SD Card and ICS

Britney · Oct 30, 2012

After installing OTA ICS, I backed up most of the data from SD card to PC. However, contents of "extensive notes", evernote, Texts and data from Go SMS as well as App data , were all backed up to my SD card.These were not backed up to PC.
After FDR, phone cannot access or read SD card. Pop up message says information on card is inaccessible and card should be formatted.
Any suggestions on recovering data from the SD card?
Does not show up on PC when phone is connected.

Thanks.

Satires · Oct 30, 2012

Britney said:
After installing OTA ICS, I backed up most of the data from SD card to PC. However, contents of "extensive notes", evernote, Texts and data from Go SMS as well as App data , were all backed up to my SD card.These were not backed up to PC.
After FDR, phone cannot access or read SD card. Pop up message says information on card is inaccessible and card should be formatted.
Any suggestions on recovering data from the SD card?
Does not show up on PC when phone is connected.

Thanks.

Try taking the sd card out of the phone and plugging the sd card into a usb adapter directly to your computer.

I've heard that has helped some people whos phone for what ever reason couldn't read their sd card. Their computer still could and they backed up their data to the computer. After that, put the sd card back into the phone and and format it with your device.

Hope this helps.

Thom · Oct 30, 2012

Are you looking in the right place for the drive? It is changed from Gingerbread.

If you pull the USB computer connection from the notifications and select Mass storage two disk devices should show up in the Computer display.

... Thom

Britney · Oct 30, 2012

Thanks Satires. I will give it a try.
Thom, previously on GB, both drives showed up . I made mirror copies of each on my PC. Now USB shows one drive ( internal storage).
Since I did FDR, I took 2 pictures and they are showing in my phone as being the only item stored on my SD card.
The error message " SD card has been secured by another device and cannot be accessed unless formatted.
Then "Failed to verify SD card security settings. Encrypted content is not accessible.".
Finally, " SD card is safe to remove".

doogald · Oct 30, 2012

Britney said:
The error message " SD card has been secured by another device and cannot be accessed unless formatted.
Then "Failed to verify SD card security settings. Encrypted content is not accessible.".
Finally, " SD card is safe to remove".

On Gingerbread, did you ever go into settings->location & security->Data encryption and turn on data encryption for the memory card? If so, you would probably get that error messages.

Britney · Oct 30, 2012

I did either turn on or off encryption. If thats the problem, any suggestions for possible resolution?.
I also turned on data encryption on ICS.

Thom · Oct 30, 2012

I'm out of my depth on this one.

To summarize ... you backed up both drives to your PC, installed OTA, did a FDR, and then fiddled with encryption.

So some king of encryption is currently enabled ... correct?

Did i get the sequence correct?

... Thom

Britney · Oct 30, 2012

Sequence:

Enabled encryption on GB.
Installed ICs
Backed up both drives to PC.
Installed my backup pro.
Backed up app data and contacts to SD card.
Did FDR.
Cannot read SD card.

SD card readable on PC with use of USB adapter as suggested by member Satires.

doogald · Oct 30, 2012

My understanding of that data encryption setting is that the SD card can no longer be decrypted after a factory reset. This is probably what you want; you encrypt the card, you lose the phone, somebody does a factory reset from recovery - and the files you stored on the SD card cannot be read by them after the data reset.

You say that the SD card is readable - are the individual files readable, or are they encrypted, pseudo-random "noise"? If the files are readable on the PC, you should be able to copy them over to the PC to read them. However, based on this, I think it's possible that some files are readable, some encrypted, depending on when you enabled encryption. Quoting:

When SD card encryption is enabled, all new files added to the removable memory will be encrypted. Files stored on the card will not be readable via another phone or card reader connected to PC. User can transfer files from encrypted SD card to PC using embedded Phone Portal application.

Format the card and copy the files over from your backup. Evernote, at least, you do not need to worry about - those should have been synced on Evernote's service and will resync after you reinstall. I'm sorry to say that I cannot tell about any of the other files.

doogald · Oct 30, 2012

I found more information at this post on droid forums: SD card encrypted, cannot retrieve

Reading through that, it appears that Android/Motorola generates a new key for encryption when you factory reset. The factory reset screen appears to warn you that any encrypted content on an SD card will be unreadable after the FDR. (I thought that I had seen that before, but I couldn't recall it exactly.)

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news...

Britney · Oct 30, 2012

Thank you all for your efforts.
Even though I can access the folders on my PC, I am unable to open or view any files.
The strange part is, 4 months ago I did a back up SD card to PC, long before this encryption nonsense. I was able to view those files on the PC, however, I tried to open them today, and I am getting the same difficulty as the recent SD back up.
Grrrrr.....

biker128pedal · Oct 30, 2012

I did not encrypt my card and it was still unreadable after the update by the Bionic.

joehays · May 6, 2015

I have this exact same error message. I don't care about the data on the SD but I cannot mount it. Without mounting it I can't format it. What are my options?

SD Card and ICS

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