a straight copy from old SD card to the new SD card (or from old SD card to folder on computer, then from folder on computer to new SD card) using the simple drag and drop on Windows. BUT YOU MUST HAVE WINDOWS EXPLORER CONFIGURED TO SHOW SYSTEM AND HIDDEN FILES!
Just to be clear, the solution to the problem is trivial. You are simply copying ALL the files from one SD card to another. There is absolutely no reason that copying ALL files from one SD card, including the complete file structure, to another SD card should not work. Your phone can't tell that you switched SD cards. It only knows the files and file structure it can see on the SD card and if they are EXACTLY the same as they were before the switch, your phone should work exactly like it did before the switch except now it will see more free storage space on your larger SD card (which was probably your goal in the first place) AND your phone may possibly even run faster by accessing the data much faster if your new SD card is a faster class of storage media.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO ROOT YOUR PHONE OR INSTALL ALL KINDS OF CRAZY APPS ON YOUR PHONE OR SOFTWARE ON YOUR COMPUTER TO DO THIS!!!
BUT, the key is that YOU MUST ALSO COPY ALL THE HIDDEN FILES and there are lots of them on Android! Everytime I hear of someone having a problem with switchinging to a new SD card, it is because they did NOT copy the hidden files OR their SD card was not properly formatted (FAT32) for the phone.
Please click the Thanks button if this has helped you!

[Q] Incredibly frustrating problem with a Glaaxy Note 2 and a SD card

I'll try to keep this as succinct as possible.
Galaxy Note 2, Android 4.1.2, Rooted.
Few weeks ago began having trouble with audio play back. Any file longer than 5-10 minutes (audiobooks, podcasts etc) would either not playback at all or would after playing for 5 or 6 minutes begin jumping and skipping and then eventually skip to the next track. If I tried to select a point in the play back the song would skip.
Found that if I downloaded the files directly to the San Disk 64 gb SD card these problems would happen but if I downloaded them directly to the phone's internal storage it was fine. This pointed to me that the problem was with the SD card. Also noticed at this point that if I deleted files on the SD card then unmounted the SD card and remounted the deleted files would re-appear.
I re-formatted the SD card using my phone which didn't solve the problem all of the files were back again. I re-formatted the SD card on my mac to exFAT and plugged it in only to find all of the files present again. I used my Windows partition on my Mac to reformat the drive using Windows and found the same problem yet again.
This lead me to believe that the problem was with my phone. So I reformatted the SD card using my computer, and then did a factory reset of my phone. Low and behold I plug my SD card back into my phone only to find the 32 GB of files on the SD card present again. At this point it really didn't seem to make sense. I had formatted the SD card on my computer, opened it and found it to be empty. I then ejected it and plugged it in to find 32 GB of files on it. All accessible and playable, except for the skipping as mentioned above.
So I tried one last attempt. I unmounted the SD card, and factory reset my phone again. Then plugged the SD card into my computer and using the mac disk utility I reformatted the drive using the 7-pass erase system (which according to the description on my computer is good enough for the department of defense).
After waiting two and half days for the reformatting to be done I plugged my SD card into my factory reset phone and lo and behold the 32 GB of files have returned.
At this point I have accepted that I need a new SD card but this honestly doesn't seem possible anymore. Does anyone have any advice? Or heard of anything happening like this before?
Thanks so much for taking the time to read this huge message everyone, I really appreciate it.

[Lenovo A850] SD CARD PROBLEM

Okay so it is been some months that I am using this phone, there is actually no problem with the SD Cards that I have used in the past few months, I bought this new SD Card(that has problem) in the last 1.5 month/s it worked really well and no problem at all. But in the last 2 days, I restarted my phone(changing sim card) turned it back on, then it did not detect the SD Card, I have tried some things like formatting the phone but it did not fix it, I have tried inserting the SD Card into a card reader and insert in my computer it worked, it detected the SD Card, I then tried formatting it from the operating systems formatting tool, I also tried formatting it with SDFormatter V4.0 but it did not fix it. There was a day when my friend tried to edit voldf.stab file from /etc/ since I want it to be like the External Storage will be Internal and vice versa. That is all the informations I can give and is in my mind right now, you can ask more questions regarding this tho thank you so much for reading and I really need help in here. I cannot figure it out.​
Fur Zi said:
Okay so it is been some months that I am using this phone, there is actually no problem with the SD Cards that I have used in the past few months, I bought this new SD Card(that has problem) in the last 1.5 month/s it worked really well and no problem at all. But in the last 2 days, I restarted my phone(changing sim card) turned it back on, then it did not detect the SD Card, I have tried some things like formatting the phone but it did not fix it, I have tried inserting the SD Card into a card reader and insert in my computer it worked, it detected the SD Card, I then tried formatting it from the operating systems formatting tool, I also tried formatting it with SDFormatter V4.0 but it did not fix it. There was a day when my friend tried to edit voldf.stab file from /etc/ since I want it to be like the External Storage will be Internal and vice versa. That is all the informations I can give and is in my mind right now, you can ask more questions regarding this tho thank you so much for reading and I really need help in here. I cannot figure it out.​
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My assumptions-
-Faulty SD cage (in case you accidentally slotting in SD card with force)
-Recent change in kernel (I really don't know about kernels, check the other thread)
-Pathogens....( I mean viruses, probably system level that bugs the interference from SD slot to system)
That's my guess. You may try to consult an experienced phone serviceman, or Lenovo Service Center (if your city have one).

"SD Card safe to remove" "Preparing SD card" over and over again.

Hi fellows, sorry to bother you i always try to manage to solve all problems on my own (researching) but there no info on the subject.
A bit of history: im the happy owner of an MT7-L09 since last month. I bought it with a Sandisk Ultra 32gb micro sd class10. I've been using the phone without any problems. Didnt even tried to root it.
What i actually did was to set up the SD card as a the default memory location. I dont actually really know what this does apart from saving all media in the SD (mainly google play music, photos and videos i shoot with the camera, some big obb files, etc).
Last week i downloaded oficial Lollipop 5.1.1 release and did a manual update. All good, i kept on using it without any problems (aside from considerably lower battery life) for a couple of days.
Then i decided to gain root access. I followed this steps after googling for help.
I gained root access but after this, it keeps looping between "sd card safe to remove" and "preparing sd card" as long as my sd card is in its slot.
After that i:
Got SD card out, used a PC to backup contents (no damages), gave it a quick format in windows fat32, then format in android. PROBLEM WAS STILL THERE
Then i went back to the pc and gave the card a slow full fat32 format, then format again in andoird. PROBLEM STILL HERE
I also recently bought an action cam with the same SD model. Got that one out and placed it straight into the phone replacing the other. SAME TYPE of SD HERE, SAME MODEL. PROBLEM PERSISTS.
I think it might be related to flashing a recovery or something like that while i had my sd card as default memory location. I really dont know what to do to ger it read any of my SD cards again.
Shall i flash original kit kat firmware again? maybe 5.1.1 again and loose root access? I couldnt find any information regarding this issue rather than try another SD card which i already did (the problem surfaced after the process of gaining root access).
Any clues?
Thaks
Sebastian
I just started having this problem today. I have been on the official 5.1.1 since it launched and never came across any issue until this morning. I never ever rooted or flashed anything custom and the boot loader is still locked.
As of today I started having this issue, looping between "SD card safe to remove" and "Preparing SD card" however I am able to access the SD Card and intervals. The SD Card works perfectly fine on any other device.
One thing I changed recently (2 days ago) is the default memory location, I set it to SD Card, so I am going to revert that setting back to Internal Memory and see if it fixes the issue. Thanks for the tip
If anyone else has come across this issue and/or knows how to fix it please help
UPDATE: I tried reverting the default location setting back to "Internal storage" and found that the setting had already reverted back automatically, presumably because the SD Card is not always available So no luck with that. I am starting to suspect it's a hardware issue!
UPDATE 2: I left the SD Card in the device and connected it to the PC in order to take a backup using HiSuite. As soon as I plugged it in the error stopped cropping up. I finished the backup, unplugged the USB and so far the "SD card safe to remove" and "Preparing SD card" did not show up again. It's been over an hour now. Yesterday I plugged in the device to my PC in order to copy some pictures so something may have happened at that point I'm suspecting.
kta said:
I just started having this problem today. I have been on the official 5.1.1 since it launched and never came across any issue until this morning. I never ever rooted or flashed anything custom and the boot loader is still locked.
As of today I started having this issue, looping between "SD card safe to remove" and "Preparing SD card" however I am able to access the SD Card and intervals. The SD Card works perfectly fine on any other device.
One thing I changed recently (2 days ago) is the default memory location, I set it to SD Card, so I am going to revert that setting back to Internal Memory and see if it fixes the issue. Thanks for the tip
If anyone else has come across this issue and/or knows how to fix it please help
UPDATE: I tried reverting the default location setting back to "Internal storage" and found that the setting had already reverted back automatically, presumably because the SD Card is not always available So no luck with that. I am starting to suspect it's a hardware issue!
UPDATE 2: I left the SD Card in the device and connected it to the PC in order to take a backup using HiSuite. As soon as I plugged it in the error stopped cropping up. I finished the backup, unplugged the USB and so far the "SD card safe to remove" and "Preparing SD card" did not show up again. It's been over an hour now. Yesterday I plugged in the device to my PC in order to copy some pictures so something may have happened at that point I'm suspecting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's been over 12 hours now so I'm guessing all it needed was to connect it to the pc again [emoji2]
Sent from my HUAWEI MT7-L09 using Tapatalk
Now that you mention Hi Suite, i played arround a bit with it before the error appeared. im gonna give it a shot
I've done that the root and installed the recovery and microSD goes into loop does not know what to do help ..
Mine is still steady after a few days, hope you fix yours too [emoji6]
Sent from my HUAWEI MT7-L09 using Tapatalk
Solved. It must be some issue caused by HiSuite. I connected, made full backup, safely extracted SD from computer and problem seems to have ceased.
Thanks
Sebastian
I got this problem today after reflashing stock recovery.
It disappears after remove and reinsert sd card, but after a reboot problem was still there.
Now I solved checking debug usb setting, because after recovery flash it has been disabled itself.
I have this problem but with the USB storage device, I bought a new one which has two plugs, one is usb the other is micro, to transfer from laptop to phone without cables. It works on PC, it works on my husband's Huawei Mate 7, but just loops on mine. Other USB storage work fine on my phone with cable, but this new one just loops "preparing to connect" and " USB removed", even when trying to connect with cable.
All software is up to date, no modifications have been made.
Any simple ideas would be appreciated (I'm not into flashing/rooting etc!)

corrupted sd card but PC sees it just fine

So, about the problem. All was fine untill a few hours ago. My note 10 notified me that my SD card is corrupted. OK, no biggie, lets just take it out and put it back in. Worked before, but not today.
Tried the same SD card in my laptop, worked without any problem. I'm feeling trolled. Next i tried with otg sd card adapter. It says "no supported partition was found".
Next, tried another SD card, still nothing. Tried that one with otg - bam, works. So, it's not card that's bad. Tried another one, was empty so i formatted it on phone. Nope - still corrupted. No matter how many times i formatted it, it's always corrupted.
But it works on laptop. All 3 of them work on laptop. Two of them i can see with otg, the one that was all the time in the phone says no supported partition.
Then i thought, maybe the sd reader in phone broke. Rebooted to recovery and guess what? First SD card that showed corrupted message works just fine in recovery. Now, one reset to factory setting would probably solve the problem but i have tons of apps that i'd need to backup and no space to do it because my sd card ain't showing in OS.
All i wanna know is am i doomed to reseting android or is there any trick i could use to avoid that?
Copy all things on your pc,format the SD Card in the Phone and copy all Things back to SD Card
nope, didn't work. had to reflash OS

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