Help backing up/recovering from corrupted micro SDcard (KEYone)

Hello

I've formatted my micro SDcard to be used as internal memory on my KEYone.

Yesterday, it began to glitch (it started out with my phone not recognizing the SD card and asking for it to be reinserted, then a few minutes later it said the SD card was corrupted and needed to be reformatted). Obviously I wanted to recover/back up my data on it first, but wasn't able to access the sd card with any other device.

Today, the SD card is miraculously being recognized by my keyone again, but it is glitchy/not fully functioning (for example it's simultaneously saying I'm only using 20% of it but also that it's full and there's no space) and needs to be reformatted. I still want to back up/recover what's on it, before reformatting it.

How do I do that?
(I feel stupid for adding this, but I'm not that phone-savvy, so I'll add it anyways: using the simple back-up method in Settings does not backup what's on the SD card)

Thank you for your help.

Originally Posted by Tintenherzblut

I still want to back up/recover what's on it, before reformatting it. How do I do that?

Use your device, move the data around to your actual internal storage or upload it to some cloud storage. It'll take time, but you can offload it all, format it and put it all back pretty easily or you know move it to a safer SD card instead of the flaky one.

Thank you for your reply.

Sorry for not putting this detail into the original post. I've used up most of my phone's internal storage, which was one of the reasons I had reformatted my SD card from portable to internal storage to begin with. So I don't have enough space to move everything from my SD card over to my phone's storage. Also, although my phone is no longer telling me that the SD card is corrupt, it is not really functioning, either. For example when I go to Settings>Storage and click on the SD card, it will close the window. It won't let me go in there and I can't tap on the ... or do any changes. Also, the apps that I had stored on the SD card don't function. I can click on them, but it will show the loading window and then close.

As for uploading it to a cloud... how would I do this, when the SD card isn't really detected/is being glitchy? What I mean is, when I connected it to my laptop, my laptop couldn't read it. It told me that the SD card was simultaneously empty/nothing on it but also full/run out of space. I tried to run a recovery program, but it wouldn't even detect the SD card, meaning I couldn't even select it as the source to run the recovery program on, if that makes sense? (Sorry, English is not my first language)

If you meant uploading it to the cloud, while it is inserted in my phone, how would I do that/access that, please?

Thank you.

When you set the SD card as "adoptable storage" (meaning it simulates internal storage), it also encrypted the SD card. You won't be able to read the data from that card outside of the phone, and if you try to use any kind of data recovery, you'll only corrupt it further. Data recovery apps are only for unencrypted storage volumes.

You need to clear your browser cache which will likely free up a few GB of space. Then you need to install a cloud storage app or two (Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, Google Drive, etc.) and for your pictures, turn on Cloud Sync in Google Photos and it will backup all of your pictures to Google Photos. Since the camera isn't over 16MP, you'll get the full quality of your pics and the storage is unlimited. But BE CAREFUL because if you delete photos from within the Google Photos app on the phone, it will delete them from the cloud storage too, so use the phone's File Manager to do that.

I don't know what other kind of data you have, but whatever it is, copy it to one of the other cloud storage services. Once you have everything copied, UNINSTALL THE APP from the phone (but the data will still be in your cloud account - don't delete the account!), and then you can safely delete whatever data you backed up.

The idea is to delete enough data from the phone that you can safely remove the SD card. You may be able to "fix" it by reformatting it, or it may be dying, but either way, do NOT use adoptable storage in the future. SD cards aren't made for the kinds of writing cycles that internal storage is designed to handle, and you'll wear out the card or corrupt it, and when it's encrypted, that's very, very bad.

Know this: any and all data you have stored on an encrypted drive is very, VERY easily corrupted and gone forever, so you must ALWAYS have an unencrypted backup of that data, or run a very high risk of losing it. If you won't use cloud backup services, then at least copy the data to your computer (using the file manager in the phone, NOT the file manager on the computer), and then you can figure out a safe way to back it up from there - say a Samsung or SanDisk USB drive. But always assume that the data on your phone (that's not cloud-backed up) is one corrupt sector away from being lost forever, and make backups often!

Thank you for your response. It was very insightful.

Following problems (info):

I do have Dropbox, but the app won't open on my phone anymore.

I do have Google drive, but I can't back up/transfer/upload from my phone at the moment. It will just say it was unsuccessful and not give a more detailed reason or an error code which I could look up.

I also have One Drive and my photos are actually automatically backed up to it and I just verified that they are there, so the photos aren't the problem. However, whatever other data I have on my sd card (which isn't an image, a video or a document) does not show up, so I can't upload it...since I can't transfer something, if I can't even select it?

So it's not as though I am refusing to use cloud backup, I am just running into these issues.

Clearing my browser cache barely freed up much.