I connected my S3 to my computer to check for some files and this "storage" folder caught my attention
the folder structure looked like this
(internal)
-Music, Video, Android, etc
-storage
--emulated
---emulated
----screenshots
I quickly figured some app had just got the name ordering wrong so I deleted the storage folder. Windows Explorer then froze and I realized what I had just done. Every file was gone on both the internal and SD. I immediately removed the SD card from my phone and attempted to recover whatever files I could from the SD card with Recuva.
It seems like 2/3 of the files in the SD can be recovered and now my question is, how would I go about recovering files from the internal? If I recall correctly you can't mount the internal as usb mass storage so Recuva is out of the question. Please help!
Can't be done.....well I guess a data recovery expert might be able too, but essentially you can't, unfortunately
so I did the entire thing at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=34185439
my mmcblk0 and mmcblk1 files were 0 bytes, 55 and 63 bytes after transferring them to my computer
did I pick the wrong files or is it really impossible?
Related
EDIT: Could this please be moved to the T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S II Q&A section? I just found it. Sorry for the error.
I have a Telus Galaxy S II X (same as T-Mobile S2) running 2.3.5 not rooted that was bought on October 28th 2011. I do not want to use an SD card since I have almost 12GB of built in storage available. I had originally inserted an 8GB microSD and had music and images on it. I have since put that SD into my wife's phone since she only had a 2GB card and I have lots of internal space available.
When I put music and pictures in the external_sd or USB_storage folders which are the 11.54GB partition of my phone, the default music app and the 3 music app do not see the music. Pictures are also not seen by the gallery. If the music and picture folders are moved to the internal 2GB system partition, both music apps see the music and gallery sees the images. If I move the 2 folders back to the external_sd partition they are no longer seen. When I move an MP3 to the internal 2GB and started the 3 app, in settings, the storage section shows External 11GB (11GB free) since I moved my test MP3 to the internal memory. In the directory filter setting it shows external_sd and USB_storage as music directories. Something is definately wrong here.
I have defaulted my phone 3 times via hardware keys, via the OS, formatted USB storage and no change.
I called Samsung and this is what I was told...
"The USB Storage and external_sd are only for downloaded content via the phone (apps and other) and not for music and photos. You must use an SD card for music and other items."
This was after registering my Telus Galaxy S II X on the Samsung Canada Webs site. It is possible that the Telus version is different than other versions, but I find this ridiculous.
I cleared the music app cache, no change. Telus confirmed that the Samsung rep confirmed that ICS will be out for my phone in March/April. This will completely rewrite the system and will change everything, but I would like to know if what is happening right now is normal or if Samsung is feeding me a line. Any help/feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.
I'm little confused of what you said, the phone (SGS2) has normaly ~ 11.3GB of internal storage allocated or mounted as /sdcard, regardless of the name this is the internal storage, then the external SD card is mounted as external_sd within the same folder structure (/sdcard/external_sd), if you don't have any SD installed the external_sd this not used. You may want to add your music in the internal storage (e.g. /sdcard/media/music) then you may want to make sure you don't have a .nomedia file in the folder (nor in the folder tree) specially in the root (/sdcard).
elbermu said:
I'm little confused of what you said, the phone (SGS2) has normaly ~ 11.3GB of internal storage allocated or mounted as /sdcard, regardless of the name this is the internal storage, then the external SD card is mounted as external_sd within the same folder structure (/sdcard/external_sd), if you don't have any SD installed the external_sd this not used. You may want to add your music in the internal storage (e.g. /sdcard/media/music) then you may want to make sure you don't have a .nomedia file in the folder (nor in the folder tree) specially in the root (/sdcard).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought the same thing, but after reading this is what I have come to understand. The Galaxy S2 4G has 16GB of memory. Some is OS, 2GB is internal use and 11.25GB is called USB storage (also has a directory called external_SD). The 11.25GB is part of \sdcard, but used or seen separately. The actual SD card is not the external_sd folder on the phone. I can't recall what the name was, but it is something else. See the attached screenshot from my phone. I will get my 2GB SD out and plug it in to see the name it is given.
When I refer to external_SD and USB_storage I am referring to the 11.25GB of storage availble in the phone.
EDIT: When I put an MP3 in the system storage 2GB everything is fine, but when I put it in the USB storage partition nothing is seen.
OK, seems that I remember incorrectly. When a microSD card is inserted it is seen in the external_sd folder. The problem that I have with that is the folders that I had placed in that directory before inserting the card, were stored in the 11.25GB portion, but no longer show up!
Here is more information on my issue.
When I insert a microSD card it appears as external_sd
With the card inserted the folders (music and images) that were in the external_sd folder which was part of the 11.25GB, were no longer visible
I removed the card, the music and images folders reappeared in external_sd. I moved them to the usb_storage folder and reinserted the microSD
I have attached 2 screenshots.
If I move MP3s and images to the microSD (external_sd) files are seen. If the microSD is not in the phone and the 11.25GB is used for external_sd then why are the music and pictures not being seen by the apps? Even with the folders and files in usb_storage they are not seen. It is ridiculous that 11.25GB of space would only be available for app data when installing apps.
EDIT: When files are in the \sdcard they are seen, there is no problem with that aspect, only when in the usbstorage 11.25GB portion. How can I see if there is a .nomedia file?
Xerses_frm_HoFo said:
Here is more information on my issue.
When I insert a microSD card it appears as external_sd
With the card inserted the folders (music and images) that were in the external_sd folder which was part of the 11.25GB, were no longer visible
I removed the card, the music and images folders reappeared in external_sd. I moved them to the usb_storage folder and reinserted the microSD
I have attached 2 screenshots.
If I move MP3s and images to the microSD (external_sd) files are seen. If the microSD is not in the phone and the 11.25GB is used for external_sd then why are the music and pictures not being seen by the apps? Even with the folders and files in usb_storage they are not seen. It is ridiculous that 11.25GB of space would only be available for app data when installing apps.
EDIT: When files are in the \sdcard they are seen, there is no problem with that aspect, only when in the usbstorage 11.25GB portion. How can I see if there is a .nomedia file?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Forget the external_sd folder, it is used for the external sd card when inserted. As what you refer to the USB Storage in the screenshot is the actual /sdcard or the 11.3GB, so when you write in the /sdcard you are you are using this 11.3GB portion. As you said when you put files in the /sdcard folder you should be able to "see" them. You can put music files in the /sdcard/media/music/ and the pictures in /sdcard/DCIM/pictures (just a suggestion).
There is another folder /sdcard/usbstorage, i'm not sure but this is used when mounted USB OTG (like putting a card reader).
---------- Post added at 03:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:51 PM ----------
And when I said "is the actual /sdcard" is the /sdcard folder.
OK, I am going to try to put more than 2GB in and see what the storage meters say. My original understanding was that the full 11.25GB was only available via the usbstorage folder and the 2GB Internal Storage was \sdcard.
Will try and post back. This phone storage description should be made more clear somewhere!
Eureka!!!
Finally someone who understands how the storage system works in the S II X!
I dropped about 1GB of music into \sdcard\Media\Music and the USB Storage meter is the one that goes up. The Internal Storage meter stays at 673MB.
Thank you once again, this finally clears up how internal storage on this phone works. I can't believe that the Samsung support was unable to explain this to me when I told him what I wanted to do!
I will be putting this information (referring to you) in my post on Android Forums!
Thanks again!
Glad I could help...
Regards,
I used the instructions from iJimaniac to swap my storage from internal to external (love the mass storage now!) however all my apps that I originally had moved to the SD card have suddenly disappeared and now i have to remember and re-install them. I made a copy of everything under /mnt/sdcard and moved it to my external SD card before making the switch so that everything would still be linked ok. Any ideas on what went wrong? Note: i took everything on my external SD card and put it in a separate folder on my external SD card so I wouldn't lose any of that.
Well, I used a PC to copy .android_secure folder from the real external_SD to the new "fake" external_SD. If that doesn't work, I would copy back the original vold.fstab then move all apps to internal, then use modified vold.fstab and move your apps back to sd if you want. Remember to reboot after making a change. Several reboots might even be needed for all apps to show up (might want to try that before anything). Hope this helps!
Ok well the problem is apparently that the .android_secure folder on the sd card is empty. Strangely it also has no permissions and refuses to let me change it. Whenever i try to replace it with the full .android_secure folder it gives me a black screen and i have to restart. Any idea what might be wrong?
Well, it might not actually be empty, it looks empty when viewed with an android file browser, but when you look at it on a computer (might need to disable "hide protected system files" in windows folder options) you should see stuff in it. So, you need to copy the .android_secure folder FROM your REAL microSD card TO your REAL internal memory using a pc, not an android file browser. To be clear, I have figured out that android transfers the app to your sd card when you select "move to usb storage", so that can be deceiving. Your apps were on the sd card, but now you need to transfer them to your usb storage by moving the .android_secure folder. Hope you figure it out!
Ah something decided to start working again and all my apps came back! Thanks for your help!
No problem! What was probably wrong was your player was rebuilding the dalvik-cache. It sometimes takes a while I find. Glad you got it working.
So I just got my new phone today. I put in my 16GB MicroSDHC card from my old EVO 4G and things were okay until I connected the phone for the first time to my PC as a Hard Drive.
My guess is that an app was synch'ing to the SDCard when it was dismounted and wrote some files into the /sdcard folder that serves as the mount point. When it did this and I disconnected from the PC, the /sdcard folder was no longer empty so it mounted the SDCard as /sdcard2.
It now seems that the phone is still using /sdcard folder and not the /sdcard2 folder thus rendering the card unused.
Has anyone seen this? How do I fix it? I dismounted and erased the card. I even did a factory reset on the phone, but it didn't seem to erase files inside of the /sdcard folder so it still mounts to the wrong place.
In most apps you can't change where it writes its data but it's usually to the internal sd. When you plug your phone to your pc you can only browse your external sd.
/sdcard is the internal memory
/sdcard2 is the card you plugged in
When I plug in to my PC, I select the Media Sync option and can see both sdcards just fine.
I hope jelly bean fixes that, but then again I was hoping ics would fix it and that didn't happen.
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
Ah! Thanks for the responses. I've just done what I always had done with my older EVO 4G ... and couldn't see the folders I was expecting.
I feel better now. Too bad the normal disk drive USB option doesn't mount both...oh well.
If u root and use team win recovery you can select which SD card to mount from recovery. Not sure if this will help or not.
Sent from my htc sensation z710a=htc_jewel using XDA
Is anyone having issues seeing folders on the internal drive when using media sync? For example, using ES File Explorer, I can see and SMS Backup folder and Angry Birds Backup folder. However, when I connect to a pc with media sync I can see some of the folders that are on the internal drive but not those. Anyone else having this issue?
Edit: I am still not sure why I am having this issue but I do have a bit of a workaround. I used ES File Explorer to move the folder I wanted to update to my sd card. Then I connected it to the pc and updated the folder. After that I went back into ES File Explorer and moved the folder back to the internal drive. I was able to update my SMS Backup etc.
sparytrainor said:
If u root and use team win recovery you can select which SD card to mount from recovery. Not sure if this will help or not.
Sent from my htc sensation z710a=htc_jewel using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
problem i see though is i just made a nand and it saved it in the internal memory not to the external sd card but when I go to restore its not finding the backup I made.
If you use a file manager app, such as ES Explorer, to copy or move it to your external drive / sdcard2 / or ext_sd / then you can use twrp to restore it. hope that helps
My galaxy s5 started showing memory full when all storage programs said there was about 5 gb left.
I downloaded foldermount and it said it found the issue so it was going to repair it.
Well after I rebooted. The internal sd card(phone memory) is not mounting.
When connected to the PC, it shows 128mb.
on ES FIle explorer SDCARD shows "???" and when I attempt to open it ask what file I want to open it with, but with the program storage analyzer it finds the "data" folder just fine and lists all the files and folders within it.
In the phone settings options, it can show the amount of memory being used along with the media, mp3, apps, so the Folder is still there along with all the info, it is simply not mounting properly?
Thank you.
UPDATE: I found the path of where all my files are at, but the phone is not mounting it as the internal storage?
It is located at data/media/0 and mnt/sdcard0 or mnt/sdcard1 are missing.
* Aside from Phone being rooted, there were no other modifications
* Phone is running on original OS(as opposed to roms or such)
*There is not an external sd card in the phone
Folder mount will not do anything for you really without an SD card. After you use it to clear space you need to unmount all the folder it mounted to view what is actually in the folders. If not it will show the folder that it is linked to and look like it never worked. Changing your system data to SD data in your case keeps it in internal memory and does not free it up. You need to use folder mount with a SD card for it to help you. Saved me over 500Mb with it on my s5
intenselyinsane said:
Folder mount will not do anything for you really without an SD card. After you use it to clear space you need to unmount all the folder it mounted to view what is actually in the folders. If not it will show the folder that it is linked to and look like it never worked. Changing your system data to SD data in your case keeps it in internal memory and does not free it up. You need to use folder mount with a SD card for it to help you. Saved me over 500Mb with it on my s5
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, long story short,
My phone mnt/sdcard and sdcard links are no longer there. Is there a way to recreate the links? Certain apps are still able to function because they are using the actual link, device/media/ect, ect, /0/ folders as opposed to mnt/sdcard/
I saw on another forum that
su
echo mkdir /storage/sdcard0 > /data/local/userinit.sh
chmod 700 /data/local/userinit.sh
reboot
May help, but not sure if it is only for roms and not for original OS.
On another forum there was talk about recreating a syslink?
Solved:
Simply went to "system/bin" and erased the "sdcard" file and renamed the file "sdcard.backup" to "sdcard". Rebooted and it solved the issue.
So, one day I decided to cleanup some of the folder on my LG V10. I had it connected to my PC through USB on MTP mode. I started deleting some empty/old/unused folders. One of them was a folder labeled "0" (without quotes). I thought that was interesting. I don't remember exactly what was in the folder but I think it went like 0\legacy\titaniumbackup\. I do remember that titanium backup was the only apps folder in there. So I figured I would delete it (my phone isn't rooted anyway). A while after I deleted it I saw that all of my user data had been wiped clean!!! Internal and external sdcard had been wiped!!!(music, documents,downloads,DCIM folder and files, etc). After seeing that I remembered that some folders in linux/ android are symlink folders, especially when dealing with sdcards and stuff. So I figured that the "0" folder was one of the files.
But, why would that folder be on the root of the internal memory?
I had 30GB of pics and stuff on my 64GB micro SD. Removed it from phone and ran a recuva deep scan, but it only found like 42 files from the root folder on the sdcard. Also tried easeus and minitool recovery tools but to no avail....
Is there any why to get my files back or am I screwed?