What's new
DroidForums.net | Android Forum & News

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Problems with 32GB SD Cards

S

seventieslord

Member
When I got my D2G the first thing I did was go out and buy a 32GB SD card since that is the largest it supports.

To transfer from one card to the other (since I found in the past that a card formatted by a PC may not agree with the phone and vice-versa), I hooked up my old phone and old 16GB card to the computer in one USB port in mass storage mode, and then hooked up my new phone and new 32GB card in another USB port in mass storage, then just dragged and dropped everything from one to the other.

I experienced really weird behaviour during this process. The 15GB transfer took over 4 hours, and then certain folders that should have contained 3GB of files on the new phone, were just showing as empty. I then re-filled them, only to find that another folder had either gone empty or dropped a few files. I kept this up until it would "take" all my files (of course, at this point I was pretty sure I didn't want to keep this card). Finally it appeared as though this card had all my data on it, so I unhooked the USB, tried to mount it, and I was told the card was damaged. Anytime I try to mount that card, I get the same message.

Got a different 32GB card now, and I am getting the exact same thing as above, except that I didn't have the "empty folders, files disappearing" problem I had before.

Is there any kind of a known issue with this phone that causes it to dislike certain SD cards? After one instance it is really easy to conclude the card was faulty. After two instances, I start to wonder about my phone.
 
Why should I not be able to transfer all the files at once?

The number of files I transfer at once should not be a determining factor in whether my phone thinks the SD card is damaged or not...
 
Ive read somewhere to not transfer more than 4GB of files at once. I was in the same situation and just transfered all the files in about three stages and it works just fine.
 
I just did this -- upgraded from the stock 8 GB card to a new 32 GB micro SD.

Unlike what I read on the Interwebs I easily did this using Windows. No worrying about hidden Linux partitions or anything. And I transferred nearly 8 GB of data with no issues.

Easy:
  1. Start with your old SD card in your phone.
  2. Create a folder on your C:\ drive called SD -- i.e. C:\SD
  3. Plug your D2G in and set up the USB connection as USB Mass Storage. It will create 2 drives on your computer -- one is the Motorola drive with the drivers; the other is your SD card in all its glory. It's very important you set this up as USB Mass Storage -- this is the only mode that makes visible to Windows Explorer the special folders on the SD card that store app data, etc.
  4. Figure out which drive is your SD card. In my case, it was K:\
  5. Open up a command prompt in Adminstrator mode. (In Windows 7, click Start and type cmd into the search box. Right click Command Prompt in the Start menu, and run as Administrator.) Administrator rights may not be necessary but I didn't take any chances. Approve any User Account Control warnings that pop up.
  6. Use the old DOS XCOPY command to copy everything on the SD card to your hard drive. Type the following (without the quotes):
    xcopy k:\*.* c:\sd\ /s
    This may take a while but it will copy your ENTIRE SD card to your hard drive.
  7. When it finishes, close the Command Prompt and unplug your phone.
  8. Turn off the phone and swap the SD card to your new one. Turn it back on and let it boot. Once booted, verify there are no issues with the card by going to Settings > SD Card and making sure it's mounted and formatted. The phone should have figured it out for you already.
  9. Plug in the phone again and set it up for USB Mass Storage. Open a command prompt again.
  10. Now we'll copy everything from your hard drive back to the phone. Type the following:
    xcopy c:\sd\*.* k:\ /s
  11. When finished, close the Command Prompt, unplug the phone and reboot the phone, just so your apps etc can reload any data they may look for on the SD card.
  12. Lastly you may have to reconfigure any ringtones etc that were stored on the SD card -- for whatever reason my phone forgot them all and I had to reconfigure them in settings. Your mileage may vary.

In my case it even preserved my Angry Birds games and everything. I am very happy.

Good luck.
 
Last edited:
Last thing I'd say is that in my experience you're likely to get a defective micro SD card at these large sizes -- the defect rate tends to be higher. If you can't get your new card to mount or format on the phone it's almost definitely defective -- RMA it and try again.
 
rowlightweight said:
I just did this -- upgraded from the stock 8 GB card to a new 32 GB micro SD.

Unlike what I read on the Interwebs I easily did this using Windows. No worrying about hidden Linux partitions or anything. And I transferred nearly 8 GB of data with no issues.

Easy:
  1. Start with your old SD card in your phone.
  2. Create a folder on your C:\ drive called SD -- i.e. C:\SD
  3. Plug your D2G in and set up the USB connection as USB Mass Storage. It will create 2 drives on your computer -- one is the Motorola drive with the drivers; the other is your SD card in all its glory. It's very important you set this up as USB Mass Storage -- this is the only mode that makes visible to Windows Explorer the special folders on the SD card that store app data, etc.
  4. Figure out which drive is your SD card. In my case, it was K:\
  5. Open up a command prompt in Adminstrator mode. (In Windows 7, click Start and type cmd into the search box. Right click Command Prompt in the Start menu, and run as Administrator.) Administrator rights may not be necessary but I didn't take any chances. Approve any User Account Control warnings that pop up.
  6. Use the old DOS XCOPY command to copy everything on the SD card to your hard drive. Type the following (without the quotes):
    xcopy k:\*.* c:\sd\ /s
    This may take a while but it will copy your ENTIRE SD card to your hard drive.
  7. When it finishes, close the Command Prompt and unplug your phone.
  8. Turn off the phone and swap the SD card to your new one. Turn it back on and let it boot. Once booted, verify there are no issues with the card by going to Settings > SD Card and making sure it's mounted and formatted. The phone should have figured it out for you already.
  9. Plug in the phone again and set it up for USB Mass Storage. Open a command prompt again.
  10. Now we'll copy everything from your hard drive back to the phone. Type the following:
    xcopy c:\sd\*.* k:\ /s
  11. When finished, close the Command Prompt, unplug the phone and reboot the phone, just so your apps etc can reload any data they may look for on the SD card.
  12. Lastly you may have to reconfigure any ringtones etc that were stored on the SD card -- for whatever reason my phone forgot them all and I had to reconfigure them in settings. Your mileage may vary.

In my case it even preserved my Angry Birds games and everything. I am very happy.

Good luck.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I will give this a try.

The card does mount and format properly. And after I started this thread, I was able to put it back in and the phone didn't say it was damaged (felt like a moral victory) but it was still acting wonky. It sounds like transferring all the files at once worked, but not quite 100%. A more "precise" method like this should do the trick.

I'll let y'all know my results.
 
first impression:

holy crap, why the heck is this so fast? Instead of 500 KB/s when transferring from phone to phone via usb, I'm transferring off the phone onto the PC at 10 MB/s!
 
transferring files to the new card was not nearly as fast. It went around 2.5MB/s, which is about 5 times faster than phone-to-phone went before, but also 1/4 as fast as phone-to-PC went just a while back.

I was really confident this would work... sadly, it did not. The phone says the SD card is damaged. At this point I think it's DOA.

I'll get another one and relay what happens.

I did like the above procedure though, and will follow it for the next card.
 
seventieslord said:
quick question - does the D2G support class 6 cards?
Click to expand...

from my experience, no they do not, i have a class 6 8gb card and a 16gb one as well and the d2g struggles with them, i also have a class 10 16gb card that the d2g struggles with as well, but my class 4 8gb and 16gb cards work fine.
 
the class defines the speed, class 2 being the slowest and class 10 being the fastest, i remember being told that the class shouldnt matter when using an sd card, but from reading on other forums and with my experiences, they do matter, it should be given with the specifications of a phone what class they can take.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

P
Upgrading micro SD card to 32 gb
Replies
3
Views
3K
silver6054
S
T
SD Card to Internal storage
Replies
5
Views
5K
Techjourney
T
T
Upgrading to a 32GB card?
2
Replies
24
Views
7K
Boris Badenov
B
P
Help - consistent problems accessing sd from PC
Replies
8
Views
2K
Nasa
N
R
How to keep SD Card from mounting on PC
Replies
2
Views
2K
TwoBuells
T
Back
Top