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Help How to change micro SD card?

wildkitten

Android Enthusiast
Dec 30, 2011
609
75
Alabama
I just bought a 32GB Micro SD card off Newegg. Do I only have to turn the phone off, copy the data off of the 16GB card it came with on my computer and then copy that over to the 32GB and put that in and it work normally or is there more I need to do?

Never changed out the card on my Bionic before.
 
I just swapped in an SD card on my phone using John's method last night to copy some files from a different phone, so you *can* do it with the phone running. However, in order to minimize the potential of forgetting to unmount before you pull the card, if I ever do this I'm usually less lazy and power down and then back up.
 
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LOL yes I assumed you meant the new one :)

Is there any particular format I should use? NTFS? Or is FAT32 the only option?

FAT32 for sure.

Honestly, I think that if the card is going to be in the phone, you are far better off formatting it on the phone (settings->storage; unmount the SD card and then format it.)
 
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FAT32 for sure.

Honestly, I think that if the card is going to be in the phone, you are far better off formatting it on the phone (settings->storage; unmount the SD card and then format it.)

Disagree. here is why.

The phone will format the same FAT system as you can with your computer - but on your computer, you'll be able to monitor the process. I formatted my 16 GB SDCard on my D1 when it started giving me issues - it took 3 format attempts before it completed without an error.

A full format via Windows takes a very long time, but it is worth it in the long run - it will help spot a fake card before you start using it, for one (although I'd pretty much trust NewEgg) and also, doing it on the computer means that the phone is still usable until the format is complete, making for a lot less down time.

Well thank you both. That's very helpful :) Now I feel better about swapping the cards out.

YW, as always WK
 
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Disagree. here is why.

The phone will format the same FAT system as you can with your computer - but on your computer, you'll be able to monitor the process. I formatted my 16 GB SDCard on my D1 when it started giving me issues - it took 3 format attempts before it completed without an error.

A full format via Windows takes a very long time, but it is worth it in the long run - it will help spot a fake card before you start using it, for one (although I'd pretty much trust NewEgg) and also, doing it on the computer means that the phone is still usable until the format is complete, making for a lot less down time.



YW, as always WK

Plus, you have to remove the card again anyway, b/c the data on the old card is copied to the computer, and then you'll copy it from the computer to the new card.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I didn't think of that.
 
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Be safe, transfer your files to your computer, shut the phone down, insert the new sd card, reformat the new card using the built android utility to do so, then move your files from your hardrive to your new sdcard.

This part is tricky...

If you have gigs of music, use "Wifi Pro" to transfer your music, not through the usb cable. Everytime I use an usb cable my mp3s have gotten corrupted...

Should you choose to use wifi pro, only tranfer songs about a 75 (Give or take) to your phone at one time. Transferring music for me is like pulling teeth! (Pulls hair and screams!lol)

P.S. A 64 gig card will work in your phone, should you ever buy one. You would have to follow the procedure I outlined above. I always format a new card with the phone, not a computer. :)
 
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Be safe, transfer your files to your computer, shut the phone down, insert the new sd card, reformat the new card using the built android utility to do so, then move your files from your hardrive to your new sdcard.

This part is tricky...

If you have gigs of music, use "Wifi Pro" to transfer your music, not through the usb cable. Everytime I use an usb cable my mp3s have gotten corrupted...

Should you choose to use wifi pro, only tranfer songs about a 75 (Give or take) to your phone at one time. Transferring music for me is like pulling teeth! (Pulls hair and screams!lol)

P.S. A 64 gig card will work in your phone, should you ever buy one. You would have to follow the procedure I outlined above. I always format a new card with the phone, not a computer. :)

Why not use Google music then no MP3 corruption
 
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Be safe, transfer your files to your computer, shut the phone down, insert the new sd card, reformat the new card using the built android utility to do so, then move your files from your hardrive to your new sdcard.

This part is tricky...

If you have gigs of music, use "Wifi Pro" to transfer your music, not through the usb cable. Everytime I use an usb cable my mp3s have gotten corrupted...

Should you choose to use wifi pro, only tranfer songs about a 75 (Give or take) to your phone at one time. Transferring music for me is like pulling teeth! (Pulls hair and screams!lol)

P.S. A 64 gig card will work in your phone, should you ever buy one. You would have to follow the procedure I outlined above. I always format a new card with the phone, not a computer. :)

Actually I just pulled the 16GB SD card and put it in my laptops card reader (phone was off) and copied it all off and then out the 32GB in the card reader and copied it back to that. Also put on my music while it was in the card reader.
 
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Exactly. If you can format the SDCard on your computer, you can copy the date from the card to the computer and from the computer back to the new card without using your phone.

Transferring over wireless will be slower than direct physical transfer. For someone upgrading a 16 GB SDCard to a 32 GB SDCard, it's a pretty good bet that they have a god bit of data that needs transferring.

Glad you got it all working, WK.
 
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Exactly. If you can format the SDCard on your computer, you can copy the date from the card to the computer and from the computer back to the new card without using your phone.

Transferring over wireless will be slower than direct physical transfer. For someone upgrading a 16 GB SDCard to a 32 GB SDCard, it's a pretty good bet that they have a god bit of data that needs transferring.

Glad you got it all working, WK.

Windows has always had a way of corrupting some of my mp3's and ubuntu linix is slow.

Wireless was my only option because I have close to 30 gigs of music. Maybe it's just my computers, but transferring gigs of music for me is like pulling teeth.

This also happend on another newer xp I had.

This is just my personal experience. Maybe people only have a gig or two of music, which I could get away with, doing it wirelessly (Just in my personal experience) really wasn't that much slower and my files never got corrupted using the wireless method. The trick was, only moving between 50 and a hundred songs at a time.
 
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How many people have you talked to about their music collections? I wholeheartedly disagree with your statement that most people only have 1 or 2 GB of music. I'll be willing to put a wager on that as well.

Well over 75% of people I have talked to both online and in real life have always told me totals of 20 GB and up - I myself have well over 400 GB of music alone, and another 200 GB of music videos.

Finally, your experiences of copying files locally versus wireless are your own experiences. Local copies will move faster than wireless connections, with the added benefit that you don't have to worry about a wireless card / router crapping out in the middle of a transfer. it's local.

Half of the problem is XP, but the other half of the problem is that when copying large amounts of data, using the native Windows Explorer in XP to copy said files, you've already opened the door for disaster. Copying large amounts of data can be alleviated in XP by 1) copying smaller sets, 2) using a file copier app like TeraCopy / Robocopy, or 3) Don't use your computer for anything else when performing the copying, and temporarily disabling your Internet connection and then your antivirus' real time protection to help speed things along.
 
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How many people have you talked to about their music collections? I wholeheartedly disagree with your statement that most people only have 1 or 2 GB of music. I'll be willing to put a wager on that as well.

Well over 75% of people I have talked to both online and in real life have always told me totals of 20 GB and up - I myself have well over 400 GB of music alone, and another 200 GB of music videos.

Finally, your experiences of copying files locally versus wireless are your own experiences. Local copies will move faster than wireless connections, with the added benefit that you don't have to worry about a wireless card / router crapping out in the middle of a transfer. it's local.

Half of the problem is XP, but the other half of the problem is that when copying large amounts of data, using the native Windows Explorer in XP to copy said files, you've already opened the door for disaster. Copying large amounts of data can be alleviated in XP by 1) copying smaller sets, 2) using a file copier app like TeraCopy / Robocopy, or 3) Don't use your computer for anything else when performing the copying, and temporarily disabling your Internet connection and then your antivirus' real time protection to help speed things along.
Thank you. :) I will look into the software you speak of. Do you have any idea why ubuntu linux would be slow? I don't use my xp machine other than to reformat phones.

How a file would get corrupted is, I would be listening to a song, halfway through the song the music player would play something completely different, but according to the music player I'm still on the original track I was playing. It's as if, windows spliced to song together into one...
 
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Thank you. :) I will look into the software you speak of. Do you have any idea why ubuntu linux would be slow? I don't use my xp machine other than to reformat phones.

How a file would get corrupted is, I would be listening to a song, halfway through the song the music player would play something completely different, but according to the music player I'm still on the original track I was playing. It's as if, windows spliced to song together into one...

RoboCopy is built into XP as a hidden utility, but might require installation of an SDK / SP, cannot remember.

TeraCopy is a 3rd party software.

And if you were listening to your music while trying to copy it to another device, I'm not surprised that this happened.

As for your *nix box, depends upon 1) the hardware, and 2) the configuration your use for your installs. a default install of most *nix will not be strikingly faster than a Windows install.
 
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