Sunday, February 19, 2012

Upgrade phone SD card and move data from old memory card to new one the safe and flawless way

I have just purchased a 16GB Class-10 micro-SDHC memory card to replace the existing 8GB Class-4 micro-SDHC memory card that comes with my HTC Incredible S Android smartphone.

The question is: how can I migrate all the data in the existing SD card to the new one, so that when I plug in the new SD card into the phone, all my data will remain there and all the apps continue working as before?

After some trial and error, I have found the following perfect way.

Step 1: Go to Settings > Storage of your phone, and tap on "Umount SD Card".


Step 2: Switch off the phone and take out the SD card from its external memory slot.

Step 3: Slot in the old micro-SD card into an SD card adapter, and slot in the adapter to your computer's card reader.

Step 4: Use XXCOPY to backup all the content in the SD card to your computer storage. You can download XXCOPY for free here.

I use this utility instead of the Windows copy-and-paste method to ensure all the data are copied over, and to preserve the directory date and attributes as before.

In order to use XXCOPY, go to Windows > Run... and key-in "cmd" to go to command console.

Sample command: xxcopy f: c:\backup\sdcard /backup
where f: is the drive where the SD card is mounted, and c:\backup\sdcard is the destination to copy the data over. The "backup" parameter tells XXCOPY to preserve all the dates and attributes of the original files and directories.

Step 5: When the backup is done, safely remove (eject) the SD card adapter from the computer's card reader slot. Take out the micro-SD card from the adapter.

Step 6: Slot in the new micro-SD card into an SD card adapter, and slot in the adapter to your computer's card reader.

Step 7: Format the new micro-SD card.

Go to Windows > Computer, right click on the SD card and select "Format..." from the menu.

Make sure the file system is FAT32 before you start the format action.

Step 8: Use XXCOPY to copy all the content in your backup folder to the new SD card. This is exactly the reverse of Step 4.

Sample command: xxcopy c:\backup\sdcard f: /backup

Step 9: When the copy is done, safely remove (eject) the SD card adapter from the computer's card reader slot. Take out the micro-SD card from the adapter.

Step 10: Slot in the new SD card with data into the phone's external memory slot.

Switch on the phone and you are done.

4 comments:

  1. Very detail and helpful. I'll remember to revisit this post when I need to upgrade my microSDHC card.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The definitive guide to upgrade SD Card without lose any app or data. Very easy, great job.

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  3. Thanks for sharing. If I may share here, I found another software that run on MS Windows, no need to use type DOS command prompt. You just click on it, a window open & you proceed to backup your card, then restore it onto a new memory card, all intact. Here the link:
    http://www.alexpage.de/usb-image-tool/

    I found about this app when I was searching about modifying my Dell Streak 5. The site that tell about this was at:
    http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=31067359&postcount=2

    Hope this helps too.

    ReplyDelete