Retrieve photos from SD card?

[Nustimar]

Hi there,

I’m new to this forum !

I’ve been using a SD card on my FP3, and obviously i hadn’t read the many posts warning NOT to format it as internal storage (but still, how was i supposed to know??? this seems like a major failure from FP…).

Now, i understand i might have to reinitialize my phone, but do i have any chance to get back the pictures that :

• were on my phone, and got transferred to the SD ?
• have been shot since then (and apparently went “somewhere”, but are now impossible to find) ?

I would appreciate quite much anything that could help me on this, some of these pictures were quite valuable, and are impossible to shoot again!

My SD card is a Samsung 128 Evo+

Thanks !!!

[anon9989719]

The problem is that the internal storage is encrypted, so the only hope would be to somehow move the images to Android secure folder which will not be affected when you reformat the SD as External.
Easy to say but I’ve not had the problem and don’t know how to do it or where to transfer the files to. Hopefully someone else will have more detailed ideas.

Is your phone unlocked or rooted?

The other option is to upload your images and so you will have a backup elsewhere before you reformat the SD card.

For other reasons not to use as internal storage see

Any advice? SD card failure

Hello, thanks for replying. Yes I’ve put the phone back to factory settings - no change. And the SIM works in other phones, and in SIM slot 2, but not slot 1. And yes the camera appears to work, but the image it should be taking shows up blank. So my gallery shows blank squares, instead of images.

[Nustimar]

Thanks for your answer!

Thing is, i don’t know at the moment how to access the files, which is very strange… Soon after having shot the pictures, i was able to see them in the picture manager, but know they are nowhere to be found… So, would there be a tool to get to the pictures, so that i can make a backup and then get back my phone to factory settings??

Then, if i understand it correctly, getting back to factory settings might not restore the whole functionalities of my phone?? If it’s so, i guess warranty should apply…?

I didn’t root my phone, what exactly do you mean by “unlocked”?

[anon9989719]

Unlocking

FP3: unlock the bootloader

This is a #wiki post. Everyone can improve it, by clicking the green pencil above. This procedure will completly WIPE all your data! This is NOT to root the FP3 FP3 comes with a locked bootloader. This prevents user to write in /boot, /recovery, /system, /modem & other partitions. Unlocking the bootloader removes a layer of protection, but also allows you to flash a custom recovery, a custom ROM, a custom kernel, or a root script. This will most probably be needed to root your FP3. So if you w…

There’s a file manger app [File] in the default Android 10 apps section that should be used to fine ‘files’

Resetting the phone should restore all functions of the phone, in fact if you ask for official support they are likely to ask you to do a reset.

Hard Reset / Factory Data Reset

Hard Reset / Factory Data Reset What is this? This kind of reset erases all data from you phone and sets it back to factory settings (the way it came when you bought it). This can sometimes be necessary if your phone is soft dic:bricked or otherwise majorly screwed up. How do I do this? Before you do this you should definitely create a thorough dic:backup if possible. If you can still boot your phone you can perform a reset in Settings → System → Reset Options. If not, you’ll have to go thr…

[Nustimar]

Hi, any many thanks Amoun for your answer.

I understand now what is “unlocking”, but i’m not sure it would be useful in my case, since it would erase all data - so probably i’d rather factory reset the phone, right?

Still, i’d like very much to find my data back;

• If i go to Applications > Photos > Storage, it tells me that 534Mo are in cache, and i guess that’s pretty much the size of my photos - but i can’t happen to access this! Quite frustrating…
• Then, i was able to restore from the trash bin of the same App (Photos), some of my photos that i thought were lost. But, it seems that these photos cannot anymore be read on a computer, although they can still be seen on my phone in good def (they don’t seem to be thumbnails).

So, WTF?? My data seems to still be somewhere out there, but how could i reach them? (before i make a hard reset).
Do you mean that if my bootloader had been unlocked, i’d been able to access these files, but that how it is right now i can’t? Would you advise in the future to run my phone with the bootloader unlocked?

Cheers,

[BertG]

Hello and sorry for your bad experience.
I am no tech-person unfortunately.
Have you tried to access the phone from the computer by connecting it via USB cable.
What does it show? If you would get to see the pictures this way, you could copy them to your computer at the same time as well.
You just have to make sure, that the phone is connected for file transfer and not just for charging.

[Nustimar]

Hi BertG,

I’m not that much of a tech-person either, but i did actually try that before posting !
When i connect my phone to the computer, it only shows me some empty folders… Where did all the data go? That’s my question…

Thanks anyways for trying, sometimes simple solutions are the good ones, and there mught be something i haven’t checked yet…?