When you connect your Droid 2, the AutoPlay screen appears on the PC (as it always does when you connect a USB device to your PC). What appears on this screen varies slightly depending on whether you’ve connected using PC mode or USB Mass Storage. If you’ve chosen USB Mass Storage, the screen tells you what drive letter the Droid 2 will use in Windows. It also offers a few more options versus connecting in PC mode, including being able to import photos. If you select PC mode, the AutoPlay screen will identify the device as a Droid 2, rather than as a generic lettered drive in Windows Explorer.
Note
If you have a Mac, flip to Transferring Files Using Your Mac.
After you’ve done that, launch Windows Explorer. Your Droid 2 now shows up as a removable disk, just like any USB drive.
Tip
Before unplugging your Droid 2 from your PC, right-click the Safely Remove Hardware icon in your Windows notification area and select Safely Remove Hardware. Then unplug the Droid 2.
You can now use your Droid 2 as if it were any USB flash device—copying files to and from it, creating folders, and so on. That’s fine in theory, but in practice what can you actually do? You’ll find many folders on the Droid 2, most of which have names that make no sense, such as “.Trash”, or “dcim”.
Note
When you browse the Droid 2 using Windows Explorer and transfer files between your PC and the Droid 2, you can browse and transfer files only to and from the SD card, not the Droid 2’s built-in storage. Changing or adding files to your Droid 2’s built-in storage rather than the SD card could damage the phone.
There are several important folders that contain information you might want to transfer from your Droid 2 to your PC, or vice versa. You’ll see a lot more folders, but these are the important ones:
Downloads. If you’ve downloaded content to your Droid 2 from the Internet, such as pictures or web pages, you see them in here.
DCIM/camera. Here’s where the Droid 2 stores all the photos you’ve taken. Drag photos from this folder to your PC to copy them, or drag photos here from your PC to put them into the Droid 2 Gallery. See Opening the Gallery for more information about the Gallery.
Music. The Droid 2 stores music here, although it might also store music in other places as well. If you download music files using the Amazon music app built into the Droid 2, for example, there will be an Amazonmp3 folder where your music is stored.
Video. If you’ve transferred files to your Droid 2 using Windows Media Player, they’re in here.
Videos. If you use the Droid 2’s built-in Video Editor Lite app, then after you save edited videos, you’ll find them in this folder.
Note
There’s some tech-talk you need to know before transferring videos from your Droid 2 to your PC. When you record videos on your Droid 2, they’re recorded in a format called .3pg. Depending on the versions of Windows and Windows Media Player you have, your PC might not be able to play those videos. If you have Windows 7 and Windows Media Player 12 or above, you’re set. But if you have Windows Vista, Windows XP, or any version of Windows other than Windows 7, you’re out of luck, since Windows Media Player 12 or above won’t run on those operating systems.
However, if you’re willing to try being a geek for a while, you can transfer the .3pg files to your PC, and then try using a file conversion program to convert the .3pg files to a format that older versions of Windows Media Player can handle, such as .wmv. Go to www.download.com or www.pcworld.com/downloads/downloads.html, and search for 3pg or media converter.
Playlists. Here’s where the Droid 2 stores playlists, so you can transfer them between your PC and your phone.