Help HTC Thunderbolt - Can't mount as hard drive?

ska.t73 · Apr 11, 2011

slinky said:
The SD card will show, not the internal memory.

Right that is working as intended. No smartphone allows you to show the internal memory. Unless of course you are rooted and use an app like root explorer. Every single phone I have ever owned has been like this. You can't read the internal memory unless you have root access on the device.

Tech Addiction · Apr 11, 2011

ska.t73 said:
Right that is working as intended. No smartphone allows you to show the internal memory. Unless of course you are rooted and use an app like root explorer. Every single phone I have ever owned has been like this. You can't read the internal memory unless you have root access on the device.

Actually the Incredible mounted the Internal memory as a drive and so does the T-Mobile Samsung Tab. Now if they have 8gb coded as OS memory then that's a different story. The Samsung Tab has 2g for OS and 16gb for the Tablet apps although it only works out to a little over 12gb available. I think everyone was expecting this phone to work like the Incredible and give you access to the Internal memory.

ska.t73 · Apr 11, 2011

Tech Addiction said:
Actually the Incredible mounted the Internal memory as a drive and so does the T-Mobile Samsung Tab. Now if they have 8gb coded as OS memory then that's a different story. The Samsung Tab has 2g for OS and 16gb for the Tablet apps although it only works out to a little over 12gb available. I think everyone was expecting this phone to work like the Incredible and give you access to the Internal memory.

Ah ok yea, but from my understanding that "internal" memory was simply an internal SD card, not really the internal memory. For instance on the OG Droid all of the internal memory was unmountable, it wasn't read as an SD card.

Also even when you mounted the Incredible you couldn't see the apps that were installed on the system partition correct?

vzwuser76 · Apr 12, 2011

ska.t73 said:
Ah ok yea, but from my understanding that "internal" memory was simply an internal SD card, not really the internal memory. For instance on the OG Droid all of the internal memory was unmountable, it wasn't read as an SD card.

Also even when you mounted the Incredible you couldn't see the apps that were installed on the system partition correct?

You are correct there. The "internal memory" misnomer on the Inc. just meant that you had 8GB total (6.6 available) of internal non-removable storage. The remainder of the 8GB (768MB) is partitioned for the apps/ OS.

Tech Addiction · Apr 12, 2011

Right, I guess what I was saying or trying to say, is the way the phone specs are mentioned it sounds like you have the same 8gb of internal storage like the Incredible but what it turns out to be is a really large system memory. The VZW Samsung Tab only has 2gb of onboard memory but it's all for the OS so they had to give you a 16gb Micro SD card or you wouldn't be able to use the thing. This just seems like a lot of memory to be dedicated solely for the OS and apps. What's more strange is that so much of that memory is already used up before you load the first App.

MRW1215 · Apr 12, 2011

CharlzO said:
One thing you might be able to try (if you haven't already done so), restart your computer with the phone and USB cable still plugged in. My 64bit Win7 machine was giving me the same thing. I could plug in my USB and bluescreen my computer, all day long. I was able to get it to work though by leaving it plugged in when I restarted. I did have to go into my bios and make sure it wasn't trying to boot from USB as a primary.

However, I ended up having a bad stick of memory as well, which once fixed, has completely eliminated any issues for me.

Eh, I just can't say I'm all that crazy about having to let my PC get a blue screen error, leave my phone plugged in while it restarts, and hope it doesn't just blue screen again once it boots up. If that's the process I'd have to do every time I want to connect my phone, that'd be almost as annoying as having to pop out the battery and just inserting the memory card into the computer.

slinky · Apr 12, 2011

ska.t73 said:
Right that is working as intended. No smartphone allows you to show the internal memory. Unless of course you are rooted and use an app like root explorer. Every single phone I have ever owned has been like this. You can't read the internal memory unless you have root access on the device.

Not working as intended. I've never rooted my device and I've always had access to the internal memory on my Incredible like almost any other smart phone. You get two or three drives when you plug it in, 2 internal (one user accessible) and microSD.

slinky · Apr 12, 2011

vzwuser76 said:
You are correct there. The "internal memory" misnomer on the Inc. just meant that you had 8GB total (6.6 available) of internal non-removable storage. The remainder of the 8GB (768MB) is partitioned for the apps/ OS.

That is a HUGE "misnomer." It's like saying that a hard drive you're buying in a store has 300GB when it actually has 30GB. Oh... and btw, it also has peculiar characteristics and won't let you simply drag off photos you might save to internal memory as virtually anything in the past would. Huge gaff by Verizon Wireless and HTC, as if this would have gone unnoticed.

ska.t73 · Apr 12, 2011

slinky said:
Not working as intended. I've never rooted my device and I've always had access to the internal memory on my Incredible like almost any other smart phone. You get two or three drives when you plug it in, 2 internal (one user accessible) and microSD.

You have access to the internal SD card, NOT the internal memory. You can not access your apps that are on the phone, unless you move them to the SD card (either external or internal). When most people mention the internal memory on a phone they are talking about the actual system memory that isn't accessible by the user.

The Incredible (and it seems the Fascinate) are the exception in terms of smart phones, in the fact that they actually have a portion of the internal (non removable) memory partitioned to act like an SD card.

johnchad14 · Apr 15, 2011

I had a similar BSOD problem as was posted here and wanted to share my solution (good odds it is not the same problem as yours, but...)

The phone mounts the verizon crap ware as a DVD-ROM when you plug phone in. I had a program (DVD43) that attempts to scan any inserted DVDs and the interaction caused a BSOD. This and possibly other DVD related programs might cause issues with that verizon program. Turning off DVD43 when connecting phone made mine better.

slinky · Apr 15, 2011

ska.t73 said:
You have access to the internal SD card, NOT the internal memory. You can not access your apps that are on the phone, unless you move them to the SD card (either external or internal). When most people mention the internal memory on a phone they are talking about the actual system memory that isn't accessible by the user.

The Incredible (and it seems the Fascinate) are the exception in terms of smart phones, in the fact that they actually have a portion of the internal (non removable) memory partitioned to act like an SD card.

Considering it's made by the same company, it's ridiculous not to inform users that you can pay hundreds of dollars for a new phone and have 7GB less memory with the Thunderbolt. This explains why they were "generous" in giving away the cheapest 32GB microSD card they could which would barely supports high definition video.

It's brilliant - remove the internal memory from being user accessible and then fill up much of it with apps on deck that cannot be erased and charge developers for that privilege. In the meanwhile, let the street and their own salespeople talk about the benefits of 8GB user accessible space but who can complain that 2.5GB isn't enough memory for apps? Poor decision...

As much as I like my Thunderbolt, it's nothing but a stopgap for Verizon. I just read that the next HTC Sense won't even be supported on this phone and it's not even out for one month. So glad I got a one year contract.

ska.t73 · Apr 15, 2011

slinky said:
Considering it's made by the same company, it's ridiculous not to inform users that you can pay hundreds of dollars for a new phone and have 7GB less memory with the Thunderbolt. This explains why they were "generous" in giving away the cheapest 32GB microSD card they could which would barely supports high definition video.

It's brilliant - remove the internal memory from being user accessible and then fill up much of it with apps on deck that cannot be erased and charge developers for that privilege. In the meanwhile, let the street and their own salespeople talk about the benefits of 8GB user accessible space but who can complain that 2.5GB isn't enough memory for apps? Poor decision...

As much as I like my Thunderbolt, it's nothing but a stopgap for Verizon. I just read that the next HTC Sense won't even be supported on this phone and it's not even out for one month. So glad I got a one year contract.

The memory issue has already been acknowledged by both VZW and HTC, they are saying it was a mistake and a future update should free up the memory that we do not show on the phone. They will fix it.

As for the new Sense, no the phone will not be getting 3.0, none of the older HTC units will. However HTC has already come out and said that while the older units do not have the hardware necisarry to run all of 3.0 they will be releasing a new version of Sense with some of the stuff that is in 3.0.

MRW1215 · Apr 15, 2011

johnchad14 said:
I had a similar BSOD problem as was posted here and wanted to share my solution (good odds it is not the same problem as yours, but...)

The phone mounts the verizon crap ware as a DVD-ROM when you plug phone in. I had a program (DVD43) that attempts to scan any inserted DVDs and the interaction caused a BSOD. This and possibly other DVD related programs might cause issues with that verizon program. Turning off DVD43 when connecting phone made mine better.

Oh, wow, I DO use DVD43! Next time I want to add things to my phone's memory card, I'll try disabling DVD43 first. Hoping that fixes the problem!

1bolt · Jul 19, 2011

Anyone solved this yet? I have Vista 64 and have an unusable cd-Rom drive showing up with VZW icon but no write access obviously. Really wondering if I should return the thing and get an Evo.(hate Verizon but they have a tiny bit of coverage where I live).

I have tried disabling the cd drive in hardware manager, which worked for one person here but no luck. I do have two devices that show up (as usb device's ) as HTC mounted drives one the cd the other as a SD drive. But no functionality in explorer. Also ADB driver never installed but not sure why I'd need "developer debugging"

Not sure what to try next.

CharlzO · Jul 19, 2011

MRW1215 said:
Eh, I just can't say I'm all that crazy about having to let my PC get a blue screen error, leave my phone plugged in while it restarts, and hope it doesn't just blue screen again once it boots up. If that's the process I'd have to do every time I want to connect my phone, that'd be almost as annoying as having to pop out the battery and just inserting the memory card into the computer.

Like I said, it was a workaround for me to use to get it to work, while trying to isolate the root cause of my issue - which was bad RAM in my case. Other times, updating USB or Motherboard drivers for the onboard USB has helped solve it. Grab a cheap card reader and microSD adapter, see if that works that way. At this point, it's all about suggestion, as no two comps are always working exactly. Bad RAM in mine won't help anyone else's problems. Can try a USB hub, try the phone connected to another PC if possible, see if it narrows it down...i dunno.

Fretting · Aug 8, 2011

I had better luck doing this.

1) Make sure the Android SDK is installed
2) Make sure USB Debugging is initially disabled
3) Plug in your HTC Thunderbolt and let your system find the device
4) Turn on USB Debugging on your HTC Thunderbolt. The drives will appear. One will be for installing software (tethering software) and the other drive will be your SDCard mounted.

This works for me...your mileage may vary.

thataintryte · Aug 16, 2011

try this app "software data cable" it allows you to access your sd card wirelessly. make sure your on the same wi-fi network thats all. hope this helps

jrowlings · Oct 25, 2011

well that's just about one of the best recommendations I've had from the forum in a long while, thanks! this rivals "sound manager" to solve vibration problems.

Help HTC Thunderbolt - Can't mount as hard drive?

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