How to fix a damaged SD card on an Android phone without losing any data

Have you ever gotten that mildly heartbreaking “SD card damaged / You may have to reformat it” message on your Android phone? Alas, I’ve seen it quite a few times on my HTC Desire.

I don’t know if it’s the actual device that causes the error, my 16GB SD card or even Android itself. I’m starting to think that the green bot is to blame, because every time I’ve received the “SD card damaged” message on my Android phone, I’ve been able to put the “damaged” memory card in an old Symbian or WinMo device, and it has worked just fine. Here’s how you hopefully can fix a broken SD card on Android without losing any precious data.

The (likely) solution in one sentence: put the SD card in another phone (or a memory card reader), connect it to your computer as a disk drive, run a Windows disk check on it, backup its contents and then put the memory card back in your Android phone. Voilà!

1) Make sure the SD card is connected

First of all, try to simply take out your SD card, put it back in and then start your device and check if Android recognizes it. This will likely not fix the issue, but since it would be the quickest solution, it’s worth a try.

2) Put the card in another phone

If the above didn’t help, find one of your old phones, or use a friend’s, that supports the SD card in question. Now take the allegedly damaged memory card, put it in the other device and connect it to your computer in mass storage mode (mount it). If you have a memory card reader with a USB interface, you can of course use that instead.

If your SD card really is damaged, it may not work in the other phone either. But every time Android has complained about my SD card being broken, it has worked flawlessly in a Symbian or WinMo device. So chances are that will be the case for you as well.

3) Scan the SD card for errors

If you now can access the SD card via your computer, use your operating system’s tools to scan the memory card for errors. On Windows XP, this is done by right-clicking on the SD card in the file manager, then clicking Properties > Tools > Error-checking > Check Now. Under Check disk options, select the “Automatically repair errors in the file system” check box and click Start. Your computer will try to fix all potential errors in the file system.

4) Make a backup

If you want to make sure that you won’t lose any data, then make a backup of your SD card by copying its contents to your computer’s hard drive. If a certain file cannot be copied for whatever reason, there’s a slight chance it may be to blame for the Android hiccup. If it’s not a terribly important file, delete it from your SD card.

5) Put the SD card back in your Android, hope for the best

Now put the SD card back in your Android phone again, and hopefully it will work fine now. If it doesn’t, then at least you have a backup of it now, and you can let Android format the card. Restore the backup from your computer later, and everything will be back to normal.

Ideally, there would be an app that can fix what Android believes to be a damaged file system straight from your phone. Do you know any more ways to fix a damaged SD card? Feedback is appreciated.

Picsel Smart Office - Android Full version App

Picsel Smart

Picsel Smart

Requirements: Android 1.5+
Overview: Edits Microsoft Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Views Adobe PDF documents and image files, plain text and other standard applications, without losing important content.

— Features —

? View and edit major office documents.
? Edit text directly in your document.
? Choose fonts, colours, alignment, formatting, move images, and more.
? Send and receive email attachments.
? Create and delete files in storage.
? Recalculate spreadsheets and update charts with new formulae.
? Zoom to any size from multiple-pages-on-screen, to huge.
? Slide show presentation
? Cut and paste selections to the special scrap book and system clipboard.
? Undo mistakes easily.
? Reflow pages to fit screen or use full page layout.
? Tablet user interface with easy dialogues.
? Phone UI, with multi-touch or single touch gestures
? World’s first stereo 3D document viewing.
? High performance loading and zooming.
? Android 1.5 and later compatibility.
? Search for text, and follow hypertext links.
? Navigate easily to any page with convenient gestures.
? Dropbox file sharing.
? Google Docs file sharing for some files, beta
? Email, SD card file access.
? Create new documents from optional templates.
? File browsing is convenient and fast.
? Save correctly in original format without losing data.

— File formats —

? Microsoft Office: all versions since 1997:
? Word, PowerPoint and Excel 97, 2000, XP, 2003, 2007, 2010 (viewing and editing);
? Adobe Acrobat PDF (viewing);
? JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP images (viewing);
? Vector WMF and EMF diagrams (viewing).

— Languages —

Application localised for:
Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Japanese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish.
View documents in the following languages: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Spanish Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian.

What’s in this version:
? Edit and create autoshapes in PowerPoint presentations.
? Insert image from camera or gallery, in MS Word documents.
? Radar charts, Doughnut charts, and more spreadsheet improvements.
? Improved user experience.
? N-Up: zoom out to show multiple pages while editing
? Copy and Paste to the system clipboard
? Follow hyperlinks in from within documents
? Visual Explorer enhancements
? Editing enhancements in Excel
? Text formatting enhancements
? Table formatting enhancements in Word

Provided by: -=DimonVideo.ru=-

More Info:

Code:

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.picsel.tgv.app.ue2fileviewer

Download Instructions:

Code:

http://www.filesonic.com/file/2515316511/Picsel.Smart.Office.1.90.full.apkhttp://www.wupload.com/file/372208281/Picsel.Smart.Office.1.90.full.apk http://www.fileserve.com/file/b85zgmF/Picsel.Smart.Office.1.90.full.apk

HTC Desire HD Theme

[ Original Post ] and [ All HTC Desire HD theme collection ]

[ Android Revolution HD Sense 3.0 for HTC Desire HD ]

[ Sensation XL - Based on official HTC RUU 1.05.401.4 - Android 2.3.5 - HTC Sense 3.5 ]










ICE HD Theme http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1339007

Revolution Theme http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=884888

Honey HD Theme http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1028813

Elegant Blues Theme http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=951768

Code RED Theme http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1057418

ALL ABOUT ROSIE http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1210143

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1336731

http://shipped-roms.com/index.php

Xperia X10 Gets ICS Port

Looks like the end of the year is not coming without joy for thousands of people and members of the xda community. In this particular case, we see that the Xperia X10 owners are getting their hands on the future of Android a little early in the game. Sony devices getting unofficial updates is particularly a joyous occasion as they are normally, along with Motorola device owners, among the last to normally get their hands on any kind of useful ports, mainly due to the ridiculous locks placed on these devices by manufacturers. Despite all this, the great devs on the X10 are able to bring you the best of the latest from Google. XDA Recognized Developer zdzihu has just released an alpha port of AOSP ICS, and as such it has only but a few things working properly. It seems that wireless connectivity is one of the major components that is still shaky due to Wifi still not being functional and 3G having trouble connecting, but the phone itself works and it seems that BT does so as well.

Unfortunately, the build is a bit unstable and cannot really be used as a daily driver. This is, as stated earlier, a work in progress and because of this may not be your best choice for a daily driver. However, if you happen to have an X10 laying around somewhere and would like to take this for a spin, please make sure that you report any and all feedback back to the dev. Have fun!

This is very early build, we’re behind other qsd8k devices but will eventually catch up

You can find more information in the original thread.

Want something published in the Portal? Contact any News Writer.

Thanks MatheusSnakepit for the tip!

Getting started with 2-step verification [adds an extra layer of security to your Google Account]

How it works

Why you should use 2-step verification

2-step verification adds an extra layer of security to your Google Account by requiring you to have access to your phone – as well as your username and password – when you sign in. In addition to your username and password, you'll enter a code that Google will send you via text or voice message upon signing in.

2-step verification drastically reduces the chances of having the personal information in your Google account stolen by someone else. Why? Because hackers would have to not only get your password and your username, they'd have to get a hold of your phone.

More on 2-step verification

If you're using 2-step verification, you might find these other articles helpful:

• Installing Google Authenticator
• Passwords and codes used with 2-step verification
• Signing in using backup codes
• Signing in with your backup phone
• Trouble signing in
• Revoking application-specific passwords

[ Original post ]

The Quietly Brilliant Story of HTC

A short film about how the smartphone evolved - from some of the early pioneering handhelds to today's most innovative smartphones.

Task-Killer Apps: Will They Help or Hurt Your Battery Life?

Lots of Android users say apps such as Advanced Task Killer help save a phone's battery life. Others are convinced that task killers use more juice than they save. The PCWorld Labs investigated.

If you have an Android phone, you’re probably dissatisfied with its battery life. After all, many phones, especially 4G models, can’t make it through the day without needing to sip from a power outlet.

Some frustrated Android users turn to task managers such as Advanced Task Killer to preserve the handset's juice. The theory makes sense: Apps for Facebook, Google Maps, Pandora, and Twitter, for instance, love to start up in the background. If you automatically and regularly stop such apps, the thinking goes, you’ll end up with longer battery life.

But for everyone who advocates a task killer, there’s another Android user who claims that such tools actually decrease battery life. Their argument: Apps that start up in the backgroundwill just restart themselves after an app killer stops them. And all that activity--the app killer stopping processes, and the apps starting themselves up again--will knock bars off your battery meter.

In the PCWorld Labs, we hate unanswered questions. So we tested an app killer on a variety of phones. Our results indicate that neither side is entirely right. Overall, using an app killer produced an increase in battery life, but one so small that most people wouldn’t notice it. And on a couple of phones, battery life remained unchanged, or decreased, with an app killer on the job.

The Test

In order to test whether task killers would help with battery-life issues, we downloaded Advanced Task Killer on five different 4G Android smartphones. Advanced Task Killer is arguably the most popular task killer in the Android Market, and the one that is most frequently recommended. (Note, though, that the developers of Advanced Task Killer make no claim that their app will improve your battery life.)

The phones we chose for the testing were the HTC Evo 3D, the HTC Sensation 4G, the HTC ThunderBolt, the Motorola Droid Bionic, and the AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II. We reset each phone to factory settings, with Wi-Fi disabled and 4G on. We set the phones to play a high-def movie on a loop, with the screen at maximum brightness, until the phone battery died.

Advanced Task Killer has a variety of kill modes (Safe, Aggressive, and Crazy). We left it on the Safe setting and had it stop apps every half hour; this setting kills apps that aren’t open but still consume memory. The developer recommends the Safe setting, since the other two settings can cause some apps to become unstable.

The Results

Does Advanced Task Killer Save Phone Battery Life?

PHONE	Battery life
	Without Task Killer	With Task Killer	Difference
HTC Evo 3D	6:25	6:40	4.2%
HTC Sensation 4G	6:38	6:54	4.0%
HTC ThunderBolt	5:34	5:41	2.1%
Motorola Droid Bionic	4:50	4:50	0.0%
Samsung Galaxy S II	7:22	7:20	-0.5%

Battery life is expressed in hours:minutes.

As the chart shows, three out of the five phones--the HTC Evo 3D, the HTC Sensation 4G, and the HTC ThunderBolt--did show an improvement in battery life with Advanced Task Killer running. Don't expect to save hours, however: With the task killer enabled, the HTC Evo 3D showed the biggest boost, but that was just 4.2 percent, an addition of only 15 minutes to the overall battery life. (Why did Advanced Task Killer improve the battery life primarily on HTC phones? That may be because of all the processes that the HTC Sense user interface has running at any one time.)

While the Droid Bionic saw no benefit, the AT&T Galaxy S II did worse with the task killer running--though contrary to some of the stern warnings you'll see about these apps on the Web, the decrease was almost insignificant. The Galaxy S II merely dropped from 7 hours, 22 minutes down to 7 hours, 20 minutes.

With an average improvement of 1.9 percent, the impact of a task killer on phone battery life in our study was virtually unnoticeable. Task killers may be great for freeing up extra phone RAM, but if you are looking for a way to get more juice out of your handset, you’re better off shelling out the extra dough for an extended battery.

[ Original Post ]

Android Secret Dial Codes

Built into the Andoid OS, are dialling codes which will activate a number of hidden features, such as the ability to change your MMS Service Centre Number, or totally turn off the phone's radio. Simply dial them, and they will automatically bring up each feature.

BE AWARE - SOME OF THESE CODES WILL CHANGE THE WAY YOUR PHONE FUNCTIONS - USE THEM WITH EXTREME CAUTION

These codes are listed below:

*#*#4636#*#* - Phone Information (allows you to change the SMS service centre number and more)

*2767*3855#  - HARD RESET (will fully wipe and restore firmware. USE WITH CAUTION

*#*#34971539#*#* Shows completes information about the camera 

*#*#7594#*#* Changing the power button behavior-Enables direct poweroff once the code enabled 

*#*#273283*255*663282*#*#* For a quick backup to all your media files 

*#*#197328640#*#* Enabling test mode for service activity 

*#*#232339#*#* OR *#*#526#*#* OR *#*#528#*#* Wireless Lan Tests 

*#*#232338#*#* Displays Wi-Fi Mac-address 

*#*#1472365#*#* For a quick GPS test 

*#*#1575#*#* A Different type GPS test 

*#*#0283#*#* Packet Loopback test 

*#*#0*#*#* LCD display test 

*#*#0673#*#* OR *#*#0289#*#* Audio test 

*#*#0842#*#* Vibration and Backlight test 

*#*#2663#*#* Displays touch-screen version 

*#*#2664#*#* Touch-Screen test 

*#*#0588#*#* Proximity sensor test 

*#*#3264#*#* Ram version 

*#*#232331#*#* Bluetooth test 

*#*#7262626#*#* Field test 

*#*#232337#*#* Displays bluetooth device address 

*#*#8255#*#* For Google Talk service monitoring 

*#*#4986*2650468#*#*  PDA, Phone, Hardware, RF Call Date firmware info 

*#*#1234#*#* PDA and Phone firmware info 

*#*#1111#*#* FTA Software version 

*#*#2222#*#* FTA Hardware verion 

*#*#44336#*#* Displays Build time and change list number 

*#06# Displays IMEI number 

*#*#8351#*#* Enables voice dialing logging mode 

*#*#8350#*#* Disables voice dialing logging mode 

**05***# Execute from Emergency dial screen to unlock PUK code 

Samsung Only:

*#*#7780#*#* Wipe data/factory reset