Usually you have to create the media folders to add your own tunes in as extensions. The built-in sounds are buried in the system and only accessible when you're rooted.
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Definitive android's folder structure
- Thread starter ZeeRaX
- Start date
Zoandroid
Android Expert
If you happen to be rooted and are running a custom ROM, the issue gets even more complex. I have run 3 different ROMs on my tablet, and each time the layout of some of the file tree changed. Sorry, I don't have knowledge of where you might find a layout map.
But I did learn why there is an internal folder named SD Card. The tablet actually has a non removable SD Card internally. Why they didn't name it something else is a good question. But I ran across a forum in which a Samsung tech was talking about their grand plan for ICS to totally do away with ANY user removeable SD card memory. They want to encompass the total memory allowed for any Android ICS device to be completely internal, so whatever the device comes with, you're stuck with that amount.
Ostensibly because it makes developing applications easier, as they won't need to be able to access external memory, which apparently adds a whole set of variables not common to every device. I am opposed to the whole idea FWIW. I prefer options. Lots of them. User removable SD cards and batteries. But that violates their whole master plan to control every aspect of how we use a device. Call me a rebel if you like.
The Android OS is all about breaking OUT of the 'controlled' box. That's what interested me in OWNING (not "leasing") and Android device.
luizferraz
Lurker
I'm also wondering where to save the ebook files so the reader can find them. I use Moon+ and it can't find the ebooks that I saved on /mnt/extsd/Ebook (I want to save them on the removable card). My device is a Genesis GT-7200 running Android 4.
I have the same problem with music. I use Realplayer.
Hope you can help me.
Hey dwarven, I used Palm devices for many years too and still do. I would never (I know I shouldn't say never...) get rid of my TX.
Have a nice time!
Zoandroid
Android Expert
It may well depend upon the reader software. On Android phones and the tablet I use, such locations sometimes vary with whatever ROM I am running, but I suggest you methodically dig through all the settings of your device and software and look for a default setting pointing to a specific storage area. The added PITA to my above information is that not only is the "internal SD card" a finite size of memory with no user options (such as installing a larger card) the OS defaults to wanting to put most everything there. Totally stupid design IMO. Why default to saving downloads (which can sometimes be rather sizable) to a finite chunk of memory when you have an external SD card to use??? And even Titanium Backup puts its files there!
So if your system has a major malfunction and the memory gets hosed, those dutiful backups of your (external) SD card you have been making thinking you are safe from harm will suddenly reveal you just lost all your app and data backups because they were never on the REAL SD card to begin with. I just happened to discover that early on completely by accident. So I make backups of both "SD Card" locations.
ICS further mitigates that issue by trying to restrict you from doing so, with their abandoning the option for USB Mass Storage access when you plug a PC into the device! But there is a workaround. Thanks to a fellow forum member pointing this out, one can use the tablet itself to copy the entire file set to a flash or external USB drive, instead of using a Windows PC and USB cable to do the backup. It is also much faster!
ColtsWalker
Member
Answer: Your device has a built in SD Storage so it is treated by the file system as if there were 2 different SD Cards. It is just like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2.
Details:
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 actually has two SDCard mounts, one for a built-in internal SDCard which is different than the device memory on a typical Android phone, and the second is the removable SDCard.
- /mnt/extSdCard --- On the Samsung Galaxy 2 tablet this is the removable SD card.
Zoandroid
Android Expert
Thanks for the info. What I have learned since posting this originally is that the fact Acer actually named the internal SD Card "SD Card" in the folder tree causes problems. Some apps which expect there to only be one instance, that being the real external card, automatically default to looking for "SD Card", in the file tree for saving and downloading files, and out of those apps some do not have a setting to tell the files to go elsewhere. But this tends to fill up the much smaller internal 'card'. So when you think you are saving things like downloads and rather sizable multimedia files to your nice roomy 16GB external SD card, you are in fact storing them internally.
It also causes confusion when you later go to retrieve said files and can't find them on the 'real' SD Card. Having the added storage internally is fine. But they really should have chosen another name for it.
It also causes confusion when you later go to retrieve said files and can't find them on the 'real' SD Card. Having the added storage internally is fine. But they really should have chosen another name for it.
I'm still a little confused. Why is their more than one place to put the same kinds of file and which is the proper place to put them? Does this have to do with a "path" variable and/or something that searches and syncs files across folders? What's the algorithm?
I have all these places on my Galaxy S3 from T-Mobile running 4.0.4 of Android:
mnt/sdcard/Alarms
mnt/sdcard/Notifications
mnt/sdcard/Ringtones
mnt/sdcard/Music
...
It then have a partial version of the same structure on my external sdcard:
mnt/extSdCard/Music
I'm assuming I could create the same structure on both internal storage and external storage and the phone might have a path that looks in those places and I'm all set? I can have ringtones saves locally and externally and the phone looks in both places to find them?
But then what is:
mnt/sdcard/Media/Audio/Notifications ?
Is this a backwards compatibility thing from some previous version of Android? Or if you put something in one place it gets indexed, but in the other it doesn't?
And lastly, what formats are supported for ringtones and notifications? Thanks.
I have all these places on my Galaxy S3 from T-Mobile running 4.0.4 of Android:
mnt/sdcard/Alarms
mnt/sdcard/Notifications
mnt/sdcard/Ringtones
mnt/sdcard/Music
...
It then have a partial version of the same structure on my external sdcard:
mnt/extSdCard/Music
I'm assuming I could create the same structure on both internal storage and external storage and the phone might have a path that looks in those places and I'm all set? I can have ringtones saves locally and externally and the phone looks in both places to find them?
But then what is:
mnt/sdcard/Media/Audio/Notifications ?
Is this a backwards compatibility thing from some previous version of Android? Or if you put something in one place it gets indexed, but in the other it doesn't?
And lastly, what formats are supported for ringtones and notifications? Thanks.
Zoandroid
Android Expert
If it ever makes sense to you, let me know. Personally, I think its just plain nuts to have various path locations pointing back to other locations. But then I would prefer they did not name the internal accessible memory "sd card".
MP3 files work OK for notifications, to which I can attest.
Personally, I think its just plain nuts to have various path locations pointing back to other locations. But then I would prefer they did not name the internal accessible memory "sd card". MP3 files work OK for notifications, to which I can attest.