Blade won't stay mounted to PC

[Guest TrueBlue1981]

As the title says, my Orange San Francisco refuses to mount to the PC. The phone started off mounting to the PC just fine, but a few months after I bought it, it started to develop this problem.

Basically, I'll attach the USB cable to the phone and PC, as usual. A "Mass Storage Device" drive shows in My Computer, as it should. The green Android logo appears with the "Turn On USB Storage" button, as it should. I tap the button, and it starts going through the motions of connecting to the PC. Once the Android logo turns orange, nothing happens. A few seconds later, the logo turns back to green, and the Mass Storage Device doesn't change. The phone dismounts itself from the PC almost immediately. This happens about 99% of the time.

The other 1% is, the phone WILL mount to the PC and the Auto Play box will show. I open the drive (phone) and begin to transfer data to or from the phone. Usually, transferring FROM the phone is OK, but as soon as I start to transfer TO the phone... the file transfer will stop after about 5 seconds, and the phone will dismount itself. It doesn't matter about the file size.. it even does it to 100Kb pictures. The transfer will stop dead in it's tracks, the phone will dismount, and the file transfer will freeze (but won't go away).

At the moment, the only way I can get files on and off is to dismount the SD Card from the phone, remove the SD Card, place it in a SD Card adapter and put it my laptop. Then repeat the process to put the card back in the phone. This is a very annoying and tiring process to have to go through EVERY... SINGLE... TIME.. I want photos or music on the phone.

I have tried uninstalling and reinstall the ZTE Storage Driver, which worked for a few days, but then started failing again. I've even done a complete Windows install, to no avail. I'm actually beginning to suspect it's my laptop, because a similar thing occurred when trying to update my fathers TomTom. Transferring large amounts of data to the TomTom would cause total loss of USB connection to the PC... but if you waited a minute, the transfer would continue on. Then, it would stop.. then continue again. My phone problem is similar, but it NEVER continues after it freezes.

Has anyone had this problem with their San Francisco/Blade? Or any Android phone, for that matter. It's seriously driving me round the bend, to the point where I've thrown my phone across the room several times. Any help with be HUGELY appreciated.

Using Cyanogenmod 7, Android 2.3.7

Edited March 13, 2012 by TrueBlue1981

[Guest agpoli]

I had this problem too, fortunately it's easy to fix. For a while...

It's not a software problem, the USB connector on your Blade got dirty. Try to clean it with something or just plug the cable in/out several times to remove the oxidated layer from the contacts.

[Guest dawsog01]

if you can't fix it, try AirDroid - allows you to transfer files via a web browser on the PC and the app on the phone - also lets you do lots of other useful stuff....

[Guest bladebuddy]

I don't know why but the app ADB WIRELESS has helped keep a connection to the p.c during data transfer through the USB. Also after buying a new sd card the problem stopped.

[Guest TrueBlue1981]

Thanks for the help guys. I'll give the AirDroid and ADB Wireless apps a go and see what happens.

As for a dirty connector, I have tried to clean it recently, but the problem is still there. I'll try to clean it again, though and see if that helps any.

And it shouldn't be the SD Card... well, hopefully, since I have bought a new 8Gb card after the problem occurred, and it hasn't helped.

[Guest Maxsas360]

Try to backup all your data and format it with your phone.

[Guest brookergray]

If nothing helps look into file expert on the phone and filezilla on the pc. These are an ftp server and client (in that order). If the pc is on the same network as the phone than you can wirelessly transfer files to and from your phone.

I saw that airdroid was mentioned, but this method is more convenient and faster than a web browser.