Done a SD Card swap and have lost all my apps, what went wrong?

[shaf1que]

Done a SD Card swap and have lost all my apps!

Yesterday I replaced my SD Card from a San disk 32GB to a Sandisk 64GB for use with my Nokia Lumia 1520. Before I done that, I copied like for like the directories on the 32GB card to the 64GB card. Everything is there but its does not recognized my apps and i have to uninstall it the re-install it. Only apps installed on the phone are still there. Also my photos are there in the file manager but they don't come up in the Main Photo Gallery. Can anyone help please?

 

[N_LaRUE]

Re: Done a SD Card swap and have lost all my apps!

From my understanding it's one of the pains of putting apps on SD. It's not a simple swap like that unfortunately.

Just to check - Did you format the card in the phone prior to doing a transfer? Also did you make sure that all hidden files were transferred as well?

 

[gpobernardo]

Re: Done a SD Card swap and have lost all my apps!

It's not enough to copy "everything" from one SD card to another to make the apps work - it's like copying the Program Files folder of one computer to another computer and expecting all the software to work. There are hardware-specific "registry" keys that cannot be transferred by the simple copy-and-paste method.

The right (and more tedious* and possibly even ridiculous) way to do this is to:
1. Transfer your installed apps to your phone (Settings > Storage Sense > Navigate your way to the Apps section > Move the apps to your phone storage.
2. Repeat Step 1 for your photos.
3. After you have "moved" all that is in the SD Card to your phone, you can safely remove your SD Card in the phone settings, power your phone down, replace the SD Card and power your phone on.
4. Then you can "move" your apps and photos to your new SD Card using the inverse of Step 1.

*- But this is less tedious than having to re-install all your apps again, and having to use the Files App to view your photos.

 

[rhapdog]

Re: Done a SD Card swap and have lost all my apps!

I have done the copy of the programs to another SD card. It won't work. The apps are specifically tied to the serial number of a particular SD card.

The only ways to replace the card (I went from a 16GB card to a 64GB card) are as follows:
Method #1: Do a device backup, before replacing, then do a restore after putting in the new SD card, and have all the apps installed again. This is not recommended, because it's just plain nuts. (My opinion on the "nuts" part.)
Method #2: Uninstall the apps that reside on the SD card. You will lose data associated with those apps when you do this. Then you can redownload the apps to the new card. Failure to remove the apps first will result in "duplicate" apps of the same name being grayed out/inaccessible because the phone believes they reside on a different card that may at some point be re-introduced.
Method #3: This is the one I use. Using Storage Sense, move as many apps as will fit into Phone memory, all if possible. Then swap cards, and move those apps back to the new SD card. Repeat until you've got all the apps transferred. It can be tedious if all the apps can't fit into phone memory at once, but once you have a good sized card in the phone, you shouldn't have to do this again.

Now for a bit of good news. If you have a lot of maps installed to the SD card, the maps can be copied to a new card and will show up just fine. No need to re-download the maps. Those aren't encrypted as are the apps, because the system needs to allow all apps the capability to access the maps. I have nearly 5GB worth of maps, so this was a welcome discovery during my last memory card swap.

I generally use my laptop to copy all the pictures, music, maps, and other data from the old card to the new card, as it's easier to do it that way. Of course, I have 2 card readers for the microSD and can copy straight from one to the other without an issue that way.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Re: Done a SD Card swap and have lost all my apps!

If I ever want to do this (not likely since I start with large sizes) I would see if it might be linked to the volume ID instead of a serial number. There are utilities that will change the volume ID which is what most system software uses to verify things like this. Worth a try. Using volume ID instead of a serial ID would still protect the app developers if the apps were linked to a combination of a unique system and volume ID.

 

[rhapdog]

Re: Done a SD Card swap and have lost all my apps!

The Volume ID is assigned to the partition, not the SD Card. Renaming Volume IDs are as common as changing your socks or underwear... Okay, not for most people.

However, since it is so easy to change the volume ID, and some people decide to do just that to "personalize" the card, it would mean that if they used the Volume ID it would make it too easy for an end user to render all of their applications useless by renaming it, and then blaming Microsoft because their phone won't work properly.

The only way to do it reliably is to use the serial number. I'm not saying that's what Microsoft uses, but it is quite likely the case.

I don't know of any system critical software that uses Volume ID to match to a system, as the Volume ID is easily spoofed. At least I don't know of any system critical software on Windows. Perhaps that's a Linux/Android thing to further allow hacking? Not sure. Anyone writing a program that is seriously interested in security will use the serial number, which is why I assume that's what Microsoft has done, since they have this whole "locked down OS" thing going.

 

[rhapdog]

Just as a follow up to this, I had a request from a user that I attempt a more thorough method of copying that would guarantee I copy all attributes and other details, in case normal file explorer copying was the problem.

I used xcopy to start with, and copied from source to destination, with the following command:
xcopy G:\WPSystem H:\WPSystem /S /E /V /K /H /G /O /X

Basically, for those of you that don't know the command line switches for xcopy, I made sure that the files were copied, all subdirectories including empty paths, file attributes, hidden and system files, file ownership and ACL information, file audit settings, everything.

It didn't work.

I then tried disk cloning software to make an exact image to another identical SD Card. It still didn't work.

The problem is not the Volume ID, as that was duplicated both times. It is definitely tied to the serial number. Therefore, my instructions in my post above on how to handle it still stand.

Microsoft has done a good job in making a secure OS for us to depend upon. While it may be a pain when changing cards, it's not impossible. It may take a little longer than we'd like, or we may have to jump through a few more hoops, but it's a small price to pay for the stable, secure OS that we have.

 

[jes1888]

Please pardon me if I lack some knowledge, but why is this nuts? :

Method #1: Do a device backup, before replacing, then do a restore after putting in the new SD card, and have all the apps installed again. This is not recommended, because it's just plain nuts. (My opinion on the "nuts" part.)

I have a 64GB card right now, planning to upgrade to a 128 in the future. The method I just though about using was that one precisely: to just create the backup, format phone, turn back off during setup, put in the new card, format it with the phone and recover my backup. Basically I did this without knowing the 1st time I got hands on my used 1520, I put the card and formatted it and then performed a backup from my old L920, worked like a charm since Saturday. So definitely I wanna know where's the "nuts" part on this.

 

[rhapdog]

Well, perhaps not nuts for everyone, but definitely nuts for me.

Here's why.
#1: Apps over 100MB have to be done by WiFi, which I don't have ready access to.
#2: Not all apps back up their data. I lost all my progress in several games and lost my data to a couple of programs, and a lot of individual app settings had to be redone.

For me, Method #3 caused the least headaches with these issues. Just be aware when using either of the first 2 methods, some data may not be restored the same.

Granted, Method #3 can be more painstaking if you have a lot of apps to move across, but most of my apps fit in a smaller area, and it's my maps, videos, photos, and music that takes up all the space on my current 64GB card. I was able to get everything moved over as far as apps go in just 2 card swaps, and everything else copies, like maps, videos, music, and documents, by doing a copy from SD to SD on my laptop.

Just easier for me.

 

[RSB54]

I was just planning to swap to a bigger SD card using the restore from backup method. The phone is an 8gb with less than 3gb available so not very realistic to move them to phone, at least extremely time consuming. I'm not to concerned about losing game progess & don't have much map date so no quite the same as you. I will double check other savedinfo, thanks for that heads up and explanation.

 

[Bubba Williams]

Thank you so much for saving my bacon, this was a life saver! I'm now s loyal follower

 

[mister marmot]

So you did a partition copy?

I then tried disk cloning software to make an exact image to another identical SD Card. It still didn't work.

So you used something like Minitool or EASEUS to do a partition copy to another SD card and making sure you kept the 16MB free space in front?

WindowsPhoneOS hides between 4 and 6GB of information on my Lumia 635's exFAT partition that's not visible to XCOPY or other mirroring software (like FreeFileSync) so only a partition copy would even have a chance of working.

Microsoft isn't making it easy to keep a fully backed up SD card ready to pop in if the first one fails... and they do fail. I've had 3 SD cards die on me over the last 8 years.

I'm going to try a partition copy tonight and see if it works.

Might be able to get around this problem by making the SD card FAT32 instead of exFAT before using it.
I tried a SD card formatted FAT32 and WindowsPhone 8.1 read it fine.

 

[njstol01]

I know this is an old post, but also currently in the process of swapping SD cards since the phone no longer likes my old one.

Isn't part of the "nuts" to method #1 above is that your phone also gets restored to original settings? So you might be able to restore all your old apps, but then have to redo all the other personalization you had done to your phone?