Help unplugging from USB (potential SD card issues)

[phlojo]

I almost lost a bunch of data so I decided to post this as a warning; I hope it helps.

I had my phone plugged into my laptop (via USB). The USB storage was NOT turned on; I only wanted to charge it. In a hurry I just unplugged it an left (without doing the "remove external drive" first).

The next day, everything was gone - pix, videos, music - everything. The apps that were installed on the SD card were still accessible, but an entire folder I had with back-up .apk files was gone. I plugged the phone into another laptop. The LOST.DIR had pretty much all the files and I was able to slowly recover them. (The larger ones were clearly .m4v. I renamed the others to .mp3/.jpg to see which were songs or pix, and I still had some small files - presumably .apk's.) Then the stupid VISTA wouldn't let me "remove external drive"; it kept saying it was still in use, although I had closed the windows explorer and all other windows.

I unplugged the phone anyway and this time the phone said that it didn't recognize the SD card and that it needed to be formatted. I wasn't happy but I hit "format". Nothing happened. I turned the phone off and back on... nothing! It wouldn't mount the card either. I turned off the phone, removed the card, turned it back on, turned it off again, put the card back in and turned it on. Everything was back to normal.

2 lessons are to be learned from all this:
1. Do NOT unplug the phone without doing the "remove storage device" first, even if the USB storage isn't turned on.
2. If you do get in trouble, try the steps that I did: power cycle the phone, then turn it off, remove card, turn on and back off, put the card back, turn it back on. It worked for me.

 

[Rusty]

If USB storage wasn't turned on, then there is no need to unmount the drive before removing, simply because the option isn't there to unmount it.

 

[mkrmec]

lol try checking if your SD card is faulty.. because really if you didn't have storage enabled you should NOT need to do anything before disconnecting the phone.

 

[Rusty]

You can't do anything before disconnecting, the option isn't there without storage enabled.

 

[phlojo]

You can't do anything before disconnecting, the option isn't there without storage enabled.

Yes you can. Every time I connect the phone to a laptop the option is there, USB storage notwithstanding. When I turn on the USB storage the removable drive is available, but even without that the icon that indicates some USB device is connected appears next to the windows clock.

 

[mkrmec]

When you connect the phone.. it starts charging and the dialog to enable storage appears. Just press "home" to get rid of it and that's how you should charge the phone.

If you want to access the phone storage device, then you enable it and do whatever you wish with it. When you want to disconnect you should first Unplug or Eject hardware in windows or whatever OS you're using.. after that you have to do the same on the phone AND then disconnect the cable.

 

[Rusty]

Yes you can. Every time I connect the phone to a laptop the option is there, USB storage notwithstanding. When I turn on the USB storage the removable drive is available, but even without that the icon that indicates some USB device is connected appears next to the windows clock.

That's great for you, but unless I select USB storage on my phone, the 'safely remove' doesn't appear.

You don't have DoubleTwist do you by any chance? This auto-mounts the phone as USB storage by default.

 

[phlojo]

That's great for you, but unless I select USB storage on my phone, the 'safely remove' doesn't appear.

You don't have DoubleTwist do you by any chance? This auto-mounts the phone as USB storage by default.

I don't have DoubleTwist. What OS are you using? The laptop I was using then (my work laptop) is running XP. I hope my SD card isn't screwed up.

 

[Rusty]

Windows 7