Can't transfer files from PC to phone via USB!

[bobvanjr]

Is it normal to have to go through all those steps to get it to connect normally? That's what I have always had to do and I thought it was ridiculous. I never had an option in the pull down notification bar to connect usb.

Mine WILL connect after the 79 steps that no normal person should have to do to get it to work. My Evo would just connect and that was it.

I can see why people prefer iOS over Android sometimes.

 

[error4o4]

Is it normal to have to go through all those steps to get it to connect normally? That's what I have always had to do and I thought it was ridiculous. I never had an option in the pull down notification bar to connect usb.

Mine WILL connect after the 79 steps that no normal person should have to do to get it to work. My Evo would just connect and that was it.

I can see why people prefer iOS over Android sometimes.

Its the first Android i've owned that has done this. Also it is the first Samsung I have owned.

so that may be saying the cause. :-\

 

[mfsanso]

I've had both these problems. A: The phone cannot be recognized by my computer (even though it was the day before) and B: once I pull the charger, the phone still thinks its charging.

My experiences:
A: I doubt this is a universal cause to the USB mounting issues and that this "solution" (if you'll let me call it that) will fix all instances of this problem, but I too scoured the forums and found nothing. I hope this helps.

I'm a scientist and have access to an exploratory microscope and fine tweezers. I took a look inside my USB port after cleaning it "blind" with alcohol/Q-tip/Tweezers and found it to be pretty clean. There was a tiny piece of copper (likely a pin) that had been mashed down and looked obviously out of place. I saw the pin had a twin on the other end of the port so I tried to straighten the pin with the tweezers and ended up breaking it off. Keep in mind, this was all done under a microscope. I was petrified that I had complete broken the port but when I tried connecting it to my PC, it was instantly recognized like the good old days.

Very strange. Maybe worth a try? Maybe I'm too late and you've replaced the phone? Let me know what comes of it.

B: After cleaning the port and powering my phone back up only to see that cleaning did not resolve the "am I charging or not" issue, I powered back down, pulled the battery, and bent the USB pin adapter away from the back of the phone towards the front. After powering back up, it worked fine. I've had to do this twice now with my phone so I assume this isn't a permanent fix but if you don't have insurance and are facing replacing the phone at full price, its worth a try.

 

[the_d00b]

I am having a very similar issue to the ones mentioned above. I am using a Samsung Captivate Glide from AT&T. I have had the phone for probably about a month now and it was working fine up until recently with me being able to hook up to my laptop to transfer stuff.

Now I am getting the same issues with the MTP-Initialization and noting happening when I drop the window shade down and press the USB icon. I have gone into the wireless setting and met with the same problems above where it will tell me to disconnect my USB after pressing the connect button. I also do the opposite and nothing pops up.

I did have the misfortune of having the casing to my USB cord broken open. I did try to fix it and it still recognizes it enough to charge it but I cannot connect to the PC. Would having my cable broken open cause any issues like this?

Edit: Once I got home I dug out my USB cable for my old phone, plugged it in and got it to connect fine. Probably should have realized the cable was the problem when i noticed it broken in my bag. But I wanted to ask in case cause I noticed it was still able to charge the phone.

 

[the_d00b]

Back with more questions.

So my previous post explained the issues I was having regarding it connecting to my PC. I traded USB cables and all seemed good, both the drives popped up without issue.

About a week ago I started having troubles again. I can still connect my phone to my PC but when it connects I can only get one drive to pop up and not the other. I played around in the computer manager to try to change drive letters and it wasn't having it. I kept getting this error message that said the manager needed to be refreshed and then to restart everything which didn't help. Tried updating the drivers and my machine kept saying everything was up to date. Next I just flat out uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers with fingers crossed. No luck.

Does anyone have any suggestions with out me having to move/redirect files and paths on my phone? Are there any updates I am not aware of or am I just failing a stupid check somewhere?

 

[markta]

I am running stock GB and have been pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to get connected to my computer for access to all my files. I called Sprint they issued an e-ticket b/c they figured the phone was bad. Then i tried my Kindle cord and it worked perfectly. I can view all folders on my phone.I didn't have to do anything, it just showed up on my laptop when i plugged it in.

 

[pjpinella]

Sorry if this is covered elsewhere but this seems to be the right place for this.

I have a new Nexus 4. I can connect it OK to my Windows PC. But I can't transfer/copy any of the files from the phone to it. I just get this message:
"The requested file is in use."

I did a soft reboot thinking some app had the files open (one is a PDF I want to transfer) but nothing I know of is open. Any ideas? Thanks,
Paul

 

[pjpinella]

When I pull down the notification bar, the options I get are:

Connected As:
Media device (MTP) - which is checked
Camera (PTP) - which is not checked

There are no other choices.

From Windows File Explorer, I can see the Nexus 4 listed under Computers. I can click on Internal Storage and see all the folders, including Download, Pictures, backups, etc.

I found out something new -- I can drag files from Windows into these folders. I just can't drag out the one document from the Nexus Download folder out that I wanted. This is a PDF that I emailed myself as a test. I did, in email, "view" the PDF at one point. Could that be the problem? Android thinks that the file is open and won't let me copy it? I thought Android shut down all the apps after I dragged them off the taskbar (sorry whatever Android calls the screen with the two file folder icons to close apps) and I did a soft reboot by powering down and up again. But maybe there are tasks/threads still running associated with the PDF? Looks like the problem may be isolated to this.

Thanks for your help and response. I'm still new to Android as of this weekend but really liking the Nexus 4.
Paul

 

[James wade]

having problem connecting my samsung galaxy s2 to my computer as a disk drive. have been on every forum on the internet and still cant figure it out. it is. it is a SCH-R760 phone and a HP computer running Windows XP. i have downloaded the driver from the samsung website. its a brand new phone )(2 weeks old) with a brand new samsung usb cord so im doubting anything needs cleaning on the phone and iv cleaned the usb port on my computer several times in my quest to make this work. i read alot about going to development and checking usb debugging to make sure its on then going back to homepage before connecting via usb cable. i do this and it says MTP initializing in the status bar on the phone... but when i pull the status bar down and click on mtp connected, nothing happens. i have no option to switch it to mass storage like everyone else seems to thing i would.. iv also tried the method where you go to wireless&networks/usb utilities/ then click the connect storage to PC button, then plug in my cord when prompted and nothing happens then either. my computer makes noises like a plugged in a flash drive or something but no removable disks or anything shows up when i open up My Computer. ive been working feverishly on this for the past two weeks trying to fix it, to no avail. please someone help me out

 

[Scott_LAN]

i had this problem for a long time awhile back. didn't think too much of it until i was in desperate need to connect my phone to my home pc.i didn't have this problem at work.

all i did was google "epic touch 4g drivers," or some variation, on my home pc and installed the drivers that showed up in the search results. I haven't had a problem since. My wife's phone is the same way and she has an iMac, so I'm going to have to do the same thing on her iMac. Hopefully it works.

Sorry for such a "bland" post but it worked. Hope it helps for others who are experiencing the problem.

 

[Nano724]

Thank you!!! The simple solution I've been looking for.

- - - Updated - - -

Thank you!!! The simple solution I've been looking for.

 

[kimdushinski]

I could never solve this problem on my phone, but I did figure out a solution that got my pictures and screen captures off my phone. Thought I would share it here in case it would save anyone else's sanity, like it saved my mine.

The solution is...Dropbox.

Get the app. Upload your photos to it. Viola. No USB cable required. Life is good.

 

[Shweta Shingade]

thank you so much it really help ful information.....

 

[riggerman]

Or, if you have a router, you can WIFI File Transfer (from the play store) to access the files on your phone.

 

[Pradeep Lal]

solved for me use the original data cable and charging cable

 

[Vishine Brendon]

I have faced the same problem. I am using Windows 8 N and it usually doesn't contain Windows Media Feature Pack by default. I manually installed it and my PC now recognises my Samsung Grand Neo Gt-i9060 set along with any other Media Devices.

Try intalling/reinstalling Windows Media Feature Pack.

Hope it'll work for you too.

 

[danfoster]

This is just plain silly. Something as basic as transferring a file should not require this much discussion. I too am having trouble simply dragging and dropping a file from my PC to the S3. It takes a ridiculously long time. I googled my problem and came upon this luckless thread. Worked through several hopeless suggestions, then decided to just **** it and yank the SD card and copy files without interference from a sub-standard OS. Surprise. Though I can see the device, there is no way to disconnect.After a few minutes, I pulled the plug. Just too stupid for words. Who writes this software, anyway?

 

[riggerman]

Samsung and several other manufacturers are starting to use MTP or Media Transfer Protocol instead of USB mass storage. This allows you to be able see and use your storage both on your device and the PC at the same time. This allows you to still be able to run any apps that are installed on your SD card or access the internal storage while transferring data to or from the same card. The only drawback I have found is exactly what you have stated, the transfer speeds are slower. My class 10 card will transfer at 10-12 mbs when plugged directly to the pc via the sd adapter card, but when in my phone the speeds are down in the 5-7 mbs range. The reason you can't disconnect (safely remove or eject) it is because it is not mounted as an external drive. You can just unplug it without any damage to your internal storage or SD card.

 

[swapnil007]

having problem connecting my samsung galaxy s2 to my computer as a disk drive. have been on every forum on the internet and still cant figure it out. it is. it is a SCH-R760 phone and a HP computer running Windows XP. i have downloaded the driver from the samsung website. its a brand new phone )(2 weeks old) with a brand new samsung usb cord so im doubting anything needs cleaning on the phone and iv cleaned the usb port on my computer several times in my quest to make this work. i read alot about going to development and checking usb debugging to make sure its on then going back to homepage before connecting via usb cable. i do this and it says MTP initializing in the status bar on the phone... but when i pull the status bar down and click on mtp connected, nothing happens. i have no option to switch it to mass storage like everyone else seems to thing i would.. iv also tried the method where you go to wireless&networks/usb utilities/ then click the connect storage to PC button, then plug in my cord when prompted and nothing happens then either. my computer makes noises like a plugged in a flash drive or something but no removable disks or anything shows up when i open up My Computer. ive been working feverishly on this for the past two weeks trying to fix it, to no avail. please someone help me out

 

[Hammad Khan5]

as i was having same issue while connecting my android tab with many computers but nothing showed up except it was only charging, then i changed the usb cable and it finally worked.