Changing to larger capacity SD card. How to transfer data from old to new card?

[bluuplanet]

I wonder if its an SD card format thing.
I just bought a Samsung 32GB card pre-formatted for Samsung phones. I suspect if you buy a generic SD card and let your computer format it, it won't be completely compatible with the Samsung format.
Maybe if you put the new blank card in your phone first and have the phone format it, then I think your computer will accept the phone's format.

 

[scrondar]

FWIW, I dropped to a command line, used the xcopy command (with switches to make sure all folders and hidden files were included) to copy the entire contents of my 32GB card to my computer; then formatted my new 64GB card in my phone, took it out and let File Mgr. copy the original card's files over to the new one, popped it in my phone, and all is well. Note that I did not overwrite the three folders created on the new card when I formatted it. Works like it should.

 

[nscruz]

Did you check the type of FAT? Are both cards using the same FAT type?

On the other hand if you used a disk clone and it didn't work, this shouldn't be the problem!...

 

[dbell154]

I just upgraded from an 8GB card to a 32GB. I tried to copy from sdcard to computer (using USB) while still in phone. I ended up taking the card out and inserting it in the computer using an adapter. I copied all the files to a folder, and then from the folder to the new card. That worked fine. I didn't have to move the apps back to the phone.

The lesson I learned here is
Copying the files from the card while in the phone does not copy the .android_secure files for apps installed on SD card.

 

[Slippery Bill]

I just installed a 128gb s card in my Samsung note 3 and it installed without needing to format. It was alrady formatted in the exFat file system so it went in no problem

 

[CVAngelo]

This is just freaking unbelievable. Here is a forum with 27 posts and NO ONE can provide a definitive and final "here's the step-by-step solution to switch from one SD card to a larger SD card in your Android phone"! All I've read here are I tried this, I tried that, maybe this will work, bla bla bla. What the heck is wrong here? Yes I am freaking PO's after reading this forum...for that I apologize.

It is a simple question. What is the solution??? Can no-one post a method that they have tested and confirmed to work? I do not want to just copy files from here to there and maybe like this and maybe like that, then turn on my phone to find that it effed up my phone!

 

[CVAngelo]

Here is the step-by-step solution that is verified to work!
tomsguide.com/forum/id-2545604/move-data-card-samsung-galaxy.html

 

[Hyron Corros]

ahm sir? how about those files that linked to my old sd card? say those apk with cache, mod or with data files??? (using link2sd here!)

 

[bearlaxer321]

At first I made sure hidden files were shown in file explorer. Next copy the files from your current SD card to a new folder so you can access them later.
Then with the new SD card inserted into my phone I formatted it (don't know if this made a difference because I ended up overwriting a couple files for what seemed to be newer versions). Then I inserted my new SD card into my PC. From there I copied and pasted all of the files from my old SD card. Once the files completed the copy, eject the SD card. Insert the new updated SD card into your phone. At first your application files will still seem not to exist. BUT to solve this problem I restarted my phone and everything was back to normal with my new larger SD card.

Hope this helps.

 

[Jerry Kight]

This worked for me:
Here is the step-by-step solution that is verified to work!
tomsguide.com/forum/id-2545604/move-data-card-samsung-galaxy.html

 

[DaHandyman]

This is just freaking unbelievable. Here is a forum with 27 posts and NO ONE can provide a definitive and final "here's the step-by-step solution to switch from one SD card to a larger SD card in your Android phone"! All I've read here are I tried this, I tried that, maybe this will work, bla bla bla. What the heck is wrong here? Yes I am freaking PO's after reading this forum...for that I apologize.

It is a simple question. What is the solution??? Can no-one post a method that they have tested and confirmed to work? I do not want to just copy files from here to there and maybe like this and maybe like that, then turn on my phone to find that it effed up my phone!

Thank you for this post. The answers after brought me back to my old DOS days. They worked flawlessly.

 

[Rodrodmhanna]

It is better to format the new card to make sure it is completely empty so you may not mix around with old and new folders

 

[JasTrance]

I want to use a larger SD card on my Samsung S5 phone. Inserting my SD card into a computer is not an option. Can I move everything back to my phone, then insert the new card and move it all back?

 

[razzell2]

Y'all are making an easy job sound very difficult.
I have a new Galaxy Note 7 that came with a 32GB micro card. Samsung sent me a new 256GB storage card, a promotional thing, and I just changed my cards.
I used my laptop to do it.
First, I unmounted the card using the phones storage>unmount option.
Then I made a folder on my desktop.
Used my my micro card reader to copy and paste everything that was on the 32gig card into that folder on my laptop, and then inserted the 256G card into the reader and pasted it all onto that card.
I put my sd card back in my phone and it read the card perfectly and works fine all of my music, photos, data...it's all there.
Oh yeah, before I copied the info from the 32g card, i made sure to tick the "show hidden files" option.

No need to run a command line and no need to stress. Just copy and paste.

If you do not have a micro card reader, use a micro card adapter. If your PC has neither of these readers slots, buy a $15 plug in usb card reader adapter. Very inexpensive very handy. That's actually what I used to complete this task.

Hope this helps you.

Peace...

 

[rin96]

Hello, I want to ask that , I should insert my old sd card to computer and make a new folder then copy all the file into the folder ? and then insert the new sd card to my computer and move the file to the new sd card?
then android file that inside my old sd card should move neither ?
and what file i should not copy ?

 

[S Maduras]

Upgrading to larger micro SD card and dealing with .android_secure

I could not find away to transfer .android_secure from the old card to the new card without the use of a computer. Using a computer that shows hidden files (Tools-Folder Options-View Tab, check Show Hidden Files and Folders, and Uncheck the next three "hide" choices) click Apply, click OK.

I will refer to the smaller micro SD card as the old card and the bigger micro SD card as the new card

1. In phone: Settings, storage, SD card -Click Unmount
2. Power phone off
3. Remove old card and put in your computer, using a micro sd adaptor or card reader.
4. Put new card into phone, replace battery and turn power on.

The new card I used (see below) did not need to be formatted. Whatever you do, do NOT format using your computer. If you need to format, always format in your phone (Settings, storage, SD card -Click format)

5. Plug phone into computer. Open phone (new)card folder.
6.On computer, open old card folder, Copy entire contents and Paste into new card folder. When done make sure that everything copied, recopy any paste any files that got left behind.
7. The only file that should be left to move is .android_Secure, Copy and Paste it onto your computer desktop.
8. Unmount old card from card reader.
9. Power off phone and remove new card, insert new card into computer card reader.
10. Drag .android_secure into new card
11. Unmount new card from computer, and put back into phone.

Ta-Da! It should all be good.

The card I used is a SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I "Ideal for Android" 128 GB Speed up to 80 mb/s. This card is good for most people. If you play super fast games on your phone then double check whether you need a faster card.

 

[Joseph Johnson6]

Added this comment on February 10, 2017 - I just removed the old/smaller SD card from my phone and copied the contents to a folder called bkupSDcard on my PC. Then I removed that card from the SD card reader and inserted the new/larger capacity SD card into the PC SD card reader and copied the files from the PC bkupSD card directory to the new / larger SD card. Eject the new/larger SD card and installed in in my Samsung Galaxy J7 phone. Power up the phone and all my files are there and apps are running okay. Need to say here that I only had to copy data from the old/smaller card to the new/larger card.

This worked fine for me, you may have varied results .....

 

[chinamikey]

This might seem a strange way to do this, but I would insert the card in your PC, copy paste all the files from the card to your PC, and then copy paste again to the new card. Double check everything is there and delete the old card. This does 2 things: PCs can do this faster, and it creates a backup copy of the files.

You can try following directions from this is from this page BTW: .
But...I use Linux, and simply put; you can pretty much do anything with a Linux system you can't do with Windows or Apple's IOS.

 

[MistressOf Mayhem]

ADVICE NEEDED!!

So, I'm middle-aged & don't know much of anything about the operating systems for mobile phones -- other than a good lot of them are named after candy bars or other sweets. I'm sick & in hospital a lot, where I occupy my time playing games that I have downloaded to/installed on my Samsung Galaxy S5 from Google Play. A month ago, I turned on my mobile & received an alert that read, 'SD card is corrupted'. After having the phone checked out, I bought a 64GB SD card to replace the corrupted 32GB card and have been transferring my game apps one by one, by hand. Unfortunately, after a while I can't download anything because, although I've moved everything from the internal storage to the SD card, a little white box appears on screen that informs me that the internal memory [16GB] is full. I don't understand that. Nor do I have a computer that I can use to try the transfer methods above. Sooo, what this 'witch lady who lives in a haunted house with 103 cats' [O.K., two -- but the rest are on order] wants to know is: are there any other options? Is there a way to transfer the apps from one SD card to the other at the same time, kinda like copying one VHS tape to another? (If you just asked yourself, "WTF is a VHS tape?", you're probably the one who can best help me)

 

[Latitude1316]

Here is the step-by-step solution that is verified to work!
tomsguide.com/forum/id-2545604/move-data-card-samsung-galaxy.html

After the suggestion in the quoted link, there is a simpler way to do it if you have 2 USB ports left on your computer and 2 micro-sd adapters.

Insert the two micro sd cards using the adapters in your computer USB ports.

Then, as suggested under the above link, open the Command Prompt window in admin mode in your computer, then simply type in the following, hitting the Enter key at the end of each line:

cd..
cd..
xcopy F:"*.*" G:\ /s /e /v /h

where F: is the source sd-card and G: is the (new) destination one.
The two cd.. commands just bring you back to C: in Windows.

More explanations in the link above.

It worked fine for me.

HTH