[PROBLEM] External storage card in T-Mobile S3 NOT RECOGNIZED

[MLB1949]

[PROBLEM] External storage card in T-Mobile S3 (SGH-T999) NOT RECOGNIZED

OK. This past Tuesday. I picked up a 16GB T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S3 (SGH-T999), in Marble White, along with a 32GB storage card.

AWESOME PHONE!

However, I continue to encounter a SERIOUS PROBLEM: Regardless of which appropriate application I use, I absolutely cannot transfer any app or file to the external storage card. It just won't happen. In fact, the phone does not even ackmowledge the existence of an external card.

Even when my S3 is USB-connected to my PC, I am unable to move any file to the phone's storage card. The "card" image appears on my PC's screen, but I get the black "x" symbol when I attempt to move a file onto the card image.

There is no problem moving files to-and-from the PC and the phone's "Internal Storage" area (as is the case with my Nexus i9250) , but no success with the external storage card.

I have repeatedly re-formatted the 32GB card (which has only a "lost directory" folder showing inside it -- and I can only tell this when connected to the PC), but that is the only recognition the S3 makes regarding the card (and conceding that 29.71GB of available space does exist). From within my phone, and regardless of which file reader/explorer app I use .... the external card simply does not appear.

For my purposes, I'm essentially back with my Nexus: No external storage.

Is anyone else encountering this problem?

I'm wondering if it's a flaw particular to the T-Mobile's SGH-T999 or if the international version GT-i9300 has the same issue.

Any comments/suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

 

[fbjr1]

Hi there, I was experiencing the same problem a couple of days ago, the solution: you need to install Samsung Kies on your PC or mac and transfer whatever files you need on your SD card, when you do this, kies will create a new folder on the SD card called "downloads", you will need to transfer the added file to the appropriate folder; just a heads up AFT app for Mac does not seem to work with the S3 unless you connect it as camera, but again, no external storage access. This is very annoying because I like to add new music to my SD every other day so its going to be a pain in the a**. I just can't wait for a vanilla ICS custom rom... So anyways, hope this is helpful. BTW if you will flash roms on your s3, you will pretty much need to put the zip files in the internal storage cuz even in recovery mode you will not see your SD card much less to install anything from there.

 

[MLB1949]

If you have the T-Mobile T999, get ASTRO FILE MANAGER from Play Store. It solved some of my external card problem.

Thanks for your response.

 

[MLB1949]

[I formatted the 32GB external storage card both .... THROUGH THE PC/format/fat32 And ..... THROUGH THE PHONE storage/format]

UPDATE: It seems the following app -- and you can find it in Play Store -- has eliminated at least part of my external storage card problem on my T-Mobile S3 (SGH-T999): ASTRO FILE MANAGER

 

[Biopsidy]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the inability to transfer an app to a memory card was part of ICS? If so, nothing is wrong with your device. That'd be a software change.

 

[MLB1949]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the inability to transfer an app to a memory card was part of ICS? If so, nothing is wrong with your device. That'd be a software change.

For ICS to have been intentionally designed to not allow transfers to an external storage card .... would be, on the part of the Android R&D people, absolutely asinine.

 

[junglejunkie]

Indeed ICS itself doesn't support APPS2SD although certain manufacturer skins allow for this though (I know that my Sensation 4G with Sense did although it didn't like it). I believe the reason behind this is performance...also remember that the GNex doesn't have external storage and that was the developer phone for ICS. As far as I can tell it IS intentional.

 

[gollum18]

We have the same issue on the sprint store, just was able to get around if by using a file explorer with root permissions. Another thing I have noticed though is that the sdcard slot is flaky, and if you bump your phone the wrong way it could cause the sdcard to become unseated.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Android Central Forums