Please help with transferring files! Please!

[mordantkitten]

I'm sorry to vent while asking a question But I'm about to give up and take the phone back to the store. That is how frustrated I am with people saying something is going to happen if I do x or y, and then I do x or y and it doesn't happen! And then people get on and say it happened for them and thank you so much. I must be the most clueless person there is because I can't do things that so many people are finding so easy to do!

They say to mount the phone and it will make the phone into a new drive on the PC. I do it. Where is this new drive supposed to be? There is no notification on either the phone or the PC that a drive has been found, created, or connected. There is no new drive in the My Computer folder. How am I supposed to pass files from computer folders to the SD card when there is no window for the SD card anywhere?

They say to remove the SD card, plug it into the PC, and create folders. But nobody draws out a tree and says put your folders in this folder on the SD card, name them this, and put the files in. They just say to create the folders. Where? Android? Android/dcim? I put folders in the main, in the Android, in the /dcim. They sometimes show up on the phone, sometimes not. The only way they ever show up on the phone is when I use the app Astro that I downloaded. And then it says it can't find the dcim folder I just put there and named they way it wanted me to when it said it couldn't find it the last time.

Should I re-format the SD card and let the phone recreate the folders it needs, and start over again? If I must do that, would someone PLEASE draw out a tree and put pictures and show where everything should go when I create it?

Thank you for reading this through, and please either help me or point me to someone or something that can.

ETA: This was never rocket science on my Blackberry Curve!

 

[mountaineerndixie]

Which phone and which PC OS for starters...?

What are you trying to do that you are adding folders? (BTW, they are typically added to sdcard unless specified differently).

When you connect to phone to PC did it not install drivers on PC or give a USB notification on the phone with the option to mount or just charge? Sounds like it is waiting on you to choose, still. Check notification bar at top for USB symbol and pull it down.

~ Transmitted via Motorola Droid 2.1 ~

 

[mordantkitten]

Motorola Droid. Windows XP.

As I said, I did mount it. Pushed button that said Mount. Is there something else I'm supposed to do after I push the button that says Mount?

No, there are no drivers. Yes, there is an option to mount, which I found by doing what you just said to do. That is how I found and pushed the button labeled Mount.

I guess I didn't make clear in my post that I had already gotten past that when I said I had gotten past that. I apologize.

I am adding folders to the sd card with the card plugged into a slot on my PC, since the mounting is not working. It does show me a folder for the sd card at that point. But where in the folder or subfolders do I put MY folders, all these audio music ringtones notifiers whatever folders that are supposed to go on the SD card?

 

[stealthgriffin]

Motorola Droid. Windows XP.

As I said, I did mount it. Pushed button that said Mount. Is there something else I'm supposed to do after I push the button that says Mount?

Not on the phone. At that point, you should have a new drive show up in your "My Computer" file (or wherever your C: drive is located, been a while since I've dealt with XP >.>)

I am adding folders to the sd card with the card plugged into a slot on my PC, since the mounting is not working. It does show me a folder for the sd card at that point. But where in the folder or subfolders do I put MY folders, all these audio music ringtones notifiers whatever folders that are supposed to go on the SD card?

If you're trying to make things into ringtones/notifications/alarms they need to go into a folder called Ringtones/Notifications/Alarms (whatever is appropriate)inside a folder called Audio, inside a folder called Media. So the tree would look like this:

Sdcard/Media/Audio/Ringtones

Also, try Ringdroid. It can take any mp3 or .wave files in your SDcard and lets you cut your own ringtones (and saves them in the appropriate file).

 

[mordantkitten]

Okay with that so far. A drive showing up in My Computer is exactly what I expected was supposed to happen, and that is where I was looking for it, not on the phone. It has not happened. I just mounted the phone again to see if I'd missed it somehow. There is no such drive.

ETA: Wait. This time, it made the drive! It's calling itself Drive J. who knows why it wouldn't before? So may I assume that drive J = /Sdcard?

When I remove the sd card and plug it into the PC (let me make clear that I am actually powering off the phone, removing the sd card, and plugging it into the PC at that point), the card's directory shows up when I open the F drive, which I assume means that the slot I plug the card into is currently manifesting as a drive called F.

I don't see a folder named Sdcard. May I assume that the folder the PC is calling F is the folder you are calling Sdcard, and that I am to put the folder Media in this window and build the tree from there?

The reason I am unclear on this point is that when I use Astro, the phone keeps telling me it's missing folders that have /dcim in their tree, which is why I had been putting folders into the only folder called dcim that i could find in any of the folders.

I hope all this is making sense so far.

Ringdroid: does this mean I can put an mp3 ANYWHERE on the SD card and it'll find it, or that I have to put it in the appropriate folder in the directory tree I'm supposed to build?

I do have ringtones I want to put in, ones I created in Adobe Audition, the program I use to edit sound files. I had these files in my BlackBerry, where they worked well as ringtones, alarm sounds and such, so I'd like them on the Droid too.

 

[mordantkitten]

So...now I have a drive, and a /media folder in the top directory, and the tree you specified, and ringtones in the /ringtones folder. Which do not show up in the phone's ringtone list.

Sigh.

 

[stealthgriffin]

Okay with that so far. A drive showing up in My Computer is exactly what I expected was supposed to happen, and that is where I was looking for it, not on the phone. It has not happened. I just mounted the phone again to see if I'd missed it somehow. There is no such drive.

That's an odd situation, because there is supposed to be a drive there. I'm not very good with the nitty-gritty technical details but it sounds like something is wrong.

When I remove the sd card and plug it into the PC (let me make clear that I am actually powering off the phone, removing the sd card, and plugging it into the PC at that point), the card's directory shows up when I open the F drive, which I assume means that the slot I plug the card into is currently manifesting as a drive called F.

I don't see a folder named Sdcard. May I assume that the folder the PC is calling F is the folder you are calling Sdcard, and that I am to put the folder Media in this window and build the tree from there?

Yes, SDcard would be F in a computer, plugging it into the media port on your computer. Sorry, I've been doing a lot of stuff on my phone and its SDcard for that lol. Inside F, make a Media folder. Inside that, make an Audio folder. Inside THAT make folders Ringtones/Notifications/Alarms

The reason I am unclear on this point is that when I use Astro, the phone keeps telling me it's missing folders that have /dcim in their tree, which is why I had been putting folders into the only folder called dcim that i could find in any of the folders.

DCIM is the folder that your pictures and videos go when you take them with the phone. You don't need to put anything there as far as I know.

Ringdroid: does this mean I can put an mp3 ANYWHERE on the SD card and it'll find it, or that I have to put it in the appropriate folder in the directory tree I'm supposed to build?

I THINK you can put them anywhere and it will find them, but I would just put them right into the SDcard's main directory, just to be sure.

I do have ringtones I want to put in, ones I created in Adobe Audition, the program I use to edit sound files. I had these files in my BlackBerry, where they worked well as ringtones, alarm sounds and such, so I'd like them on the Droid too.

If you put those files into the SDcard's main directory and open then with Ringdroid, you can select the whole length of the file and save them as Notifications or Ringtones (alarms you have to manually move to the Media/Audio/Alarm folder.)

Hope this helps.

EDIT: What is the file type for the ringtones, btw?
EDIT2: Just checking, but before looking for the ringtones are you unmounting your SD card?

 

[mordantkitten]

Hm, unmount first. There's something nobody's told me yet!

So I pulled down the top bar on the phone. It invited me to turn off USB storage, which in turn tells me to make sure I have unmounted on the USB host. What is that? The computer? If so, how do I unmount from the computer?

 

[stealthgriffin]

Hm, unmount first. There's something nobody's told me yet!

So I pulled down the top bar on the phone. It invited me to turn off USB storage, which in turn tells me to make sure I have unmounted on the USB host. What is that? The computer? If so, how do I unmount from the computer?

Right click on the drive in the computer and it should have an option to "Eject". Do that, then do the Unmount in the phone and it will tell you in the notification bar that it is preparing the SD card or something along those lines. When the Notification bar is back to normal, try setting the ringtones.

 

[mordantkitten]

Done. No ringtones. I looked in the tree using Astro, as well. The folder tree I added is there, but the ringtones are not. It says "directory is empty."

They're mp3s. Should I change them to something else?

 

[stealthgriffin]

Done. No ringtones. I looked in the tree using Astro, as well. The folder tree I added is there, but the ringtones are not. It says "directory is empty."

They're mp3s. Should I change them to something else?

MP3s should work fine.

2 things to try. Make sure the file names are lower case, it might matter but Im not sure.

Try using Ringdroid to make one and see what happens.

 

[hookbill]

Done. No ringtones. I looked in the tree using Astro, as well. The folder tree I added is there, but the ringtones are not. It says "directory is empty."

They're mp3s. Should I change them to something else?

MP3s should work fine.

2 things to try. Make sure the file names are lower case, it might matter but Im not sure.

Try using Ringdroid to make one and see what happens.

Ringdroid is what I would have recommended too. Moved this to Rescue Squad Help for additional assistance.

 

[mordantkitten]

Now I have my old ringtone as my new ringtone. Thank you so much to everyone who's answered and been patient with me. I'm calmer now, and will not take the phone back...today, at least.

 

[stealthgriffin]

Now I have my old ringtone as my new ringtone. Thank you so much to everyone who's answered and been patient with me. I'm calmer now, and will not take the phone back...today, at least.

Once you get the hang of it, you'll love your phone. My family has 7 of them, so yeaaaah lol

 

[Eddie Haskell]

So, on the sd card after "mounting" the USB, I have 5 files;
Android
DCIM
Download
DiskCacheIndex50442
Lost.DIR
I have added 4 gigs of music to the card and they are just folders containing individual artists. What do I do with them now, make a sixth folder and name it media>music>all my music. If I want to use my own ringtones; media>ringtones and the phone will look there for what I want as a ringtone? I would think the SD would have all these folders in place already after the original install>format.
I just need a little bit of clarification on weather or not the device will find the things I place on the SD card where I put them.
Edit: After I created the folders as stated above, I unmounted and the Droid figured it all out, not sure about ringtones yet, future project