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Help HTC Incredible file structure - I'm LOST

Bluesman2008

Well-Known Member
Ok. I'm completely lost. I copied one photo to the HTC Incredible and I see it on the phone. BUT, if I take several pictures, I want to upload them to my PC, I connect the cam using the hard drive feature and expect to see the photos I took in the DCIM folder but there's nothing there. My question is, in which folder can I find photos taken with the phone cam? I can't find them.

Also, how do you know whether you're saving something to internal memory vs. the SD card? There's NOTHING in the manual that I could find that explains any of this.
 
I'm kind of in the same boat. I came from Windows Mobile where the file structure was very similar to a pc. Android, as far as I can tell, has one root directory with a bunch of different folders. At least that's what I see when connected to a computer.
 
Android is Linux (or at least based on Linux). And essentially, it runs one root directory ("/") with a bunch of folders, as MaxxVE described.

If you have a microSD card, it will be the directory "/sdcard". Most of the other files that the phone creates - like photos, videos, etc - will be in the "/emmc" folder.

To see where your camera/video app is saving the files, open up the camera and tap the button on the left of the screen. This brings up the options and there is a setting in there for where to save the files.
 
i recommend you get avast and use the search on that program. This linux filestructure makes me feel at home...ahhhh...so warm inside.
 
i recommend you get avast and use the search on that program. This linux filestructure makes me feel at home...ahhhh...so warm inside.

Yeah, I'm curious to see what will become of this device (it's not really phone anymore, IMO) once it's rooted. A 1 Ghz proc, linux, and flash with all the different antennas this thing packs could potentially turn out some really creative uses.
 
Ok. I'm completely lost. I copied one photo to the HTC Incredible and I see it on the phone. BUT, if I take several pictures, I want to upload them to my PC, I connect the cam using the hard drive feature and expect to see the photos I took in the DCIM folder but there's nothing there. My question is, in which folder can I find photos taken with the phone cam? I can't find them.

Also, how do you know whether you're saving something to internal memory vs. the SD card? There's NOTHING in the manual that I could find that explains any of this.
Download "Astro." It will let you browse the directories in your phone and you can search for it that way before hooking it up to your PC. If you didn't tweak any settings, then the photos should be under the /emmc directory. You would then have to find the correct folder. I haven't checked myself so I cannot tell you the specific folder but I'm sure it is there.

If you're talking about pictures, then choosing whether to save to moviNAND or microSD is in the settings. Open the camera app, pull the side bar out, go down to settings, and there will be one that asks you where you want pictures saved.
 
I know you won't find anything in a "DCIM" folder. That folder is used specifically by a certain camera manufacturer, maybe Kodak IIRC.
 
Download "Astro." It will let you browse the directories in your phone and you can search for it that way before hooking it up to your PC. If you didn't tweak any settings, then the photos should be under the /emmc directory. You would then have to find the correct folder. I haven't checked myself so I cannot tell you the specific folder but I'm sure it is there.

If you're talking about pictures, then choosing whether to save to moviNAND or microSD is in the settings. Open the camera app, pull the side bar out, go down to settings, and there will be one that asks you where you want pictures saved.

followup question - checked camera settings - it had been set to internal - changed the setting but how do I get the pictures saved internally to the pc - the internal memory drive does not show up in windows explorer
 
followup question - checked camera settings - it had been set to internal - changed the setting but how do I get the pictures saved internally to the pc - the internal memory drive does not show up in windows explorer
Are you using a microUSB-to-USB cable, and connecting it to your PC? It should show next to your hard drive partition. I forget the letter (Possibly F: or G: ).
 
I know you won't find anything in a "DCIM" folder. That folder is used specifically by a certain camera manufacturer, maybe Kodak IIRC.

That's where I find all the photos I've taken. In the DCIM/100Media folder. It shouldn't be like this?
 
Are you using a microUSB-to-USB cable, and connecting it to your PC? It should show next to your hard drive partition. I forget the letter (Possibly F: or G: ).

FYI - the drive letter (F:, G:, Z:, whatever) is potentially going to be different on every system. Windows gives it a drive letter based on what drives letters are already used.

For example, on an old PC I had 6 partitions across 2 hard drives - C:-H:; if I would have hooked up the phone it would have been I:, J:, etc. What I'm saying is don't rely on the drive letter the phone has on someone else's PC.
 
FYI - the drive letter (F:, G:, Z:, whatever) is potentially going to be different on every system. Windows gives it a drive letter based on what drives letters are already used.

For example, on an old PC I had 6 partitions across 2 hard drives - C:-H:; if I would have hooked up the phone it would have been I:, J:, etc. What I'm saying is don't rely on the drive letter the phone has on someone else's PC.
Yes I understand that, which is why I added "possibly" infront, as I don't know what the poster is using
 
I have renamed photos so they can be viewed in a certain sequence, I have put in folders, all good there, but no matter what name I give them they play in date order.
Help.
 
When I hooked my phone up to my work PC today, I could see the directories and files that were on my sdcard, but none of the file structure on the phone itself. Should it show the phone hard drive as a different drive letter on the PC?
 
^ Yes, two separate partitions.

Interesting. It probably wasn't showing the one on the phone because I have too many network drives mapped. It still doesn't show the /eccm folder though. Is that because it's in ROM and that's not mapped when you hook up to a PC?
 
If you're not seeing the internal memory then you won't find the /emmc folder because it's on the internal memory.

The root folder in Linux/Android is the top-level directory (i.e. C: drive on a Windows machine). All other directories fall under this and on the Incredible they are all on the internal memory, with the exception of the '/sdcard' directory.

In technical terms, the '/sdcard' directory is just a directory that represents your memory card -- it's kind of like mapping a network drive in Windows. When a memory card is present, it gets mapped to the filesystem as '/sdcard'.

But, all you really need to know is that the '/sdcard' directory is your memory card and all the other folders are in the internal memory.
 
I think I've got it now, thanks. There are 2 folders opened when I connect, one being the contents of the /emmc folder and the other the contents of the /sdcard folder. All other content at the root level / does not appear, which makes sense.
 
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