Root Cannot Access External SD Card? Fake 3GB SD Card inside?

[reilus]

I'm already feeling like LG and Metro ripped me off again just like they did with the Optimus M. I put an SD card in and it tells me it is 3GB. I pull the card out and I go back in because nothing on this card matches the actual card and it is still there!

To clarify, I have a ghost 3GB sd card in my phone even if I do not put a real SD card in the phone! What is going on? How can I access my actual SD card? Where is this ghost SD card coming from?

Any help is appreciated. I so hate metro and LG. This is constant nonsense with these clowns.

So this phone is supposed to have 8GB of internal memory right? Well when I check it has a 1.58 GB internal and 4.29 GB external sd, which I believe is actually internal memory. What is going on????

How do I access the external SD card???

 

[kanaida]

There's no ghost card. it's like this:

8GB Internal Memory devided like this:
a few GB for the android system
a few GB for app data (settings, databases, temp files etc...)
The remainder becomes /sdcard (a virtual sdcard so you can use the remaining internal space for stuff like photos cause some apps expect to use that folder)

When you put in a real sdcard it's space is inside
/sdcard/_ExternalSD (or some folder close to that)

if you look under "settings" "storage" you'll see what i mean. Problem is most apps aren't really designed to see multiple sdcards, so this was actually a pretty smart idea to get around that problem.

 

[JayBondzeWell]

The phone is perfectly fine. Yeah it would be nice to port everything to memory card but it works smoother on internal memory. The external should really be for big files. I store my emulator games on it n pics. And works perfect. Will never fill 4gb of apps. I have 20apps with only 100mb used

 

[reilus]

I went into storage, and it says "unavailable" under SD card for total space and available space. The options to format and mount are greyed out. But, I have a 32GB Class 10 in there. I tried other micro SDs and got the same result. Any ideas?

 

[danyvw]

You are doing something wrong or the phone is broken. Take out the SD card, do a format on Windows, insert again the SD and push a little bit until you hear a click, then check again.

 

[demarsjcd]

I went into storage, and it says "unavailable" under SD card for total space and available space. The options to format and mount are greyed out. But, I have a 32GB Class 10 in there. I tried other micro SDs and got the same result. Any ideas?

I just saw this thread. I had the same problem. I ended up formating the card about 4 times because I thought I was just being ******ed. I though I just kept on forgeting to click "ok". I couldn't find mine until I got root explorer and then you will find it under /sdcard/_ExternalSD.
I cant remember if it was Titanium Backup that enable for me to see if in the factory settings area

 

[JayBondzeWell]

I'm having an issue. I would put files on it from PC or downloaded and it doesn't save them at times or if I.restart the phone. The file.at times goes in the lost folder and chances and cannot be reopened. HELP PLZ

 

[reilus]

What happened is that I formatted two micro SDs with a recovery from my optimus M. This completely screwed the cards up and made them unusable. Either that, or I got two SD cards that suddenly stopped working at the same time. Which seems more reasonable to you?

Whatever the case, I put a new 512MB SD card into it and it mounts perfectly. I'm ordering a new class ten. Issue solved... Thank you all for your help.

I'm done with metro as soon as something better comes along. I think I'm going to go back to my Optimus if I can't get a decent esteem. I'm only going to refund and rebuy once. I've gone through nearly 15 Optimus Ms. I'm not going to spend a year of that with another phone. I'll stick with Bobz ROM and be grateful that I didn't lose another sum of money and inherent another set of problems.

 

[JayBondzeWell]

i understand your pain. that how it goes at times. win some then lose some. but the esteem is still pretty great. maybe you should try doing the tot recovery. that fixed issues on my phone. making it run much better than before

 

[nuttmeg]

make sure you delete the partition on the sd card before putting it inside you esteem, i havn't had any issues with sd storage and also i have a class 10 card and it works great but the phone internal sd card still is faster than the class 10 cards and in the benchmark test my internal speeds reads/write over 20 + mbps.

 

[reilus]

make sure you delete the partition on the sd card before putting it inside you esteem, i havn't had any issues with sd storage and also i have a class 10 card and it works great but the phone internal sd card still is faster than the class 10 cards and in the benchmark test my internal speeds reads/write over 20 + mbps.

I went into the format option on the Optimus M and reformatted the card with cache set to 0 and ext set to 0 with remaining as fat32. That should delete the partitions, right? Well, when I try to format both cards on my windoze machine it says the "disk is write protected". But, I checked and the lock tab is not set to lock and it never had this message before. I know you can buy read only SD cards, but I assure you these were not read only when I bought the same.

Did you use another method to delete the partitions? I will try it and that may fix the problem...

 

[travioso]

There's no ghost card. it's like this:

8GB Internal Memory devided like this:
a few GB for the android system
a few GB for app data (settings, databases, temp files etc...)
The remainder becomes /sdcard (a virtual sdcard so you can use the remaining internal space for stuff like photos cause some apps expect to use that folder)

When you put in a real sdcard it's space is inside
/sdcard/_ExternalSD (or some folder close to that)

if you look under "settings" "storage" you'll see what i mean. Problem is most apps aren't really designed to see multiple sdcards, so this was actually a pretty smart idea to get around that problem.

+1.. same thing kinda happened when i swapped the ascend memory card to the esteem..

 

[travioso]

I went into the format option on the Optimus M and reformatted the card with cache set to 0 and ext set to 0 with remaining as fat32. That should delete the partitions, right? Well, when I try to format both cards on my windoze machine it says the "disk is write protected". But, I checked and the lock tab is not set to lock and it never had this message before. I know you can buy read only SD cards, but I assure you these were not read only when I bought the same.

Did you use another method to delete the partitions? I will try it and that may fix the problem...

i know it might be past this step but on win7x64 right click format did it for me.. had backed everything up before but going from one to the other confused it..

 

[ManlyParasite]

Something similar happened to me, when I used my 8 GB card from my Ascend. It had (and still has) the Ext2 partition for A2SD for when I flashed Icarus. If you remove the partition, your card should still work. For some reason, I couldn't remove my partition, but I formatted it in Ubuntu, and although the partition is still there, my card is useable now.