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Help How to replace SD card

S

shigglyboo

Well-Known Member
I checked the manual and did a bit of searching, the only good how to guide I've found requires a SD card reader, my laptop that has one is at the repair shop.

I'm wondering if I can just copy everything from the old one while it's hooked up via USB, dismount, unmount on the phone, power down and install the new card and copy the old data.

Only problem is, I'm not sure if this will work and I don't want to mess up my card.
 
not sure I understand. are we talking about completely replacing an sd card for another, like in the case of upgrading to a larger card? Or are you wondering about hot swapping the cards so you can interchange them without turning the phone off?

Anyway, you should have no problem connecting your phone to your pc, enable mass storage mode, then copy all your sd card contents to your pc. Then you can unmount the sd card (via "settings" on your phone), put the new one in, mount, enable mass storage mode, then transfer the old sd card contents from your pc to your new sd card.

Now if you have apps runnning/saved to the sd that changes things. I'd recommend getting Titanium backup (if you haven't already) to back up all your apps and system settings. That way, when you transfer your old sd contents to your pc you are also saving the titanium backup files to put onto your new sd card.

Hope this little rant helps more than it confuses. Good luck.
 
just copy everything from your sd card to a folder on your desktop then put in new sd card and copy all files from the folder on your desktop to your new sd card.
 
thanks for the help guys! I have apps copied on there, just picked up a 32GB card to replace the stock one, will look into Titanium backup.
 
it's a Kingston, got it for $30 on eBay, give or take a few bucks.

I tried copying everything from the old card to the new one, and songs wouldn't appear in the music player, several apps say they're not installed, etc.

So I plopped the old one back in. This backup app doesn't quite make sense to me. Its got this huge list of things to backup, no 'backup all' command that I can see. And it's not directly obvious where these backups might be going to, so I dunno how that'd work. Is there nothing like a 'carbon copy cloner' that will just assist in pulling the data from the old card and loading it to the new one?

Anyway, still looking for the best way to accomplish this, but feel like I'm making progress. I'm currently app hunting.
 
blaxican25 said:
just copy everything from your sd card to a folder on your desktop then put in new sd card and copy all files from the folder on your desktop to your new sd card.
Click to expand...

I did this before with no problems. You might try formatting the new one first.
 
well, I've been at it a while and something's not working right.

I tried moving all the apps back to the internal storage to make this easier. My computers kept seeing the 2GB card but not the 32GB card, so I couldn't exactly copy things. I effectively copied everything once using a Mac, but the apps didn't work, handscent gave me errors and the music player wasn't finding the audio. So I went ahead and tried to format the card again.

Now I'm sort of in limbo. When I say "format" nothing happens. I downloaded a file browsing app that lets me see the card still has all the old stuff on it, and has clearly 'not' been formatted. However, the phone will 'mount' it and show it as available, but if I try to copy an app to the SD card then it fails.

So formatting doesn't seem to work, which is causing the card to malfunction when it's mounted, basically it's not seeming writable.

I'm thinking I need a card reader and some way to format the card without the phone itself. Ideas?
 
shigglyboo said:
it's a Kingston, got it for $30 on eBay, give or take a few bucks.
Click to expand...

shigglyboo said:
well, I've been at it a while and something's not working right.

I tried moving all the apps back to the internal storage to make this easier. My computers kept seeing the 2GB card but not the 32GB card, so I couldn't exactly copy things. I effectively copied everything once using a Mac, but the apps didn't work, handscent gave me errors and the music player wasn't finding the audio. So I went ahead and tried to format the card again.

Now I'm sort of in limbo. When I say "format" nothing happens. I downloaded a file browsing app that lets me see the card still has all the old stuff on it, and has clearly 'not' been formatted. However, the phone will 'mount' it and show it as available, but if I try to copy an app to the SD card then it fails.

So formatting doesn't seem to work, which is causing the card to malfunction when it's mounted, basically it's not seeming writable.

I'm thinking I need a card reader and some way to format the card without the phone itself. Ideas?
Click to expand...

It sounds to me like you have either a defective card or a counterfeit one. That happens a lot on too good to be true deals on memory cards through Ebay. Your price is less than half of what Newegg is selling them for and they often have some of the best prices around. Sorry, but I think you were scammed.
 
That could very well be possible, luckily, I am one of the few that will fight tooth and nail against this type of thing. I'll email the guy, report him, etc.

Is there any way to verify this card is bunk? The phone has read it at 32GB, it was in a sealed container, and I was able to write 2GB worth of data using a mac, it just wasn't exactly readable, and the card is all kinds of glitchy.
 
shigglyboo said:
That could very well be possible, luckily, I am one of the few that will fight tooth and nail against this type of thing. I'll email the guy, report him, etc.

Is there any way to verify this card is bunk? The phone has read it at 32GB, it was in a sealed container, and I was able to write 2GB worth of data using a mac, it just wasn't exactly readable, and the card is all kinds of glitchy.
Click to expand...

I think there are websites to find out what to look at on the markings, packaging, etc. The counterfeits are often the right capacity, but just made like junk. Then it could be a legit card and just defective. It happened to me once with a Kingston card, but I have had many others from them that had no problems.

You can try formatting as FAT32 in Windows and see if that helps.
 
So I picked up a card reader. I was able to mount the card on my PC, format it as FAT32, and the phone can see it, but it glitches when the player tries to play a song or I try to move an app to it. Basically the phone cannot read or write to the card, but it can see it. And my computers can all read/write with no problems.

I'm going to email the guy and ask to return it as defective.
 
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