Weird issue - hard reset of phone resulted in all videos and photos getting deleted

[klsohn]

I'm not the only Droid Charge user who has experienced this issue, judging from a search of Android forums.  The difference is that I've never rooted the phone.

I've gone into the SD Card file system using Astro file manager to try to find the photos and videos and they are not there.

This combined with the issue that I have had since day one sending a MMS (photo through text) when on 3G, the battery getting super hot and draining and now losing photos and videos has me frustrated beyond reason.

Any idea what to do, other than never ever reset the phone, even when the battery is hot to the touch and the phone is locked up?

[Wildman]

I can not see hard restting a device will delete only photos and videos, the reset option does not work this way, it either deletes everything or nothing. 

Are you sure you didnt just play file from message because if you do not select to save file the images and videos from messages are stored in the buffer only to view the files, also if you did save the files they are normally saved under the download folder and a number of users end up looking in the wtong location.

[klsohn]

I have gone every which way through the SD card - the photos and videos are ones that I took using the phone, and that resided on the SD card.  I know this, because I unmounted the SD card, inserted it using an adapter into my computer, and uploaded a bunch of photos to a file sharing site.  I did not move the files, but merely copied them.

I know I didn't accidently format the card, because only the photos and videos I took with this device are gone.  Photos that I copied over from an HTC phone are still on the SD card.  Only the photos and videos taken by the Droid Charge (or its predecessors) are gone.

I'm not talking factory reset, which shouldn't affect the SD card either.  Which is why the title includes the word 'weird.'  I'm seeing where other people on diffferent forums are complaining of a similar issue, all in the last month.

The MMS issue was never resolved.  Sending MMS works when I'm in a 4G area.  When I'm in a 3G area (which is most of the time) the phone gives me a 'failed to send' message and then does not close the network connection and the battery drains.

I'm ready to sell the phone on eBay and go to a different phone.  I'm on my third Droid Charge, and while I have love Samsung devices (no, really, I have a Samsung laptop, netbook, Galaxy 10.1, televisions and bluray players) and completely frustrated by this device.

[Ann154]

Is there an internal phone storage space (not the sd card) on the DROID Charge that could have been wiped during the factory reset? Is it possible that your files were saved on the internal phone storage?

[klsohn]

I didn't factory reset the phone.  I just pulled the battery for 30 seconds.

When the phone rebooted, the photos and videos taken with the Droid Charge were gone.

Texts were intact, and voice recordings were intact, as were my contacts.  

Between this issue and the inability to send MMS in 3G, I'm regretting my decision to leave Sprint.

[WCMack]

Dear klsohn,

When you say "gone" do you mean that the files have disappeared from the SD card or that the phone can't "see" these files on the card? You mentioned that you knew the photos and videos were there because you put the SD card in a reader on your computer and could see them.

Also, since you copied them from the SD card to the sharing site, can you restore them to the card? When this is done, can the phone see them?

Finally, have you taken more pix or videos since this event, and is the same thing happening?

Sorry for all the questions, but it would help to have this information.

[klsohn]

Thanks for the replies, first of all.  I don't want to appear to be short, because I know you're trying to help.

I've just unmounted the SD card, removed it, and using an adapter, have am using windows file explorer.  In the DCIM folder, the older phots that I moved over are all intact, saved in a 100 Media subfolder under the DCIM folder.  The Camera folder is empty.

Oddly enough, in the .thumbnail folder, thumbnails (low res thumbnails) of all the photos and videos that were deleted yesterday still exist. 

I have Rescue Pro and was going to attempt to retrieve the photos that were deleted.

I wish this were user error.  I've tooled around in the phone settings to see if there is a setting to delete the photos but not everything in the DCIM folder, and I have yet to find something.

I'm going to try to retrieve the files from the card, put them back in the DCIM folder and see what happens.  I will report back.

I have not taken more videos or pictures since the event because I didn't want to overwrite the deleted files until I got a chance to use RescuePro.

Thanks again.

[WCMack]

Dear klsohn,

No worries; I did not think your were being short.

As to the issue, though, I am stumped. I don't use the camera much, and have not experienced this issue. The few photos I take always end up in the DCIM/Camera folder and stay there until I remove them using the normal delete sequence.

Report back when you have restored the photos/videos to your SD card, or take some more p/v and see if you can either make this happen again or assure yourself that it was a fluke.

Good luck!

[klsohn]

I was able to retrieve all of the photos, but none of the videos.  Fortunately I have google+ and only a month's worth of short videos were lost.

I am not giong to go out of my way to try to replicate the deletion.  Suffice to say that it happened, and I don't believe it was user error (if it were, then the thumbnail folder would have emptied as well, and it did not.

I think that most people who don't use the phone as a camera don't realize the full extent of the issues the phone has.  The flash causing the battery to drain and/or phone to lock up and the inability to send pictures via text message in a 3G area are frustrating at best.  I live and work in 3G areas, so MMS is pretty much unavailable to me, which is a shame.

I'd like someone from Verizon to pop in, and see if there's something they could suggest.  I'm not sure that swapping the phone out will accomplish anything, as all the phones had the same issue.

[JoeL_VZW]

 Thanks to the community for your responses.

        That is very upsetting on having picture messaging problems and losing videos. I've reported the lost videos to our product investigation team and included links with rooted software. Samsung states this has never been reported previously to Samsung on non rooted software. Sending pictures thru messages in a 3G area shouldn't be a problem. I personally have a Charge and can send pictures thru messages in a 3G area. Im glad you recovered your lost pictures and moved them to a computer. Are you using the stock messaging application? This issue may be cause by an application please hard reset the device and retest.

Thank you

[klsohn]

Hi Joel,

I've factory reset my phone for what seems to be the twelfth time or so over the three Droid Charges I've had.  I really want to like this phone, but have yet to have one phone work sending picture messages through text in a 3G area.  I had a network engineer at Verizon who troubleshooted the phone, and saw that even though I would get a 'message failed to send' error when trying to send the photo in a 3G area, the phone would not close the connection and the resulting attempts to send (even though the phone would say that the message failed) would drain the battery.

The same thing is happening with this replacement phone.  Losing the videos and photos is a new twist.

[klsohn]

The hard reset did not fix the problem with sending MMS in a 3G area.  I've tried to send photos to a Verizon phone (HTC Thunderbolt), Sprint phone (Blackberry Curve), Verizon phone (Blackberry Bold) and several AT&T phones (iPhone 4 and Samsung Captivate).  None went through.