Help internal and external sd card

[manic-me]

Several questions over sd cards on the galaxy S.

Prior to installing the external card - the folders app showed /sd. Which I assumed was the internal one.
Then I insert the external one, reboot the phone, and tehre is no additional directory in the folder view. Why is this ?

Secondly, its a 16GB card. Its reported as 14.58GB. The format option is greyed out. Is it automatically mounted at power on?

Ideally I want to know where I install things to know that they are on the external card.

Thanks

MM

 

[karnka]

Secondly, its a 16GB card. Its reported as 14.58GB. The format option is greyed out. Is it automatically mounted at power on?

Right - 14.6GB is about right for a 16"GB" card. The card is 16,000,000,000 bytes which the manufacturers sell as 16GB but isn't really (1GB really = 1,073,741,824 bytes).

The card is automatically mounted when the device powers on as you say. You need to unmount to get the format option.

 

[karnka]

14.6GB is about right for a 16"GB" card.

Actually should be more like 14.9GB but either way certainly not 16GB.

 

[manic-me]

Thanks.

14.83GB is reported.

So, wuth the "my Files" app I get

/sdcard/

DCIM
Android
Samsung
svox
sd
​

Is there anyway to differentiate between internal and external SD cards ? I had the sd directory before inserting the external card.

What is confusing is that it all appears under /sdcard/...

Any explanation?

MM

 

[Deleted User]

look at the file size and it would make sense. I just got the phone today and I was able to figure it out with some common knowledge.

/sdcard/ is the internal memory, it shows up as the 16GB. inside it, if you click on the sd folder (/sdcard/sd/) this is your SDcard, thus it should should up as 2GB inside the folder.

 

[manic-me]

So...... I unmount the external SD card.

In the "my files" app there is still an /sdcard/sd directory and this contains one file devicefreindlyname.txt.

So I'm assuming this is the internal SD card (~5.8GB Storage).

I then turn the Galaxy S off. then back on. Says preparing external sd card, media scanner running etc.

In the "my files" app there is still an /sdcard/sd directory but the icon has changed. A card symbol is now attached to the folder symbol..... and it now contains no files .....

So... does the phone hide the internal SD card when the external one is detected ?

Confused .... you bet ...

I'll have to see what it looks like from the PC when connected via USB.

...MM

 

[psychedelic'd]

The entire /sdcard directory (with the DCIM, Android, Samsung folders) is your internal SD card.

/sdcard/sd is your external SD card. When there is an external SD, you will see the little card symbol in the icon from "My Files". If there is no external SD, or if it is unmounted, then you will not see the little card symbol and the directory /sdcard/sd is just a placeholder. Any files you put in there will be gone once you mount an external SD.

EDIT: When you mount the SD cards onto your computer, they show up as 2 different drives.

 

[manic-me]

/sdcard/sd is your external SD card. When there is an external SD, you will see the little card symbol in the icon from "My Files". If there is no external SD, or if it is unmounted, then you will not see the little card symbol and the directory /sdcard/sd is just a placeholder. Any files you put in there will be gone once you mount an external SD.

Thanks psychedelic'd.

EDIT: When you mount the SD cards onto your computer, they show up as 2 different drives.

Yes - I saw that also.

Thanks again.

 

[DroidRick]

This should be a sticky.
It stumped me as a new user and likely will stump many more people as well.

 

[ZDroid1]

Where are the cards, physically?

In my settings, it says I have an internal 16gb card, but not an external one.

 

[vikingisson]

Where are the cards, physically?

In my settings, it says I have an internal 16gb card, but not an external one.

You can't see the internal SD, it is buried inside. The external is right under the back plate, easy. You're showing no external SD because....you don't have one installed.

As for the /sdcard/sd confusing people as to how that could show as two drives is because it is two physical drives. Linux has a different drive mounting than the decades old C: drive style, linux can mount drives/partitions to any logical place you choose. In this case they mounted it under /sdcard. the /sdcard/sd isn't a directory in the usual sense, it is a mount point.

 

[logout]

Yes, I had the same confusion... I've put some files in the /sd before i install an external card, and when I installed an external sd, the files disappeared. I removed the external sd and the files were there again, so I just moved them to another folder in the /sdcard and then installed the external card again. So the files are not lost, you just can't access them.

 

[DocQ]

You can't see the internal SD, it is buried inside. The external is right under the back plate, easy. You're showing no external SD because....you don't have one installed.

As for the /sdcard/sd confusing people as to how that could show as two drives is because it is two physical drives. Linux has a different drive mounting than the decades old C: drive style, linux can mount drives/partitions to any logical place you choose. In this case they mounted it under /sdcard. the /sdcard/sd isn't a directory in the usual sense, it is a mount point.

Good info. Question: if the Internal SD card cannot be physically removed, why in the "Settings...SD Card & Phone Storage", under "Internal SD card", do we have an option to "Unmount SD Card (Unmount the SD card for safe removal") ? Mine is highlighted, but not sure what would happen if selected? Thx all.

 

[vikingisson]

Good info. Question: if the Internal SD card cannot be physically removed, why in the "Settings...SD Card & Phone Storage", under "Internal SD card", do we have an option to "Unmount SD Card (Unmount the SD card for safe removal") ? Mine is highlighted, but not sure what would happen if selected? Thx all.

I'm not entirely sure if it is an actual SD card and might just be the chip much like an iPhone. It acts like any SD card and in the linux world you can mount, dismount, remount, move, and lots of things with drives and partitions. You can dismount it without fear since there is also the traditional internal space where the OS and most apps are located. You normally wouldn't need to dismount it via the settings but that is what happens when you mount it as an external drive to a pc. It then auto remounts when you disconnect. You would also dismount it if you were to repartition it but that is higher level tricks and not a normal practice.

You could connect to a terminal session over USB like you would any normal linux machine and do all sorts of things. But via the settings menu you won't hurt it and only risk not seeing whatever is on the card until you mount it again.

 

[jmorris]

Okay. I've read all of these postings, and dumb me still has a question. Phone/Internal/External. I understand there are "three" places for memory. What I don't understand is where apps and things I download are going since I can't see them on the "external" memory, and they aren't showing up on the "internal" memory, and you can't see the "phone" memory with Kies or your PC. What's on phone? OS and that's it (which would make sense), but how do you direct things to a specific "internal" or "external" drive when you want to store them (i.e. apps, and other files)

 

[rainmanram]

I'm running Cognition B9.1.3 and I end up with a directory named "/sdcard/external_sd" and with the "My Files" explorer, it shows up with an sd icon over the folder.

I also have an /sdcard/sd directory.

What I don't understand, is that I can now use Settings->ManageApplications to move applications to the SD card but when I do move an app to the sd card, neither /sdcard/sd nor /sdcard/external_sd change.

Even more confusing, is if move an app to sd, unmount my external card, applications manager can no longer find the icon for the app.

What am I missing? Why don't I see the app in external_sd?

Thanks!

 

[kpucci]

I'm running Cognition B9.1.3 and I end up with a directory named "/sdcard/external_sd" and with the "My Files" explorer, it shows up with an sd icon over the folder.

I also have an /sdcard/sd directory.

What I don't understand, is that I can now use Settings->ManageApplications to move applications to the SD card but when I do move an app to the sd card, neither /sdcard/sd nor /sdcard/external_sd change.

Even more confusing, is if move an app to sd, unmount my external card, applications manager can no longer find the icon for the app.

What am I missing? Why don't I see the app in external_sd?

Thanks!

i have same question...if you have figured it out please let me know.