[Q] Need Help with Write Protected External SD Card - Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello,
I need some help with my external SD card, please.
I've Googled this quite a bit and found many with related problems, but no solutions.
From time to time, it's hard to tell what triggers it, I notice I can't write any files to my external SD card.
My guess is the card either becomes write protected, or all apps loose permission to write to the card.
To enable writing again I can unmount and then remount the card from the system menu (don't need to physically pull card).
The last time I tried this I noticed, using ES, the external SD containing lots of files named the sign for «mu» (looks like a u), 0 bytes in size.
I've tried rebooting the phone, pulling the card, and reformatting the card.
I'm on an international, unbranded, stock, unrooted, Android 4.3 Galaxy S3.
My questions are as follows:
1) Does anyone know the cause of this problem and how to solve it?
2) Falling that, is there an app that can automatically unmount and then mount the external SD card, perhaps even as a Tasker plugin?
Thanks for your help!

Your card is either corrupt or faulty. Download the sd formatting tool and wipe it using your pc, if it happens again then throw it away.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

By the looks of it your card is corrupted.
Fomart to exfat and try again
Enviado do meu GT-I9300 através de Tapatalk

Thanks, will try that once I'm home from work!

Related

[Q] Friend did not power off phone before removing sdcard. Is the sdcard damaged?

I turned off my phone, took out the sdcard, gave it to my friend.
My friend inserted it on her phone, viewed some files that were in it, then pulled the sdcard out without turning off her phone.
Does that damage the sdcard? Some apps are definitely missing, and maybe some pictures too, not sure.
What to do?
Thanks guys!
Not necessarily, but can be. Use some file recovery software.
redlag said:
Not necessarily, but can be. Use some file recovery software.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how do i format the sdcard using my phone? do I go to recovery mode?
Don't you want to recover the files before formatting?
Anyhow, you can format it from recovery as well as settings-> storage -> format memory card.
I already made a back up. thanks!!!
Happened with me a lot of times.
Go to settings -> SD Card and phone storage -> Unmount sd card -> Stay on that screen and wait for 5 mins
If you do not get a notification regarding the unmounting of your sd card, switch off your phone, take out your sd card, boot into recovery, insert your sd card, try browsing some files on your sdcard (I hope you understood what I want to say), switch on your phone and see whether you sd card works. My card worked almost everytime using this process. I dont know how? But it just works.
PS - If your sd card still doesnt work then you will need to format it.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
If you don't unmount your sd card before removing it, it can get corrupted.
A simple indicator of that is you won't be able to install any app untill the card is mounted in your device.
Happened to me a lot when i was new to ACE
Make sure to unmount before removing, or you can just turn it off and then remove, your choice

[Q] Data keeps randomly deleting from my SD card.

Greeting Everyone,
I have a most perplexing problem., for some reason Data keeps randomly deleting from my SD card. I dont know what's causing this but I suspect it happens whenever I run low on USB storage. If that is the reason, why would data be deleted from my SD card because Im low on USB?
If that is the case, how can I prevent this from happening, can I write protect my folders on my SD card? set to read only? AND if I set to read only that means I cannot save data to it either.
Thanks in advance for your assistance.
3 things come to mind ..
1~low storage space
2~corrupted data
3~damaged SD card
And possibly a bad connection on the contact points.
Clean the card contacts with a q-tip and a small amount of rubbing alcohol and reinstall the card.
If the condition persists, then move your files to PC from the card and format the card via PC to FAT32 file structure.
( full format, not the quick method )
Once the card is done, then move your files back to the card.
Also, avoid any repartitioning of the card using apps like rom manager etcetera, as your card can be damaged using these methods.
If the above steps fail, then consider trying another sd card.
Good luck to you ..g
Are you losing a particular "data" file? And if it is just music, did you check with a file explorer to see if it is indeed not there and just not cached by the music app?
gregsarg said:
3 things come to mind ..
1~low storage space
2~corrupted data
3~damaged SD card
And possibly a bad connection on the contact points.
Clean the card contacts with a q-tip and a small amount of rubbing alcohol and reinstall the card.
If the condition persists, then move your files to PC from the card and format the card via PC to FAT32 file structure.
( full format, not the quick method )
Once the card is done, then move your files back to the card.
Also, avoid any repartitioning of the card using apps like rom manager etcetera, as your card can be damaged using these methods.
If the above steps fail, then consider trying another sd card.
Good luck to you ..g
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think maybe formatting with FAT32., everything else Ive done. I remember formatting a 16GB card on my PC and never had this issue.
Agoattamer said:
Are you losing a particular "data" file? And if it is just music, did you check with a file explorer to see if it is indeed not there and just not cached by the music app?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
more than just music, Ive lost pictures and misc documents like .pdf, word and text docs. I have 2 different 32GB cards and they've both done the same thing.

[Q] Do you really have to Unmount Your SD Card to safely remove it?

Do you really have to go to Settings, then to Storage, then press Unmount Your SD Card to unmount it or can you just pop that back case open and eject the SD card? Will it damage your phone or the SD card or both?
Chrizuki said:
Do you really have to go to Settings, then to Storage, then press Unmount Your SD Card to unmount it or can you just pop that back case open and eject the SD card? Will it damage your phone or the SD card or both?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it won't permanently damage anything, but it can cause filesystem corruption on the sd card. the chance of such corruption, however, is rather minimal, and i've never run into issues not unmounting.
it is like removing a USB device (CD Card, HDD) from PC without 'safely remove USB'.
it is reccomended to unmount your sdcard when done. my tablet starts to act funny if i remove the sdcard without unmounting it. sometimes android may be writing data to the card and you may corrupt it if you dont unmount it
Sent from my U8160 using xda premium
Unmount setting not found
kaikun97 said:
it is reccomended to unmount your sdcard when done. my tablet starts to act funny if i remove the sdcard without unmounting it. sometimes android may be writing data to the card and you may corrupt it if you dont unmount it
Sent from my U8160 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What happened to unmount sd card in Jelly bean? (Huawei ascend Y320 doesn't have it) Where is it? Is it hidden?

[Q] Folders are getting delted randomly

So lately i changed my SD card in my device to a Samsung 32GB and when I transfered all my song, later I noticed on the music player that many of the artist are missing.
when I went to check what's going on, I found out many of the folders were been replaced by empty folders that their name starts with the letter "µ".
like for example, the folder "ACDC" became "µCDC".
I tried transferring everything back again facing the same problems with different folders.
I tried doing a factory reset and tried moving the song to the SD card through a card reader, and checked the files were OK before inserting the SD card back into the device and they seemed fined, but after I inserted the SD card I noticed the folders got curropted again.
also before I inserted the SD card there was like 500 MB of free space on the SD card, while after I inserted it suddenly the was like 15 GB of free space, caused by so many data that got deleted.
I don't believe the SD card is damaged, but that my device is messing my things up....
I also remember that I couldn't transfer any video files to the SD Card when it was in the device and could only transfer them into the device's internal memory.
what can I do?
Use the sd formatting tool on your pc to format the card, if still the same then throw it away. It sounds like a fake card, did all the files work while it was in the pc?
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
boomboomer said:
Use the sd formatting tool on your pc to format the card, if still the same then throw it away. It sounds like a fake card, did all the files work while it was in the pc?
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All the files have worked while it was on the PC.
I even tried transfering everything via a card reader and everything check allright.
only when I insert it in my device some of the folders get screwd.

GPe: lost most of my files on my sdcard

I just got a brand new Ultra z gpe and immediately i inserted my microsd from my sgs3. Immediately i noticed that i was not able to access my music and movies from my sd card.
Originally i thought it was just kitkat and its sdcard issues. But then i unplugged my sdcard and put it in my pc and i saw a bunch of folders where my files used to be marked numbers for example what used to be download becomes download.1 and songs.5 etc. And these folders are empty folders.
Please help
Sent from my C6806_GPe using XDA Free mobile app
arthaz28 said:
I just got a brand new Ultra z gpe and immediately i inserted my microsd from my sgs3. Immediately i noticed that i was not able to access my music and movies from my sd card.
Originally i thought it was just kitkat and its sdcard issues. But then i unplugged my sdcard and put it in my pc and i saw a bunch of folders where my files used to be marked numbers for example what used to be download becomes download.1 and songs.5 etc. And these folders are empty folders.
Please help
Sent from my C6806_GPe using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What format was the card?
a handy little recovery program is photorec. it wont recover the file names but will recover the files and metadata. Don't run it to save the files back to the card, but to a file on the PC
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
Format is exfat. Will check into your program, thanks
Sent from my C6806_GPe using XDA Free mobile app
sd card corruption
same thing happened to me with a sandisk 64gb ultra card. before this, worked great without trouble in my NOTE ii
So is there a fix for this?
What is the proper way of using a micro sd card in the z ultra?
formating the card within the phone, then transferring via computer?
any suggestions would be helpful.
thanks.
sctouch said:
same thing happened to me with a sandisk 64gb ultra card. before this, worked great without trouble in my NOTE ii
So is there a fix for this?
What is the proper way of using a micro sd card in the z ultra?
formating the card within the phone, then transferring via computer?
any suggestions would be helpful.
thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do not do such risky operations on the phone like formatting or partition setup. Do them on a pc with Gparted or something similar on windows. Easus works good for me when Im on windows 7.
Also mount the sdcard in a sdcard reader in to the computer. And yes. After partitioning is finished, mount the partition while the sdcard is still in its reader and transfer the data to the sdcard before putting it back in to the phone. It eliminates the risks of errors that could possibly be traced to the phone or something.
i have same problem, i feel my data encrypted and went to LOST.DIR folder somehow but idk how to recover them
kharkory said:
i have same problem, i feel my data encrypted and went to LOST.DIR folder somehow but idk how to recover them
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
samsung encrypted data? I think I can remember reading bad things about this... good luck

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