Restoring Note 8 from Factory Reset - SD Card: 'ready to transfer media files'

[xxxDrCarlxxx]

Hello,

I have an old Samsung Note 8 and am recovering from a painful accidental factory reset.
I have utilized and am progressing with ~partial~ backups from Samsung, Google, and Xfinity and have re-installed many apps from the Play Store.
I have an SD card that I have a great deal of data on.
Before the reset, I used App Manager III to clear caches and move as many of 250 apps to the SD card as I could, even "unmovable" ones.

Before I trash what progress I've made by manually and semi-automatically restoring my device, I am here to ask expert advice.

I am occasionally seeing a message saying 'ready to transfer media files'. I have no idea about the implications, or what that does.

Using MyFiles I can see the contents of the card.
The first folder on the card is titled Android. Its subfolders are data, media, and obb.
Inside the data folder are 571 items, almost all beginning with "com..xxx."
The other two Android folders are similar with the com. prefix, although with many fewer files.

The Documents folder has, of course, documents, as well as some .SPD files created by Samsung Notes, some of which I am interested in.
There are others like .PDF, .TXT, .DOCX, M3U...etc.
--and folders like--
DCIM/Camera (2031 items),Facebook, From Phone, Screenshots
Download (641 items)
Visual VoiceMail
Music (3333 items), System Volume Information (1 item),

Perhaps obviously, I don't want to corrupt anything, and yet I'd like to restore what I can.
I also want to begin moving apps out of internal memory and back over to the card.

I promise I'll be more diligent about backups.

Thanks in advance for your helpful advice.

PS: Since startups were taking SO long, I disabled the Secure Startup, and have not seen the 'ready to transfer media files' on a couple of startups. I'm not sure if that notification will return or not.

 

[Dannydet]

You should be using this... Samsung Smart Switch

Samsung Smart Switch Mobile - Apps on Google Play

If you can't download, you can open Smart Switch from device's Settings menu

play.google.com

 

[xxxDrCarlxxx]

You should be using this... Samsung Smart Switch

Samsung Smart Switch Mobile - Apps on Google Play

If you can't download, you can open Smart Switch from device's Settings menu

play.google.com

Thanks, but that doesn't answer my issues. I have smart switch, Acronis, Google drive, and others. "Should have used a backup" misses the point. Thanks, anyway.

 

[Hadron]

I've no idea what "ready to transfer media files" means, I'm afraid.

Are you hoping to recover some of the apps you "moved", or have you just reinstalled them all and are planning to "move" them again? It's not completely clear from your post which is the case, and I've never heard of App Manager III so don't know for sure what it does. But unless your phone is rooted I have to assume it's just using the Android 2 style "move to SD" function, and as that only moves part of the installed app if that is what it's done you'll almost certainly have to just reinstall from scratch anyway

Stuff like documents, music, DCIM on the SD card can just be left there. If you want camera images stored on the SD card you may need to change the camera app settings to tell it to write there as it's not the default - unless some of your settings were saved to some cloud account ad hence restored when you logged in again.

Stuff in the "android" folder is specific to the particular apps (all that "com.whatever" stuff is the actual package names for various apps). Many of those folders will actually be empty anyway, for others, maybe just try reinstalling the app and see whether it finds them? I've not had a removable card since Android 5 so don't know for sure how this will behave - I have such folders in my internal storage instead. But if there is anything particularly important there (e.g. WhatsApp backup and media folders) maybe take a copy for security before doing anything.

 

[AugieTN]

Just thought I'd toss this in, Over the years and with different forums and phones I've seen SD cards corrupt and cause problems. I even had one that all data on it disappear one day. I don't have a lot of faith with SD cards. Maybe your SD card is the problem.

 

[Hadron]

I would certainly say that if you have any important data you should back it up somewhere other than the SD card. I've only had one die totally (a 3 month old Samsung card, master boot record corruption), but even if they were wholly reliable if your phone is lost of stolen the data on the card are gone with it.

 

[xxxDrCarlxxx]

I've no idea what "ready to transfer media files" means, I'm afraid.

You and me, both. I did click one entry and it restored a Samsung Note to the Notes app.

Are you hoping to recover some of the apps you "moved", or have you just reinstalled them all and are planning to "move" them again? It's not completely clear from your post which is the case, and I've never heard of App Manager III so don't know for sure what it does.

I have restored many apps from the Play Store and after many hours have an almost? completely functioning phone. Photos, apps, most notes, --things are looking good.
When I do open an app, I must log in like it was the first time, but that's not too bad.

But unless your phone is rooted I have to assume it's just using the Android 2 style "move to SD" function, and as that only moves part of the installed app if that is what it's done you'll almost certainly have to just reinstall from scratch anyway

not rooted. reinstalling apps,

Stuff like documents, music, DCIM on the SD card can just be left there. If you want camera images stored on the SD card you may need to change the camera app settings to tell it to write there as it's not the default - unless some of your settings were saved to some cloud account ad hence restored when you logged in again.

Stuff in the "android" folder is specific to the particular apps (all that "com.whatever" stuff is the actual package names for various apps). Many of those folders will actually be empty anyway, for others, maybe just try reinstalling the app and see whether it finds them? I've not had a removable card since Android 5 so don't know for sure how this will behave - I have such folders in my internal storage instead. But if there is anything particularly important there (e.g. WhatsApp backup and media folders) maybe take a copy for security before doing anything.

Will do. This has re-convinced me of the importance of backups. The first layer will be a SmartSwitch backup once I can run it.
Thanks for your input.