[Android Central Question]

Hi
I have just moved all of the dcim files from a htc phone to the SD card to free up some space, it said moving 6gb of files and took 30 mins, when it was done I went to gallery and camera photos and I could only see a tiny bit of each photo so I restarted the phone now the camera roll album has completely gone!! And when I’ve checked the SD card it just says 400mb used and non of it is the photos
Where are they?? How can I get them back?? Just to top it of this is on my Mother in laws phone so you know photos of all the grandbabies so I’m a nervous wreck thinking I’ve deleted all her photos !! Please help me!!

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Did you move the entire folder, or did you go into the folder, select all of the photos, and then move them?

First, go to Settings>Storage, and tap Unmount SD, then remove the SD card. Insert it into your PC and explore it with Windows Explorer -- do you see the photos there? If so, back them up now to your computer hard drive. What directory on the SD card are they saved to?

At this point, there are a number of possibilities:

1. The photos are on the SD card, but the Gallery app is confused by the move, because it was expecting to find the /DCIM directory on Internal Storage. (The small images you see are probably just thumbnails.) It may be that the phone has to do a media re-scan, which should be done automatically, but can be forced with an app like media.Re.Scan. Also, if the directory where the photos were moved to includes a file called ".nomedia," that will cause the system to ignore that directory when scanning for images to add to the Gallery database.
2. The photos are on the SD card, but the Gallery app doesn't have access to the SD card. Go to Settings>Apps, select the Gallery app, then Permissions, and make sure it has permission to access Storage and/or SD card.
3. Something happened during the data transfer, and the files were lost or became corrupt. The chances of this happening increase when transferring huge amounts of data all at once. This is why it's advisable to use the Copy command, not Move, because Copy doesn't affect the original files, while Move automatically deletes the originals after it thinks the operation is complete.
4. The card is corrupt, defective, or counterfeit. Install SD Insight to see if the card is genuine or counterfeit. Counterfeit cards are programmed to report more storage than they actually have, and if you try saving more than the card can actually hold, then files can start getting corrupt. (Be aware that SD Insight might not work on all Nougat devices.) If it's a valid card, then go to Settings>Storage, Unmount the card, remove it, and insert it into your computer. Can the computer read these files? Backup as much as you can right now, then run chkdsk to look for bad sectors: http://forums.androidcentral.com/amb...d-sd-card.html. If it finds bad sectors, and the photos aren't crucial to save, then go ahead and allow chkdsk to try repairing those sectors. If the photos are really precious, then you'll have to try recovering them using 3rd party software: http://forums.androidcentral.com/amb...ted-files.html

It's hard to give more advice without knowing more details.

[khall789]

Welcome to Android Central! Did you move the entire folder, or did you go into the folder, select all of the photos, and then move them?

First, go to Settings>Storage, and tap Unmount SD, then remove the SD card. Insert it into your PC and explore it with Windows Explorer -- do you see the photos there? If so, back them up now to your computer hard drive. What directory on the SD card are they saved to?

At this point, there are a number of possibilities:

1. The photos are on the SD card, but the Gallery app is confused by the move, because it was expecting to find the /DCIM directory on Internal Storage. (The small images you see are probably just thumbnails.) It may be that the phone has to do a media re-scan, which should be done automatically, but can be forced with an app like media.Re.Scan. Also, if the directory where the photos were moved to includes a file called ".nomedia," that will cause the system to ignore that directory when scanning for images to add to the Gallery database.
2. The photos are on the SD card, but the Gallery app doesn't have access to the SD card. Go to Settings>Apps, select the Gallery app, then Permissions, and make sure it has permission to access Storage and/or SD card.
3. Something happened during the data transfer, and the files were lost or became corrupt. The chances of this happening increase when transferring huge amounts of data all at once. This is why it's advisable to use the Copy command, not Move, because Copy doesn't affect the original files, while Move automatically deletes the originals after it thinks the operation is complete.
4. The card is corrupt, defective, or counterfeit. Install SD Insight to see if the card is genuine or counterfeit. Counterfeit cards are programmed to report more storage than they actually have, and if you try saving more than the card can actually hold, then files can start getting corrupt. (Be aware that SD Insight might not work on all Nougat devices.) If it's a valid card, then go to Settings>Storage, Unmount the card, remove it, and insert it into your computer. Can the computer read these files? Backup as much as you can right now, then run chkdsk to look for bad sectors: http://forums.androidcentral.com/amb...d-sd-card.html. If it finds bad sectors, and the photos aren't crucial to save, then go ahead and allow chkdsk to try repairing those sectors. If the photos are really precious, then you'll have to try recovering them using 3rd party software: http://forums.androidcentral.com/amb...ted-files.html

It's hard to give more advice without knowing more details.

Hi I’ve used the SD insight and it says invalid , when I’ve plugged it into computer there is a file called lost with loads of files which I’m guessing are the pictures but I can’t open them
Is there any way to do a restore?

[B. Diddy]

"Invalid" probably means the card is counterfeit or corrupt, so most (if not all) of that data is probably lost -- sorry! You could try renaming some of those file in the LOST.DIR to add a ".jpg" to the end to see if they can be read as photos.

[Rukbat]

Or you could install XVI32 in your PC, open one of the files with it and see if it starts with FF D8 FF E0 00 10 4A 46 49 46 (Those last 4 characters - 4A 46 49 46 - are JFIF, the signature of a .jpg file.)