sequestris 710 Posted October 17, 2020 Share Posted October 17, 2020 So I got a new card and I meant to just transfer my pictures but I accidentally hit move files. Couple things; 1) The SD card, which is supposed to be a 512 is showing as a 1TB 2) I now no longer have access to the phone itself when I plug it into my computer. 3) The system folder is showing as being filled 506GB our of 1TB 4) What have I done? 5) Can I change it back? 6) How can I get it so I can see my internal storage when I plug the phone into the computer? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Hook 2,945 Posted October 17, 2020 Share Posted October 17, 2020 Hmmm, not sure. Hopefully, the 1TB thing is Samsung sending you the wrong card. Otherwise it might be corrupt. Did the phone offer to format the card when you first put it in? If so, did it offer you two flavors-- as removeable storage or as additional internal memory (don't remember the term)? Which did you choose; I always make mine removable and don't know a lot about the other option. When you plug in the phone to the PC, do you switch the USB function on the phone from "charging" to "File Transfer?" You do that by tapping on the USB notification on the notification shade? I haven't had this happen, just trying to get more details. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
sequestris 710 Posted October 17, 2020 Author Share Posted October 17, 2020 7 minutes ago, Hook said: Hmmm, not sure. Hopefully, the 1TB thing is Samsung sending you the wrong card. Otherwise it might be corrupt. Did the phone offer to format the card when you first put it in? If so, did it offer you two flavors-- as removeable storage or as additional internal memory (don't remember the term)? Which did you choose; I always make mine removable and don't know a lot about the other option. When you plug in the phone to the PC, do you switch the USB function on the phone from "charging" to "File Transfer?" You do that by tapping on the USB notification on the notification shade? I haven't had this happen, just trying to get more details. At my husband's suggestion I chose internal and now I want to undo that. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Hook 2,945 Posted October 17, 2020 Share Posted October 17, 2020 1 minute ago, sequestris said: At my husband's suggestion I chose internal and now I want to undo that. Hopefully someone else will come along who knows more about that option. Since an SD card for me is primarily for media storage, I usually want it removable and have always gone with that option. One thing I am still confused about-- you said you "moved" your pictures. From where? You couldn't have had 500 GB of pictures on your Pro 1. What else is contributing to the 500GB? The pictures might be able to be moved back. though again, not sure what that looks like if everything is being treated as one big internal SD drive. I suspect the only way to redo it is to reformat the card, maybe in a PC, but you will lose everything and I don't know if that will confuse Android. Best wait for someone who is more help on this than I am. Sorry. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
OKSun 103 Posted October 17, 2020 Share Posted October 17, 2020 If I remember well, if you choose the internal storage option, you see only one drive on the laptop, the combined internal storage. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
sequestris 710 Posted October 17, 2020 Author Share Posted October 17, 2020 Waiting... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
sequestris 710 Posted October 17, 2020 Author Share Posted October 17, 2020 My husband typed this up... In case this happens to anyone else.@EskeRahn - can you categorize this as something meaningful? Formatted card as Internal, All photos & video & Music put on card, Lost visibility to internal storage Decided this was a bad plan Shut off phone Removed SD Card Turned on phone All apps still present All games still at previous levels Phone still works HYPOTHESIS: Reformatting card should leave everything alone, just need to reinstall photos/video/music Backed up phone Powered off phone Reinstalled card Powered on phone Reformatted card Both internal and SD card storage visible All apps/photos*/video/music just like before there was a card *lost a handful of photos taken after the card was removed. All is right with the world. HYPOTHISIS was incorrect! It appears that the data was copied to the SD Card, but still exists on the phone. Reformatting the card did not disturb the data, just wiped the copied data from the card. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
EskeRahn 5,427 Posted October 17, 2020 Share Posted October 17, 2020 Not quite sure what it should be catogrised as. "Support" perhaps? Strictly this is a more general Android question than a specific Pro1-issue. Anyway. When you chose to use it as removable, it is in a standard unprotected format, and the card can be moved to 'anything' that can read an SD-card, e.g. a PC. When you chose Internal, the card is used encrypted and as an extension of your normal storage (I do not know the finer details of this - never used it). The benefit obviously being the encryption if the data you want to put on the card are sensitive, the drawback obviously also the encryption, preventing easy transport of files by simply moving the card. And as data are either encrypted or not, the card will need to be wiped to change from one to the other. (AFAIK they do not offer an option to decrypt/encrypt the entire content) AFAIK you will need to actively tell to use the SD card for storage in e.g. your camera app, And I do not think it automatically copies/moves data. Some apps might by default use an SD if present. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
OKSun 103 Posted October 18, 2020 Share Posted October 18, 2020 (edited) Yes and this is the disadvantage of the internal memory solution: some apps might not work anymore if you remove the SD card / you might mess up your phone settings when you remove the SD card. Then you need to reinstall apps and some settings. It happened to me. By the way, since a lot of users use the SD card as external storage, it might be an idea for the pro 2 to make it easier to remove (not in the SIM tray). Edited October 18, 2020 by OKSun 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
sequestris 710 Posted October 19, 2020 Author Share Posted October 19, 2020 I'm not sure how things were originally configured, but sans card all the apps were working perfectly. The only change was that the pics and docs and other personal files were not present. I was surprised. If it transferred system files to the card, how was it still working? 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MvBoe 31 Posted October 19, 2020 Share Posted October 19, 2020 If the SD card is set up as "internal", it is a logical part of the internal storage. The user has no influence on whether the data is physically stored in the cell phone memory or on the SD card. Therefore, an "internal" SD card must not be removed from the smartphone if you do not want to endanger the stability of the system. Conversely, there cannot be any important data on the SD card, then you were lucky if you remove the SD card and the device continues to work perfectly. I personally do not include an SD card as internal, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages in my opinion. The use as "external" lets me as a user control what is in the smartphone and what is on the SD card. In addition, SD cards are almost always much slower than the internal memory of the smartphone and you can slow down your system with such a slow "internal" SD card. 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
sequestris 710 Posted October 20, 2020 Author Share Posted October 20, 2020 17 hours ago, MvBoe said: If the SD card is set up as "internal", it is a logical part of the internal storage. The user has no influence on whether the data is physically stored in the cell phone memory or on the SD card. Therefore, an "internal" SD card must not be removed from the smartphone if you do not want to endanger the stability of the system. Conversely, there cannot be any important data on the SD card, then you were lucky if you remove the SD card and the device continues to work perfectly. I personally do not include an SD card as internal, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages in my opinion. The use as "external" lets me as a user control what is in the smartphone and what is on the SD card. In addition, SD cards are almost always much slower than the internal memory of the smartphone and you can slow down your system with such a slow "internal" SD card. Yeah, I had no interest in having a system run of external media. It was an accident. And I definitely got lucky. Ijust wanted to make sure this was documented in case others had a need to know. 1 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
sequestris 710 Posted October 20, 2020 Author Share Posted October 20, 2020 (edited) I sense your confusion @netman I am also confused. It does not compute. Edited October 20, 2020 by sequestris grammar 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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