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Recently I've run out of room on my small (2GB) sdcard. What I want to do is copy all the contents of this card onto something a little larger. I have an FTP server (the one that comes with ES File Explorer) installed on my phone, and that's pretty much the only way I can copy from the card mounted in my phone to a computer or vice-versa (my computer has never recognized my phone's sdcard and only displayes /data).

What's the best way to copy all of it (including hidden files, non-readable files, and apps stored on the sdcard)?

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2 Answers 2

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The least tricky way is:

  1. take your 2GB card out of the device, put it into a card reader, and attach that to your computer
  2. copy all contents from the card to an empty directory on your computer
  3. safely remove the card reader, replace the 2GB card by the newer, bigger one, and attach that to the computer
  4. copy the contents of the directory from step 2. to the new card
  5. safely remove that card again, and place it into your Android device

When in doubt about the hidden stuff, use Linux for the copy process. You can even boot it from a LiveCD. From a terminal command, use cp -R /path/to/source/* /path/to/target. On the other hand, if using Windows and you can see the files/directories starting with a dot (watch out e.g. for the .android_secure directory), they should be copied along fine.

See also:

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  • So /path/to/source when copying from the 2GB should be something like /mnt/whatever right?
    – KevinOrr
    Mar 16, 2013 at 16:52
  • Right: /path/to/source is the complete path to where you are copying from (so in step 2, this is the SDCard, while /path/to/target is the location on your PC to (temporarily) store the contents -- while in step 4 it is the other way around).
    – Izzy ♦
    Mar 16, 2013 at 16:54
  • Alright thanks! I'll start upgrading right away!
    – KevinOrr
    Mar 16, 2013 at 17:15
  • Crossing fingers -- good luck! (Not that I expect any trouble, though -- but a little feedback is always welcome :)
    – Izzy ♦
    Mar 16, 2013 at 17:18
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On my Android One Nokia 7.1, I noticed that the SD card is mounted as /storage/XXXX-XXXX where XXXX-XXXX is the volume's serial number.

Here's how I cloned my smaller SD card onto a larger one:

  • Formatted the 200GB µSD using these steps (Windows says it’s too large)
  • Copied using ROBOCOPY /S /ZB /V g:\ f:\ ( g:\ represents the old SD card while f:\ represents the new).
  • Changed the volume serial number using SysInternals’ VolumeId.exe:
PS> cmd /c vol f:
Volume in drive F is LUMIAUSD200
Volume Serial Number is 1F04-2747
PS > Volumeid.exe f: B14F-130C

VolumeId v2.1 - Set disk volume id
Copyright (C) 1997-2016 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

Volume ID for drive f: updated to b14f-130c
PS > cmd /c vol f:
Volume in drive F is LUMIAUSD200
Volume Serial Number is B14F-130C

After that, I inserted the new card into the phone, and voilà! All apps were happy (since the mountpoint had not changed).

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