Great. Now my entire virtual SD Card has been wiped! Don't delete the storage directory in the root of your virtual SD Card (/storage/emulated/0/) or (/storage/emulated/legacy/). Watch out!
Now, I'm wondering if I can somehow gain access to the files if I recreate this folder. From what I remember, there were a number of nested folders within this "storage" directory.
Can someone give me the dir structure of your "storage" folder? Thanks!!
EDIT: This is how I did it. See post 6. Stay away from your "storage" folder while browsing your phones sd card over MTP at the computer!!!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=44519212&postcount=6
I'm not sure if this is what you are asking for. If it is, then yay! If it isn't, please ignore.
/storage/emulated/0/
/storage/emulated/legacy/
/storage/sdcard0/
OneChaos said:
I'm not sure if this is what you are asking for. If it is, then yay! If it isn't, please ignore.
/storage/emulated/0/
/storage/emulated/legacy/
/storage/sdcard0/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey thanks for that, but I'm pretty sure there was a folder called "storage" in /storage/emulated/0/ (or the same location /storage/emulated/legacy/).
So, what I'm looking for is what the folders are in *that* folder. And it should look something like the following:
/storage/emulated/0/storage/...... <---------- these are the folders I'm missing, and there most likely is a symlink in there. I think if I can just recreate that folder structure and recreate the right symlink there, then I might be able to get my photos back.
Thanks.
You're saying there is a "storage" folder in /storage/emulated/0 or /storage/emulated/legacy? Mine only comes with these 2 directory, and /storage/sdcard0 is a link to legacy.
Now you still have that 2 directory but can't find any of your files inside?
You deleted the storage when hooked up on your PC yes ?.
The storage folder your referring to only shows when browsing your folders via your PC so you could try recreating it via your PC again but I seriously think its gone mate. I accidentally deleted this folder too once but I always have regular backups on my pc.
NeXuS⁴
slymobi said:
You deleted the storage when hooked up on your PC yes ?.
The storage folder your referring to only shows when browsing your folders via your PC so you could try recreating it via your PC again but I seriously think its gone mate. I accidentally deleted this folder too once but I always have regular backups on my pc.
NeXuS⁴
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes!!! Thanks for this post! I was indeed cleaning up my "sd card" from the PC (over MTP). And, I noticed a storage folder at the root of the SD card. In fact, it's there right now! If I browse the contents of the SD card on the PC, there is a storage folder there with only an empty "emulated" folder in it. I've never noticed it there before, so I just deleted it. Suddenly, I couldn't access anything else on the sd card from the PC. I thought, that's weird. Sure enough, everything just vanished!!
WORD TO THE WISE: Stay away from that "storage" folder at the root of your SD Card when browsing its contents over MTP!!!!!!!!
why not just do a factory image flash? userdata.img should contain all the folders and locations you need to restore it properly.
hp420 said:
why not just do a factory image flash? userdata.img should contain all the folders and locations you need to restore it properly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh, there ins't a problem anymore. I just thought that the "missing" symlinks had something to do with my wiped sd card. But, it turns out that the missing symlinks aren't shown in the default CM file browser, only in other file browsers. They were there all along.
The kernel of the story has been solved as I now know how I wiped my sd card.
floepie said:
Great. Now my entire virtual SD Card has been wiped! Don't delete the storage directory in the root of your virtual SD Card (/storage/emulated/0/) or (/storage/emulated/legacy/). Watch out!
Now, I'm wondering if I can somehow gain access to the files if I recreate this folder. From what I remember, there were a number of nested folders within this "storage" directory.
Can someone give me the dir structure of your "storage" folder? Thanks!!
EDIT: This is how I did it. See post 6. Stay away from your "storage" folder while browsing your phones sd card over MTP at the computer!!!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=44519212&postcount=6
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no way to get the files back, I deleted it once when connected to PC because I didn't recognized the folder and it was empty, so I deleted it. Then I tried for a week in every forum to found an answer, but there is none.
reflashing your current rom or any other rom would have brought everything back to how it should be. a deleted my whole system once, then just relashed my current rom at the time, and all came back.
Galaxo60 said:
There is no way to get the files back, I deleted it once when connected to PC because I didn't recognized the folder and it was empty, so I deleted it. Then I tried for a week in every forum to found an answer, but there is none.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh, I got most, if not all my photos back. There is a great link which shows you how to transfer your entire userdata partition to your hard drive and search for recoverable files. Alternatively, you can also use the app diskdigger and send your pics to your PC using coreFTP or other FTP server. Both methods recovered about the same number of photos. So, yeah, a reasonably good ending.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1994705
simms22 said:
reflashing your current rom or any other rom would have brought everything back to how it should be. a deleted my whole system once, then just relashed my current rom at the time, and all came back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not in my case. That's the first thing I did. I thought, it's just a symlink, right? Well, not really. It's not really a symlink on a different partition. Again, it is only created during an active MTP session and ONLY visible on the PC. And, as soon as you wipe these seemingly empty folders, all references to the files are lost, as the system begins to slowly re-populate the space, which is really at /data/media/0.
Galaxo60 said:
There is no way to get the files back, I deleted it once when connected to PC because I didn't recognized the folder and it was empty, so I deleted it. Then I tried for a week in every forum to found an answer, but there is none.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know it wouldn't bring your files back, but it would restructure your storage partition properly so you could start from scratch, rather than recreating all the folders manually.
hp420 said:
I know it wouldn't bring your files back, but it would restructure your storage partition properly so you could start from scratch, rather than recreating all the folders manually.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
? No one is doing anything manually. Did you intend to reply to me? The missing symlinks referred to earlier have nothing to do with it, as I discovered and reported a few posts ago. Again, there is a "storage" folder at the root of the SD card only visible at the PC when connected over the MTP protocol. When this folder is deleted, all is lost immediately, even by re-flashing a ROM. Hope that helps someone to avoid deleting it and consequently all their virtual sd card files.
floepie said:
Oh, there ins't a problem anymore. I just thought that the "missing" symlinks had something to do with my wiped sd card. But, it turns out that the missing symlinks aren't shown in the default CM file browser, only in other file browsers. They were there all along.
The kernel of the story has been solved as I now know how I wiped my sd card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey how did you do it? Which third party file browser did you use? I have done the same thing..
Check /data/media/ those folders are just linked to /data/media/ anyways. All your stuff should be there unless if you deleted the entire data partition
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app
ninad911 said:
Hey how did you do it? Which third party file browser did you use? I have done the same thing..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The problem is that if you are browsing the SD card contents from your computer (while the phone is connected), a folder appears there that otherwise is NOT present while browsing the card's contents from the phone, while the phone is NOT connected. I forgot which folder it is, but I believe it is called sdcard0 or some such at the root of the SD card. I have no idea why it appears, but if you delete it, you have deleted the entire contents of your SD card. And, yes, you have lost everything unless you are able to acquire a special tool to recover the contents, but if you have done so, don't do anything with your phone, as those contents will be overwritten by new files.
In so doing, I had originally thought that there were symlinks that were also deleted, but that wasn't the case. The symlinks were still present as viewable by ES File Explorer, but not with CM's file explorer. In any case, all my files were still lost, but I was indeed able to recover the majority.
Edit. I used Diskdigger in the Play store. And it worked pretty well. The other option is linked in this thread above.
floepie said:
Great. Now my entire virtual SD Card has been wiped! Don't delete the storage directory in the root of your virtual SD Card (/storage/emulated/0/) or (/storage/emulated/legacy/). Watch out!
Now, I'm wondering if I can somehow gain access to the files if I recreate this folder. From what I remember, there were a number of nested folders within this "storage" directory.
Can someone give me the dir structure of your "storage" folder? Thanks!!
EDIT: This is how I did it. See post 6. Stay away from your "storage" folder while browsing your phones sd card over MTP at the computer!!!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=44519212&postcount=6
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey, were you able to recover the data on your phone after deleting that folder? Please let me know and also check your inbox please! Need your help
Aditya Srinidhi said:
Hey, were you able to recover the data on your phone after deleting that folder? Please let me know and also check your inbox please! Need your help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. First, either turn your phone off or do VERY little with it, as those files could be overwritten.
I had surprisingly good success with Diskdigger. It was able to recover most of my photos, although some were a bit "damaged", as in only half of the photo showing, and some other oddities. But, at least it was better than nothing. You will need root access for this sort of thing.
floepie said:
Yes. First, either turn your phone off or do VERY little with it, as those files could be overwritten.
I had surprisingly good success with Diskdigger. It was able to recover most of my photos, although some were a bit "damaged", as in only half of the photo showing, and some other oddities. But, at least it was better than nothing. You will need root access for this sort of thing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks a lot!!! Im using disk digger and I already see a lot of my images turning up
Just one other doubt, if I were to use the link to guide which you posted which allows to mount the VHD as a USB storage, does that allow me to recover other files too?
I'm relatively new to this but up until now I've had no problems so far... So I just upgraded to the latest version of Jamal's 4.4.2, following the proper install method, clearing data and caches in CWM.
I DL'd Titanium Backup and tried to change my backup location to where I store my apps which is on my SD however upon selecting /extsdcard it says that 'this folder is not writable'. Using a file manager and attempting to access external just displays an empty folder. However, going into settings-storage shows that the SD card is mounted and displays the correct size/available space.
If I unmount then mount the card it seems to function again, I am able to access the files in a file manager. That is until I go back into Titanium Backup. Now it does something different here if I press 'DETECT!', it finds my backups and displays the correct amount and path on the external however upon selecting them it takes me to the appropriate folder and says 'This folder is not writable' and 'this folder is empty.' and Use the current folder' is greyed out. The external sd is then back to displaying nothing in the file managers again.
I've tried wiping and re-installing the ROM, but it still carries on doing the same thing. I've searched in the ROM's thread and other places and I haven't been able to come up with any solution so I'd be grateful if you could shed some light into this issue and possibly offer a potential fix?
this issue is hard.Im not a developer,but I think you need change an another firmware or change a new TF card.so you can know what's the problem.But I have a damaged TF card have the similar problem.but due to I have no important file in it ,I throw it out
hope I can help you
Hi there
Im sorry if this been asked before, but I did some searches and couldnt find anything related to this
I just made a factory reset on my phone, because the battery drain was horrible and couldnt locate which app was causing this.
The device is rooted and its been working fine until now. For some reason Titanium Backup cannot access the path storage/emulated/0. This is where the backups are supposed to be stored. But it doesnt have access to any other internal path, it always says "this folder is not writable" every time I try to use internal storage. Thus cant make any backup or restore. I cant even see the list of the apps that are installed in order to freeze some of them.
Same happens to ES File Explorer. Before I could access storage/emulated/0 to transfer files from/to my MicroSD. And when I tried to copy a WhatsApp back up it says that it failed. In the memory selector I could choose between extCard and the before mentioned path. Now I can only see the extCard and a "legacy" drive, or whatever its called.
I tried fixing permisions for TB and ES File Explorer and used an App thats suppossed to fix the KitKat SDcard issue but its not working for me
It seems to me that the internal storage is somehow write protected?
Anyone can help? With links or your own knolwdge.
Thanks
Alberto5501 said:
Hi there
Im sorry if this been asked before, but I did some searches and couldnt find anything related to this
I just made a factory reset on my phone, because the battery drain was horrible and couldnt locate which app was causing this.
The device is rooted and its been working fine until now. For some reason Titanium Backup cannot access the path storage/emulated/0. This is where the backups are supposed to be stored. But it doesnt have access to any other internal path, it always says "this folder is not writable" every time I try to use internal storage. Thus cant make any backup or restore. I cant even see the list of the apps that are installed in order to freeze some of them.
Same happens to ES File Explorer. Before I could access storage/emulated/0 to transfer files from/to my MicroSD. And when I tried to copy a WhatsApp back up it says that it failed. In the memory selector I could choose between extCard and the before mentioned path. Now I can only see the extCard and a "legacy" drive, or whatever its called.
I tried fixing permisions for TB and ES File Explorer and used an App thats suppossed to fix the KitKat SDcard issue but its not working for me
It seems to me that the internal storage is somehow write protected?
Anyone can help? With links or your own knolwdge.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you find a solution? I am stuck with the same issue and have tried all the steps you mentioned.
Sadly I didn't find any solution for this issue. I just sold the device and got a Note 3 shortly after I wrote this post. Maybe you could reflash the whole firmware via Odin? Or restoring the device via Kies.
T-Mo S2, took the nougat update, and even using "MyFiles" all attempts to write to the external sdcard fail. I can't even enable permissions for root explorer or es-filemanager pro. I'm frustrated enough to use this tablet as a weapon in a road rage incident. Anyone else seeing this or is there something I've missed along the way?
scottricketts said:
T-Mo S2, took the nougat update, and even using "MyFiles" all attempts to write to the external sdcard fail. I can't even enable permissions for root explorer or es-filemanager pro. I'm frustrated enough to use this tablet as a weapon in a road rage incident. Anyone else seeing this or is there something I've missed along the way?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't use supersu 2.82 SR1
I'm not rooted. It's totally stock
Something's not right because I have no problems on my T713. Bone stock. I just finished copying some pix from a USB-OTG to the micro SD. Went without a hitch.
scottricketts said:
I'm not rooted. It's totally stock
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have difficulty to write on SD card for some of the apps (such as GPS) after update. But, the file explorer and some other apps are ok. I believe the problem is caused by app permissions and needs to be solve as per app level.
scottricketts said:
T-Mo S2, took the nougat update, and even using "MyFiles" all attempts to write to the external sdcard fail. I can't even enable permissions for root explorer or es-filemanager pro. I'm frustrated enough to use this tablet as a weapon in a road rage incident. Anyone else seeing this or is there something I've missed along the way?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It just a permission. It will pop up with permission request then you choose internal or external at root of storage. My can read/write from internal, microsd card, and even 1tb WD hard drive (without power) all no problem.
I'm having the same problem. I was running stock to this happened and have since rooted and tried two, (at the end of the day not very) different ROMs. Resurrection remix and Lineage OS both running nougat and neither have worked. I've tried using adb partition without success and root essentials asks me to flash ASPlugin.zip which I have tried with the flasher and through twrp. Neither works as it asks me to flash it again when I retry root essentials. No errors get thrown while flashing ASPlugin.zip.
I'm also at the point of wanting to throw my tab against the wall.
The permissions window pops up but it does not seem to effect the external SD card.
this link shows how to fix it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJRKuQf0puE
ES File Explorer Pro permits root permission, but it's not very obvious as to how it works. Execute a copy or move, you'll be prompted to go to the root of the card, click on the card link, then bottom right hand corner, click the select button and it's done.
Hi everyone.
I found this thread while searching for an answer to the same problem, which drove me almost crazy, too.
I decided to post my solution here, so that it might help others in the future.
As I said: I had the said problem, too.
No writing to ext. SD card, also no writing to my USB-stick via USB-OTG (On The Go), after updating my Tab S2 (SM-T815) to Nougat (Android 7.0) with a stock ROM and then rooting it with magisk (which btw went surprisingly well!).
I am using FX File Explorer, bought it even to be able to use it as root explorer, imho it's one of the best ones out there.
Connected to my PC I could pull or write files to my internal storage as well as to my external SD card via MTP, though.
Strange, but to those of us with just enough know-how to not brick the phone when flashing "stuff" the higher functions seem to be magical anyway, so I didn't take too much time to wonder.
I tried unmounting and mounting both SD card and USB stick, but that would not help.
Also disabeling writing acces in FX explorer and enabeling it again showe no effect. All I got was an error message "Internal Error".
The post above gave me the hint about permissions. (I couldn't watch the linked Youtube video, because my PC has no speakers atm, and I also had no headphones. Also, it looks like the video solves an intirely different problem anyways, not sure why tensux posted this here!?)
So I checked the permissions by using FX.
I went to /root then checked the permissions for /root/sdcard which were set to rwx,rwx,rwx.
Then I checked the SD card (and the USB, while I was at it anyways) via root/storage/[technical name of my SD card like 5555-2843] and /root/storage/[technical name of my USB-stick like 2234-1289] and found that both had their permissions set to rwx,rx,rx.
I marked the respective folders, went to security through the context menu, and changed the permissions to rwx,rwx,rwx in each of them. It would not stick in the grafics, meaning afterwards the permissions still showed no change, even when I restarted the Tablet, but...
I went back to the regular FX explorer and unmounted and mounted both SD card and USB-stick again. I still got the error message, only this time I tried to copy, move or delete a file there was no problem anymore, neither from or to the SD card nor the USB-stick.
After several restarts I still can write to my SD card as well as to my USB-stick, so I must have done something right.
.
Thank you XDA for being a place of knowledge, maybe I could give back a little and maybe this report helps someone else out there.
McFex said:
Hi everyone.
I found this thread while searching for an answer to the same problem, which drove me almost crazy, too.
I decided to post my solution here, so that it might help others in the future.
As I said: I had the said problem, too.
No writing to ext. SD card, also no writing to my USB-stick via USB-OTG (On The Go), after updating my Tab S2 (SM-T815) to Nougat (Android 7.0) with a stock ROM and then rooting it with magisk (which btw went surprisingly well!).
I am using FX File Explorer, bought it even to be able to use it as root explorer, imho it's one of the best ones out there.
Connected to my PC I could pull or write files to my internal storage as well as to my external SD card via MTP, though.
Strange, but to those of us with just enough know-how to not brick the phone when flashing "stuff" the higher functions seem to be magical anyway, so I didn't take too much time to wonder.
I tried unmounting and mounting both SD card and USB stick, but that would not help.
Also disabeling writing acces in FX explorer and enabeling it again showe no effect. All I got was an error message "Internal Error".
The post above gave me the hint about permissions. (I couldn't watch the linked Youtube video, because my PC has no speakers atm, and I also had no headphones. Also, it looks like the video solves an intirely different problem anyways, not sure why tensux posted this here!?)
So I checked the permissions by using FX.
I went to /root then checked the permissions for /root/sdcard which were set to rwx,rwx,rwx.
Then I checked the SD card (and the USB, while I was at it anyways) via root/storage/[technical name of my SD card like 5555-2843] and /root/storage/[technical name of my USB-stick like 2234-1289] and found that both had their permissions set to rwx,rx,rx.
I marked the respective folders, went to security through the context menu, and changed the permissions to rwx,rwx,rwx in each of them. It would not stick in the grafics, meaning afterwards the permissions still showed no change, even when I restarted the Tablet, but...
I went back to the regular FX explorer and unmounted and mounted both SD card and USB-stick again. I still got the error message, only this time I tried to copy, move or delete a file there was no problem anymore, neither from or to the SD card nor the USB-stick.
After several restarts I still can write to my SD card as well as to my USB-stick, so I must have done something right.
.
Thank you XDA for being a place of knowledge, maybe I could give back a little and maybe this report helps someone else out there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All external storage write permissions are granted on a per app basis as per Google's security specs.
If an app has issues with writing to external storage then it is the app at fault.
The developer needs to update the app with the new permissions.
I have many Android devices and for all of these devices I use Root Explorer.
This is and has always been the best Root file explorer since day one. It does what it needs to do without any silly unnecessary bells and whistles.
Any serious developer will use this app as it's proved to be the most reliable and the dev is on the ball with this app.
Never have I had an issue with it.