WP7 to WP8 MicroSD Card Issues

[Colin McGregor]

I just bought a Samsung ATIV S WP8 phone and I tried putting my microsd card from my focus into the ativ and I get "There is some problem in SD card. Please remove sd card from wp8 device. And reboot device.." Do I seriously have to buy another card to be able to have additional storage?

[Sikh]

Back it up, reformat the card and then put it into your ativ and see what it says

[Colin McGregor]

Back it up, reformat the card and then put it into your ativ and see what it says

My focus is broken and my pc wont read it. Apparently WP7 phones lock the card to not be used in PCs. Unless someone knows of a tool

[vcfan]

wp7 locks the card.its a feature of SD for security purposes. the only way to erase it is to format it with a device that doesnt follow sd specifications. older dumbphones have higher success rates. find an old nokia or even some digicams are able to do it. writing software for pc wont do any good because you're at the mercy of the sd reader hardware controller.

[Colin McGregor]

wp7 locks the card.its a feature of SD for security purposes. the only way to erase it is to format it with a device that doesnt follow sd specifications. older dumbphones have higher success rates. find an old nokia or even some digicams are able to do it. writing software for pc wont do any good because you're at the mercy of the sd reader hardware controller.

but theres no way of recovering anything. That sucks but better then nothing I guess.

edit: stuck it in 2 dumbphones and a camera and it doesn't even notice its there.

[Vinny4]

Same thing happened to me, have a 2GB microSD card that was used for my Focus, tried it in my Surface RT, Win 8 PC, Win8 Laptop, nothing, even formatting it didn't work. Apparently a low level format works, haven't tried though. WP7 pretty much makes the SD it's bitch.

[linsook]

whats wrong with your focus? i need some replacement parts for mine.

[Vinny4]

Nothing, it works fine, I wanted to use the SD card for something else.

[linsook]

i meant colin. he said his focus is broken.

[Vinny4]

oopsy sorry.

[Colin McGregor]

left it charging overnight too many times and it got so hot it never worked again

[George P Global Moderator]

What about trying at some phone shop place? Maybe they can format it for you? This is the reason why ms didn't want accessible sd card slots in wp7 devices. I wonder if it'll read it if you put it in another wp7 phone? Unless it's linked to your specific phone it might work.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

Sometimes, I think we forget that the SD in SDHC means Secure Digital because so few devices make use of the function to encrypt the card. Windows Phone is, of course, one of those devices, as mentioned in this blog post on MSDN.

Many Nokia phones (E71, N95, N97 mini...) recognize encrypted cards and will offer unlock them via reformatting. This may also be doable in some Windows Mobile 6.5 devices.

Alternatively, see this longish thread on XDA Developers for information on how to unlock a card via a Windows Phone 7 device.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[Japlabot]

Send your phone to Lindsook, he might be able to get yours going with his parts if it is not a Motherboard issue, you get your data, he gets a phone, then it's win win. Or Lindsook send to you. Who is more technical? Or get a third person who can do it?

[Colin McGregor]

according to the msdn article "The data on the SD card can only be read by the phone, and cannot be read by other computers or phones." So I have to get my phone to work if I plan on recovering anything on the card. Trying it on another phone wont work.

[Dashel]

You aren't trying to get the data on it though are you or just make it usable space on the new device. There are few devices that can reformat a protected SD card properly. For the what, $20 a new SD card costs, is it really worth the hassle? If your original device wasn't dead then you would have an easier time clearing it for the new device.

[Colin McGregor]

You aren't trying to get the data on it though are you or just make it usable space on the new device. There are few devices that can reformat a protected SD card properly. For the what, $20 a new SD card costs, is it really worth the hassle? If your original device wasn't dead then you would have an easier time clearing it for the new device.

I want my pictures off it lol I don't care if whatever process there is destroys the card afterwards. I think I just have to take it as a loss

[BajiRav]

I want my pictures off it lol I don't care if whatever process there is destroys the card afterwards. I think I just have to take it as a loss

You won't be able to read any data off the card if your phone is broken.

[Dashel]

^Exactly. Your OP made it sound like you just wanted to reuse it on your new device, not extract data from encrypted storage.

So really, your post title should have been 'How do I break the encryption on WP7 removable storage'. To which the simple answer is, you can't.

OT, this is still one area that the lack of updates for WP7 really ****es me off. There was painfully little thought put into how it backs up the camera roll.

[Colin McGregor]

^Exactly. Your OP made it sound like you just wanted to reuse it on your new device, not extract data from encrypted storage.

So really, your post title should have been 'How do I break the encryption on WP7 removable storage'. To which the simple answer is, you can't.

OT, this is still one area that the lack of updates for WP7 really ****es me off. There was painfully little thought put into how it backs up the camera roll.

When I made the OP I wanted to use it as storage, but then as people were posting links to msdn and stuff I realized it will only work in original phone so I changed my mind to be happy with just recovering my stuff.