Want to change SDHC card

[sncdoc]

I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 which has installed a 16G SDHC card. I now have a 32 G card that I would like to put in the phone without having to re-install all my apps that are now on the 16G card and also save all the data on the 16G card.

I tried copying the data directly to a USB thumb drive that I connect directly to the phone and then change the SD card to the 32 blank card, formatted the 32 G card and copied all the files directly to the card using the same USB thumb drive. It didn't work.

Is there a secret to moving the installed apps to the new 32G card?

Thanks for any info.

 

[Hadron]

The simplest will be to move them back to the phone, change card, move them back to the card. Other types of data you can simply copy to another device then on to the new card (or even directly to the new card if you have a card reader and a computer).

How did you copy the apps BTW? The parts of an app that are moved (it only moves part of the installed app) are moved to a hidden folder, so it may be that you missed it. Mind you, .android_secure is an unusual folder anyway, so I don't guarantee that your file browser will have copied its contents even if you have hidden folders visible.

 

[sncdoc]

I couldn't move the apps to the phone, no more memory on device, the reason they were on the card to start with.

I moved the apps using the native Android app manager which does the moving when choosing Move App to SD card. No other app or manual intervention used.

I didn't use a PC at all in the move. Purely copied the SD card files (including the hidden files) to a thumb drive that is compatible with my Galaxy S4 USB connector. Then I powered down, swapped the SD cards, powered on the phone then formatted the new SD card on the phone using the phone's own formatting option under storage. Then I copied all the data from the thumb drive (Still attached to the phone) to the SD card. Then I restarted the phone. I have most of the apps back but several had ghost icons where the app icon should be, and when I tapped the ghost icon it reported app not installed. I have recovered most of the apps that were not available when swap was made by using Mybackup pro backup. Some that I restored from backup still don't have a proper icon. I've tried restarting several time to hopefully rebuild the icon cache.

I will survive the move but it was not simple nor straight forward as it seems it should be according to other posts that I've read.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[nu2andy]

From the Samsung User Manual:
Some memory cards may not be fully compatible with the device.
The device supports the FAT and the exFAT file systems for memory cards.
Also:
A memory card formatted on a computer may not be compatible with the device.
Format the memory card on the device.
It makes no mention of size (GB's) of memory card.

 

[sncdoc]

The card is a 32G "Ultra" SDHC card (SanDisk brand) formatted in the phone by the android system v 4.3.4 before first used. Also the card was never connected to a PC, It was replacing a 16G SDHC card.
I got everything back but had to re-install several apps. Most of the re-installed apps retained their previous data so it worked out in the end.