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Help "USB Storage damaged" - anyone else had this problem?

Miths000

Well-Known Member
After a phone reboot I was notified that my "USB storage" was damaged and the phone was indeed unable to see anything on my "external" 16 GB SD.
It suggested a format, which I tried twice but nothing happened aside from the busy indicator spinning for a second or two. The SD card still couldn't be read.

I took out the battery and reinserted the SD card and when I started up the phone again the card was working and it appears all my data - music, videos, images - was still there, although some of the apps I've used after the reboot seem to have gone through at least a partial reset, probably because they were using data on the SD card.

Has anyone else run into this problem? Initially I obviously thought the card was a goner and I would need to buy a new one, but apparently it was just some kind of glitch in the system. Though certainly one I would prefer to avoid seeing again.
 
Did you buy the card from ebay from a vendor in south east asia? Then I would backup your data onto the desktop via the settimgs,usb utilities then run disk error checking on the card, right click, prkperties, tools, error checking.
 
No, it's a SanDisk card bought from a reputable online store here in Denmark.

With regards to error checking, I don't think I quite understood you correctly. I take it you're talking about the error checking feature for disk drives in Windows? But what's the "USB utilities" thing? Is that also in Windows or is it something I need to do on the phone before I run the error check?
 
Yes I am talking about Windows error checking, don't need anything extra on the phone. If you just plug the phone into the desktop, you get the phone appearing as a device i9100 or something correct?

However on the phone if you go to settings, wireless & network, USB Utilities, you then have a button appear "Connect Storage to PC" hit that, *THEN plug the cable in, then it has a green Android, click the button again "Connect USB Storage" then screen shows the Orange Connected Android. Then you get 2 disk drives appear on your desktop one for the internal phone memory and one for the external card. Could be I: and J: but it depend on your setup on Windows. They are both called 'removeable storage' in windows you want the second one which is the external card.

Right click that drive letter in Windows Explorer, select Properties in the popup menu, then Tools tab, then click "Check Now" in the Error Checking area. It will run diagnostic on your MicroSD card from windows (ChkDsk) and correct any errors, fix files etc. It should tell you what it found if it does find something. Do this also on your internal storage. Note you can't have a window showing the contents of the drive AND run chkdsk at the same time otherwise it will tell it can't access and try to schedule the check. If you just click on C: then right click the drive (ie. no contents is displayed) it will check immediately.

Note also the connection of the SGS2 in this mode is a little convoluted. When you reach the * point above you have to start with the cable disconnected then only connect it at that point mentioned above. If it's already connected when you go to USB Utilities it will complain and you have to pull out the cable only to put it back in again. Bit annoying the way they designed this one but it works. The reason you connect through Android 'USB Utilities' is so Windows will treat it as a disk drive not a device.

Hope this helps
 
Thanks. I'll give it a try, or at least bookmark your explanation in case the problem reappears. Right now everything seems to be working fine again and I don't have any important files on the external SD card that can't easily be copied back over again from my PC in case of a card failure.
 
I scanned the external SD card for errors, none found.

It looks a bit like it must either have been some system glitch after that phone reboot, or perhaps the SD card somehow losing contact through its connective surfaces, though I'm failing to see how that could have happened during the course of a reboot where I was holding the phone as steady as usual.
 
i hv tried to connect the thumb drive to SGS2 using the OTG cable.. but after connecting it, it showed 'usb storage damage' at the notification bar... i hv tried on other thumb drives as well it show d same... i was able to connect it be4 this..
anyone can help me with this ? thx
 
I had the same problem and I found solution.

First, problem description:
Iv connected S2 to PC and turn on the mass storage mode. After coping the files iv selected on the phone disconnect from pc (without unplugging the device in windows - which may cause this problem).
After that i found out that both memories (sd card and 16gb usb memory) are damaged.

Solution: I have connected the phone to pc, choose to turn on the mass storage mode. Windows found the drives but they are empty (unmounted). I selected on the phone disconnect from pc and this time i have unplugged the cards from windows. After this my phone found the memories and start working again.
I think it is a system glitch witch hang the card somewhere between mass storage mode and direct access to them.
 
g0dmode, i am still having this issue even after trying what you list.

can you be clearer on the solution. i have a galaxy s2 international GT-i9100. with the gingerbread update.

tried DaveSyd suggestions also
 
Sungian I see you want g0dmode's solution made clearer. I will oblige you.

Solution: I have connected the phone to pc, choose to turn on the mass storage mode. Windows found the drives but they are empty (unmounted). I selected on the phone disconnect from pc and this time i have unplugged the cards from windows. After this my phone found the memories and start working again.
I think it is a system glitch witch hang the card somewhere between mass storage mode and direct access to them.


I hope this is clearer for you. I can put it in block letters too if it's still not clear enough.
http://androidforums.com/members/sungian.html
 
Sungian I see you want g0dmode's solution made clearer. I will oblige you.

Solution: I have connected the phone to pc, choose to turn on the mass storage mode. Windows found the drives but they are empty (unmounted). I selected on the phone disconnect from pc and this time i have unplugged the cards from windows. After this my phone found the memories and start working again.
I think it is a system glitch witch hang the card somewhere between mass storage mode and direct access to them.


I hope this is clearer for you. I can put it in block letters too if it's still not clear enough.

Wow. Fantastic first post. You registered just to post that. All on your own. Who's a clever little man then. Have mummy and daddy gone out and left you with the computer. And there's me thinking half term was over :rolleyes:

What Godmode is saying (and what DeathBringer would have said if he was a grown up) is that you either need to tap the "disconnect from pc" button on the phone or select eject in Windows Explorer (for both drives) to ensure the drives get dismounted from Windows properly. Otherwise Windows accepts no responsibility for the state it leaves them in :)
 
Right click that drive letter in Windows Explorer, select Properties in the popup menu, then Tools tab, then click "Check Now" in the Error Checking area. It will run diagnostic on your MicroSD card from windows (ChkDsk) and correct any errors, fix files etc. It should tell you what it found if it does find something.
Hope this helps

Hi,
I tried to solve this problem according to your instruction, but when I checked drives for errors I got this: "The disk check could not be performed because windows can't access the disk".

Do you have any idea how to fix it without formatting USB storage?
 
I had this problem with my SGN GT-N7000 and solved it finally by flashing the PIT file with Odin using the following file which I downloaded from XDA Developers: Q1-20110914_16GB.pit

It resolves the message in notification area saying "damaged usb storage" and also allows the SD Card to be visible again.

Hope this helps someone...I spent weeks trying to solve this one.

N.B. when you flash the PIT file in Odin you have to leave the RE-PARTITION option ticked
 
Wow. Fantastic first post. You registered just to post that. All on your own. Who's a clever little man then. Have mummy and daddy gone out and left you with the computer. And there's me thinking half term was over :rolleyes:

WOW - that was a fantastic grown up post. It so amusing when sad old farts try to sound clever but just sound like a playground bully!

Even more amusing that their comments float around so much longer than they would in the playground. A proud moment for you speedycolzalez!
 
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