S5 SD card swap question regarding redundant programs, any help?

[desertphone]

S5 SD card swap question regarding redundant programs

Please forgive me if this has already been answered. If so I'm happy to read that post (please link it for me) and figure things out on my own. Searching the forums I couldn't find my answer.

So here is my situation: Old galaxy screen display is damaged. System notification sounds and a small part of functioning screen seem to indicate that the phone is still functioning so I may be able to plug into a laptop and download files. I just can't see anything displayed on screen so I think that prevents use of smart switch or helium (correct me if I'm wrong)

I bought a new s5 and I booted it up. During setup it asked if I wanted to restore settings and apps from a backup made 2 days ago and I said yes. On my old phone I had every app I could moved to the SD card. When the system did an automatic restore it installed all those apps that used to be on my SD card onto my phone. (New phone has no SD card right now.)

Should I transfer the old SD card to the new phone and see how it handles the duplicate apps? Should I wipe the phone and start over, this time go through the setup with the old SD card in the phone first? Something else?

Thanks for any help you can provide

 

[SpookDroid]

Re: S5 SD card swap question regarding redundant programs

Unless you're using something like Titanium Backup, I'd suggest you start with a 'clean' SD Card. The apps that have already been downloaded are the same ones you have on your phone, and depending on the app, it MAY read stuff from SD card (like game saves or extra data), but chances are it'll just keep reading it off the internal memory until you move it back to the SD.

If the screen is responsive, you can connect your phone to a TV via MHL or if you installed SideSync before (usually pre-installed, unless you disable it) you can connect it either via WiFi or via USB to a computer with SideSync and see the screen on your computer and use the mouse/keyboard to manipulate it.

The 'backup' Google does is just the app list. It's effectively just re-downloading everything from the Play Store, but any local files are lost unless you have a backup of those elsewhere (and which is why you should ask all devs to support cloud saves now).

 

[desertphone]

Re: S5 SD card swap question regarding redundant programs

Thanks for your help. Yes, I can tell the phone is still functional and there is a small portion of the screen (the top) that I can see displaying the icons and such. So it sounds like I should try one of the apps and connect via the computer and see what I can do. The bummer is last week I uninstalled helium for some stupid reason.

But you don't think that the apps will function just off the SD card? There is app data that would be great to save if possible. I guess I was hoping that if I were to uninstall the apps that the backup installed (the ones I know are on the SD card) on the phone and then put in the SD card (which has apps on it) that they would function. But it sounds like this is a wishful thinking, yes?

 

[SpookDroid]

Re: S5 SD card swap question regarding redundant programs

The thing is apps are never fully on the SD card. The main app must always reside in the phone's memory, and the part that gets moved to the SD card are game saves, media, extra downloads (and even that is up to each app's dev to decide!). When you move something to the SD Card, there's a config file that tells the app 'Hey! You got split into bits and now some of your stuff is on the SD Card, got it?'. When you install an app from scratch, that config file just says 'OK, you're fully in internal memory... what are you asking me for where your files are?'. Unless the app has been coded to specifically look for files on the SD card every time (some games might always request extra downloads into SD Cards) then just putting your old SD Card should work, but for the most part, the apps will either not look there or if they do, they might find old and/or corrupted files that might make them act up (which is why even these full back ups are not highly recommended if you're switching devices).

But yeah, if your screen still responds to touch, connecting that to a TV is the most straight forward way of doing it and if SideSync is installed, then doing that on your computer is the most convenient.

 

[desertphone]

Re: S5 SD card swap question regarding redundant programs

cool, thanks for the help!

 

[SpookDroid]

Re: S5 SD card swap question regarding redundant programs

No problem! If you need any more help just let us know! We do our best to try to answer quickly