Strange Folder Names in MicroSD Card

[Starblaster]

I have a Verizon Galaxy S3 16gb with a 32gb micro sd card. For some inexplicable reason, I am losing data on the micro sd card. Folder names are being changed to start with the character "μ." For example, my_music was changed to μy_music (this does not happen on the device's internal memory). Is it a problem with the Micro SD card or something else such as the phone itself? Is there any way I can fix this?

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum. If it is, please point me to the correct one.

 

[cornfed]

Try reformatting your card. Did you format it when you put it in the phone? Is it new or used?

 

[nyry]

If you're "legally" downloading music from your phone, sometimes the file names are in different languages, such as Russian depending on where the original mp3 you downloaded was from try checking if there is music in that file

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Android Central Forums

 

[DarkSorrow]

Sounds like a corruption to the SDCard. I had a 64GB MicroSDXC card that did this all the time with my music files.

 

[ckyen]

I have experienced the same with my 32gb Sandisk Micro SD card 10 class using in the Galaxy Tab 2. The SD card is genuine so I know that's not the issue.
However, I have found this to work for me.

1) Format the card on your PC or Mac, to NTFS file system.
2) Download Paragon NTFS / HFS apk app for your Android device
3) Without ANY NTFS app for the android, the android WILL NOT recognise the inserted SD card NTFS format as the android only recognises the FAT file system only
4) Put the Micro SD card into the device and restart the device (if the card icon shows in the notification bar, bottom right, ignore)
5) Goto and open on Android Paragon NTFS / HFS tool apk and check disk / format using the android app
6) Restart device again, with SD card inserted, leave card inserted and connect Android device to PC, the External Disk should now be available formatted to NTFS

The card should AUTO MOUNT via the Paragon NTFS app when the device is turned on

You can format the SD card to NTFS using the android app

I've tried every method possible to have the SD card in the FAT 32, but it just doesn't last, folder names change, files dissapear.

Thanks for reading :-$

 

[strtgng]

See the "exFat vs Fat32" part of my post here:

http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s3/194262-syncing-zune-music-gs3-exfat-evil.html#post2551439

 

[gollum18]

You could try formatting it to ext4, android will recognize it as it is an embedded linux system, however it won't be recognized in windows as microsoft only supports their file systems and no others.

Sprint GS3 Running TN's Msg and Chubbs

 

[arayam]

Did you find a solution? I have the same issue with a San Disk SD Card and a Samsung Galaxy S4

 

[GSDer]

arayam,
If you want to save yourself a lot of headaches just ditch the SanDisk card and get a Samsung card.

Sent from my rooted, debloated, deodexed Sinclair ZX-80 running CM -0.001 using Tapatalk 2

 

[amedina805]

?when you do this do you lose all the files that got transformed into unicode?

 

[Rahul Sahi]

I my case the first letter of the folder name has changes to mu () and the data is no more visible. There is another folder created by the name LOST.DR and has multiple files with numbers and I think these files are not visible in the card.
My questions is there a way to recover these files?

Thanks,

 

[Rabie Kalash]

Hey Gurus,

The same thing had happned to my picture folders, that are copying from the camera-DCIM folder the folder was named Pictures now it is ?ictures and some other folders as well.
a new folder is created named by LOST.DIR.

what is the solution for that without formatting, i need my pix back.

Thanks

 

[iN8ter]

Factory reset.

Do it after every major fw update.

Welcome to android.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

 

[GSDer]

a new folder is created named by LOST.DIR

The LOST.DIR should contain your missing files, although they may have strange names. Just rename one file to test.jpg (if it doesn't still have a jpg extension) and see if it's one of your pictures.

Everyone should be using something like Cloud Drive: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.amazon.clouddrive.photos (there are ways to do this with Google Drive, Dropbox and probably your cloud solution of choice) so that you don't lose important content if/when your SD card goes belly-up.

Sent from my rooted, debloated, deodexed Sinclair ZX-80 running CM -0.001 using Tapatalk Pro

 

[fakhteh]

I'm sorry if i have mistakes in this text . i'm persian . i don't know english well

I have a solution for this problem:
I've lost my data twice. first time i thought that it is virus so i format my SD card .
this time I LOST some important data therefore i tried to get them back.
I noticed that LOST.DIR is included my data.
I connect my phone to PC (galaxy s4) then i copied all LOST.DIR files in to my PC.
then i opened one of them with windows photo viewer. ( right click -> open -> choose windows photo viwer) then i saw one of me missing photos (luckly).
however it will take a long time to take back all of your missing photos but still you will get it.
(sorry for mistakes)

 

[hblatz]

I am having a similar issue.
Many of the directories and file names are starting with the lower case Greek letter Mu, but not all. Some of them have a a counterpart that is entirely in English. Also, these directories are 8 characters long, with a dot and then a "file extension" that might be part of the original title. All of these "ghost" directories are empty and write protected (I can't delete them), and many files appear in a directory called "LOST.DIR"

I have formatted my SD card a twice.

What would be appreciated is if persons who have solved this same problem, gave some details. Does anyone know if Android is creating these files for a temporary purpose? And then would a connection interruption cause potentially temporary files to persists in a locked state on the SD card?

 

[Prasanna Bhasuru]

Did anyone get around this problem?
I had a long chat and on Smart tutor (Remote control for support from Samsung) with the tech support guy and he does not have a clue. He is suggesting me to format the card. I already corrupted one 64 gb Samsung card by formatting it on the phone, which did not work. The card i now use is a 128GB one and i dont want to loose it also by trying format option. Currently the card is good and is visible on both phone and PC, but all the data that i create/copy or move onto the card through phone is simply vanishing with folders renamed starting with MU . Really strange as in my case both the 64 and 128GB cards are from Samsung. I tested with a small 4Gb sandisk one which worked fine, which is probably indicating issues with large capacity card handling by Samsung phones.

 

[Al Swearengen1]

Mine does the same thing..I had a new 64gb sandisk sd card, reformatted it for my s3. Transferred via usb about 1,000 songs but only 200 or so will play, even though all played on my 16gb card with same phone. When I transfer the songs that wont play to my laptop the songs will no longer play in windows, sometimes showing up as a .file extension, sometimes as mp3 but wont play.

Another weird thing is that when I transfer an app from device to sd card it no longer works and says unfortunately this app has stopped working. When I try to transfer it back to device it says app not found even though the full size of the app exists in data...

Im wondering if its a bad card, or if the s3 just isnt equipped to handle a 64gb card as advertised.

 

[ilyabyk83]

Did any of you find a solution how to get those files back??

I have about 10GB worth of music (which I have back up off so I don't care for it) but 2.5GB worth of pictures on it, which I very do! How to get those back??

I WILL 100% have all of them back up to GOOGLE as I capture them from now on.

Does anybody have workaround of this??

The card has about 130 folders (0 byte each) called " µ " now.

"Music" folder is gone whats so ever (but I have that backed up)

Pictures is what I really care about. Any thoughts folks? And I had 5, or even 6 times more files there, starting from 2008. Thanx

Pictures

I really don't think this is all of them, where is the rest?

u Folders

Thanx folks

P.S. What do I do to prevent this in future?

 

[Genetic_Dust]

I have also been experiencing files being renamed with "µ" and have come to the conclusion that it is file corruption. If you catch it quick enough, you can probably use a free file recovery tool to try to extract the data from the microSD card (not from copying the files to your computer as most of the corrupted files show as having 0 KB and aren't being transferred to the PC) such as File Rescue or something similar. I never tried because the data I lost from my 32 GB Sandisk microSD wasn't worth the time. Just bought a 64 GB Sony microSD to replace it. The data corruption doesn't place files in my Lost folder. The files remain in the folder where they were taken/placed and simply become corrupted with a "µ" or sometimes another symbol as well, and the file size usually becomes 0 KB or some other ludicrously large number; e.g. 10.8 GB.

However, scans of the 32 GB Sandisk microSD so far reveal no disk errors which leads me to believe the data is being written to the microSD card as corrupted, or is being corrupted by being partially written over by some file system or manager. Given that I have a Note 3 with limited microSD write capabilities from other applications, I'm about ready to root my device anyways. For those of you who don't want to root your device, you can try an FDR (after backing up all your data FIRST! An FDR will erase all your data from your device) and hope that works. I've already gone through reformatting the Sandisk 32 GB microSD card a few times and it keeps getting the corrupt data, so that's obviously not the answer.

I suspect it's a file manager for Android that's doing this. I use the Galley tool, File Manager, and ES File Explorer. I'll update if/when I get more info.