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Apps2SD noobish help

Sprint HTC Hero (Non-Google Branded)
Fresh Rom 1.0 with De-Fresh and Nexus One Boot screen
Recovery 1.5.2
16GB SD Card
So this is what i know.
1) I already know that Fresh 1.0 has A2SD support built within it.
2) I know to go to Recovery and use the format SD (I used these settings)
Swap:516, Ext3:516, Fat32: Rest ammount
3) Did this once before and it seemed that all my apps were on SD card (when i took it out and reboot, all my apps were gone. When i put it back in then reboot they all back on phone)
What i need to know.
1) How do i choose which apps/games to transfer over to SD card.
2) Where are they on my SD card? (Could not see it when i checked the SD card)
3) When you do this are all of the apps off of the phone memory? or are the apps still able to stay on phone.
What i essentially want to do.
1) i just want to be able to easily use A2SD to backup and easily transfer my apps/games back and fourth if i need to.
Any usable help would be greatly appreciated ^^ thanks.

frostrunner said:
Sprint HTC Hero (Non-Google Branded)
Fresh Rom 1.0 with De-Fresh and Nexus One Boot screen
Recovery 1.5.2
16GB SD Card
So this is what i know.
1) I already know that Fresh 1.0 has A2SD support built within it.
2) I know to go to Recovery and use the format SD (I used these settings)
Swap:516, Ext3:516, Fat32: Rest ammount
3) Did this once before and it seemed that all my apps were on SD card (when i took it out and reboot, all my apps were gone. When i put it back in then reboot they all back on phone)
What i need to know.
1) How do i choose which apps/games to transfer over to SD card.
2) Where are they on my SD card? (Could not see it when i checked the SD card)
3) When you do this are all of the apps off of the phone memory? or are the apps still able to stay on phone.
What i essentially want to do.
1) i just want to be able to easily use A2SD to backup and easily transfer my apps/games back and fourth if i need to.
Any usable help would be greatly appreciated ^^ thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If someone has better info please correct me if I'm wrong
1. When you install a ROM with apps2sd, as long as you have your SD card formated properly everything except for stock roms are transfered. If they were not, uninstall and install in the market and should go to SD card.
2. On fresh rom I noticed (atleast for me) that the app and app-private folders were in /system/sd/
3. All of your downloaded apps will be on your SD card. Stock apps (sprint apps and what came with the phone etc.) will still be on the phone's memory.
I use ES File Explorer and just copy the app and app-private folders when i want to backup all my downloaded apps. Pretty easy app to use and supports root.

frostrunner said:
1) How do i choose which apps/games to transfer over to SD card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't. If it's in /data, it gets moved. This means that applications that come with the phone, which are in /system, do not get moved. The symlink solution means that you cannot easily choose applications to leave on the phone.
2) Where are they on my SD card? (Could not see it when i checked the SD card)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct. They are on the EXT partition you created, oddly enough just like the documentation says. You cannot see this partition. If you are so inclined, you can adb into the phone and see it mounted on /system/sd.
3) When you do this are all of the apps off of the phone memory? or are the apps still able to stay on phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Applications shipped with the phone stay on the phone. Data directories created by downloaded applications stay on the phone. You will still see space on the phone being used.
What i essentially want to do.
1) i just want to be able to easily use A2SD to backup and easily transfer my apps/games back and fourth if i need to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A2SD has nothing to do with a backup solution and is not necessary for you to back anything up. Pick one of the umpteen backup applications available in the Market and go to town.

Without App2SD...

Hey guys,
I have been using App2Sd with ALL my roms.
But...today I was wondering....would I really need it?
I have about 50 apps installed (I can cut that #)...and I'm using the SuperD Rom.
So...do ya'll think I could use the Rom without App2SD?
Or is 40-50 Apps way too much?
I don't have any games installed.

I don't use A2SD (s*itty class 2) and my phone runs fine, but i usually don't have more then 20 apps installed and I remove a lot of the system apps I don't use. Right now, going into settings->SD card, I have 47.31MB of space available on internal phone storage. If you can fit all your apps inside of that, then you should be golden=p.

Hey bud, thanks for answering.
Here's some more information.
I have a 372MB EXT4 partition.
I'm currently using 97MB of it.
I currently have 78.07MB of available space in the internal phone storage.
I know I can uninstall some crappy programs and get to like 40 apps.

Just copy the apk's to /system/app/. It' won't move them back to /system/sd/app, and will stay on the internal memory.

evilkorn said:
Just copy the apk's to /system/app/. It' won't move them back to /system/sd/app, and will stay on the internal memory.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Afraid that that is the wrong partition.

I filled my stock memory up quick I love apps to sd.
And if you use some apps like certain gps systems it wont even fit on the stock phone memory. I think its a must.

40 apps is pushing it on internal memory. I would suggest keeping a2sd. What's the harm?

A2SD questions help please

I a rooted running Fresh 2.0d. I am now interested in running A2SD, but have a few questions. In reading thru several posts I found the below steps if you are running Fresh.
Back up sd card
Boot into recovery
Choose partition SD Fat32,EXT2,Swap
Reboot phone
Reload files onto SD card
When it says reload onto sd card, what is meant here.
I backed up the card, ran the partition and moved the data back to the card. Now what do I do, how do you get all of the apps from the phone to now run on the card.
Also, is there a big benefit to this, is it really going to make a big difference?
Final question, I have a 16gb Kingston MicroSD. I have no idea what class of card this is, All I know is that it is 16gb. What type of card do I need for this to work properly?

reload to sd, just means copy all the files from the FAT partion pack to the drive. The FAT partion being the stuff you can see in windows....more than likely Pictures, "Lost", Rosie. Few other apps that put folders there too.
EDIT:
Let me reword this.
You copied all the files off your SD card. DCIM and stuff like that. More than likely to your Windows Desktop.
Plug your phone into USB, Mount as a Drive. Copy the files you copied off initially back to the SD Card drive. (it is probably smaller now than it was before so everything might not fit if it was full)
Edit 2:
Class 6 FTW - But I used to run on a Class 2 and it was fine.
Big Benefit = More Apps/On phone storage space - HOWEVER sometimes it is just a PITA to deal with. Especially if you switch roms alot.

Did you titanium backup or something similar to back up your apps? If not start downloading your apps again. The big benefit to apps2sd is you can download many more apps since your not limit to the internal storage space. Also on some roms you can upgrade without reinstalling your apps (if your lucky)

xxwckdxx said:
Did you titanium backup or something similar to back up your apps? If not start downloading your apps again. The big benefit to apps2sd is you can download many more apps since your not limit to the internal storage space. Also on some roms you can upgrade without reinstalling your apps (if your lucky)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, so let me get this straight, A2SD is for market place apps that I have downloaded? I was under the impression that it was for system apps as well. I am a noob so just want to make sure my info is correct. I have mybackup pro which backups aps. Will I have to uninstall the apps and then reinstall on card? Could you please give me the proper steps on this?

jj4201998 said:
Ok, so let me get this straight, A2SD is for market place apps that I have downloaded? I was under the impression that it was for system apps as well. I am a noob so just want to make sure my info is correct. I have mybackup pro which backups aps. Will I have to uninstall the apps and then reinstall on card? Could you please give me the proper steps on this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You won't have to Uninstall/Reinstall anything. As I recall the move is made automagically on boot up if it detects an EXT partition. And system programs like Rosie do not get moved to the sd card TMK.

Kcarpenter said:
You won't have to Uninstall/Reinstall anything. As I recall the move is made automagically on boot up if it detects an EXT partition. And system programs like Rosie do not get moved to the sd card TMK.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Before I do this, do I have to have a card with a certain speed, or does it not matter?

jj4201998 said:
Ok, so let me get this straight, A2SD is for market place apps that I have downloaded? I was under the impression that it was for system apps as well. I am a noob so just want to make sure my info is correct. I have mybackup pro which backups aps. Will I have to uninstall the apps and then reinstall on card? Could you please give me the proper steps on this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To my understanding just the apps you download are installed on it, i could be wrong. As for the steps....
1. Backup your apps
2. Nandroid backup
3. Paritition
4. Install a2sd
5. Boot up
6. Restore apps

jj4201998 said:
Before I do this, do I have to have a card with a certain speed, or does it not matter?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Speed doesn't really matter a whole lot. If you have a 16gb card its likly a class 4+ card. I have never seen a class 2 16gig before at least. It would kind of defeat the purpose.
Class 6 is the standard for someone who would want to buy a new one, and they have a class 10 lurking around some sites. But you'll be fine on what you have. Again, I was on a class 2 for a while...racing thunder was the biggest issue, it was laggy from the SD card. haven't tried it with the new one.
Edit:
I stand corrected, it could be a class 2.
http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-microSDHC-Memory-SDSDQ-016G-Packaging/dp/B001L1H0SC

jj4201998 said:
Ok, so let me get this straight, A2SD is for market place apps that I have downloaded? I was under the impression that it was for system apps as well. I am a noob so just want to make sure my info is correct. I have mybackup pro which backups aps. Will I have to uninstall the apps and then reinstall on card? Could you please give me the proper steps on this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you download apps from the marketplace (free or paid), Android will put it in one of two locations: /data/app or /data/app-private. Both of those locations are on the phone itself. The problem you run into is running out of free space on the internal storage space of the phone. A2SD, in its basic form, moves the data in /data/app and /data/app-private, to matching directories on your ext partition of your secure digital card. It also creates a symlink where /data/app and /data/app-private are located. These symlinks are nothing more than shortcuts to the directories on your SD card. Android still thinks it is storing apps in /data/app and /data/app-private, but it really is storing it on the SD card.
When the instructions say to backup the SD card, what it is talking about is the FAT32 part of the SD card. As someone said earlier, it is the part that Windows can actually see. You take all the data off of your SD card and put it on your computer. The reason you need to do this is that, when you add the ext2/ext3 and swap partition, you will repartition the entire SD card, which means you will lose your data on your FAT32 partition.
When you are restoring to SD, you are taking the contents you had previously on the Fat32 part of the SD card and putting it back onto the Far32 card.
As far as apps are concerned, the A2SD will automatically move them for you...but it is always a good idea to do a nandroid backup first to make sure that you have a way to restore an image in case something goes wrong.

tkirton said:
When you download apps from the marketplace (free or paid), Android will put it in one of two locations: /data/app or /data/app-private. Both of those locations are on the phone itself. The problem you run into is running out of free space on the internal storage space of the phone. A2SD, in its basic form, moves the data in /data/app and /data/app-private, to matching directories on your ext partition of your secure digital card. It also creates a symlink where /data/app and /data/app-private are located. These symlinks are nothing more than shortcuts to the directories on your SD card. Android still thinks it is storing apps in /data/app and /data/app-private, but it really is storing it on the SD card.
When the instructions say to backup the SD card, what it is talking about is the FAT32 part of the SD card. As someone said earlier, it is the part that Windows can actually see. You take all the data off of your SD card and put it on your computer. The reason you need to do this is that, when you add the ext2/ext3 and swap partition, you will repartition the entire SD card, which means you will lose your data on your FAT32 partition.
When you are restoring to SD, you are taking the contents you had previously on the Fat32 part of the SD card and putting it back onto the Far32 card.
As far as apps are concerned, the A2SD will automatically move them for you...but it is always a good idea to do a nandroid backup first to make sure that you have a way to restore an image in case something goes wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am running Fresh 2.0d. Someone mentioned to install A2SD, thought on Fresh it as already installed, am I missing somthing?

xxwckdxx said:
To my understanding just the apps you download are installed on it, i could be wrong. As for the steps....
1. Backup your apps
2. Nandroid backup
3. Paritition
4. Install a2sd
5. Boot up
6. Restore apps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am on Fresh 2.0d I thought on this Rom it was already installed. I formatted the sd card as told. However, I don't think it is working. ON the Recovery menu there is a place that says transfer apps to sd & delvik. Am I supposed to use that?

jj4201998 said:
I am running Fresh 2.0d. Someone mentioned to install A2SD, thought on Fresh it as already installed, am I missing somthing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. You're not missing something. Fresh 2.0d has a Cyanogen version of A2SD. It's originally in the 1.5 Roms that are for the Hero.
Two other people, TrevE and myself, makes a variant of the original that is in Fresh 2.0d. TrevE works with ROM developers to put his in while I update mine in the distribution channels.
Whoever told you to install A2SD probably meant to go download the Darktremor A2SD 2.5 or 2.6.1 and flash it to your phone.
That part is optional, as Fresh 2.0d already has an A2SD installed.

jj4201998 said:
I am on Fresh 2.0d I thought on this Rom it was already installed. I formatted the sd card as told. However, I don't think it is working. ON the Recovery menu there is a place that says transfer apps to sd & delvik. Am I supposed to use that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It does it automatically.
What makes you think it isn't working? Since you rooted, I presume you have ADB. If so, enter a console session on the phone by typing adb shell
Once you have done that, type the following:
cd /data/app
pwd
If pwd returns /data/app, it isn't working.
If pwd returns /system/sd/app, A2SD is working normally.
Do the same for app-private:
cd /data/app-private
pwd
If pwd returns /data/app-private, it isn't working
if pwd returns /system/sd/app, A2SD is working normally.

tkirton said:
No. You're not missing something. Fresh 2.0d has a Cyanogen version of A2SD. It's originally in the 1.5 Roms that are for the Hero.
Two other people, TrevE and myself, makes a variant of the original that is in Fresh 2.0d. TrevE works with ROM developers to put his in while I update mine in the distribution channels.
Whoever told you to install A2SD probably meant to go download the Darktremor A2SD 2.5 or 2.6.1 and flash it to your phone.
That part is optional, as Fresh 2.0d already has an A2SD installed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I could not figure out how to get the version on Fresh d to work. I downloeaded the 2.5 version and it is working fine for me. This minor change has made all of the difference on the phone. I have asked on several posts how to speed up the hero and this truley made the difference. Thanks for the help.

[Q] Please answer this noob question

OK, I'm new to rooting and installing custom roms so bare with me here.
1. I've just installed CM6 on N1 and restore my backed up apps to SD card. Now if i install some other roms and restore these apps again. Will they like overlaps and take more space? Cuz we didn't format or touch sd card during installing new rom, only wipe stuffs from phone memory.
2. When i move apps to sd, these app still take some space in phone memory. Is there anyway to move everything completely. I take it doing this might crash these apps right? thankss
I just want to say that installing custom rom on android is a pain in the *&(*(&. There's various method, old and new scattered all over the internet.

Nurra said:
2. When i move apps to sd, these app still take some space in phone memory. Is there anyway to move everything completely. I take it doing this might crash these apps right? thankss
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
search for dark tremors a2sd

Read my signature.
Installing custom ROMs on Nexus is as easy as it gets.

Dont take this the wrong way but I've read the faq before i posted. Nothing in there.

No FAQ. In the Wiki there are guides for EVERYTHING, including approximate steps to install custom ROM.

Nurra said:
OK, I'm new to rooting and installing custom roms so bare with me here.
1. I've just installed CM6 on N1 and restore my backed up apps to SD card. Now if i install some other roms and restore these apps again. Will they like overlaps and take more space? Cuz we didn't format or touch sd card during installing new rom, only wipe stuffs from phone memory.
2. When i move apps to sd, these app still take some space in phone memory. Is there anyway to move everything completely. I take it doing this might crash these apps right? thankss
I just want to say that installing custom rom on android is a pain in the *&(*(&. There's various method, old and new scattered all over the internet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you want to format your SD card, go for it...
As for moving apps to SD not moving all data, there's two types of this.
Apps2SD, or what Froyo employs, moves the apk and mounts it to make it available to the system. Makes it slower to boot, mount the SD card, and only some apps support it and it you force it (or devs make bad decisions in their manifest) it can break widgets or apps that need to run 24/7.
Apps2Ext, or what most custom ROMs make available (Darktremor) moves the apks entirely to an ext partition on the SD card and this works with all apps, widgets, etc.
In both cases, the app DATA is still on /data, as well as dalvik cache. So for me, 120 apps on my Nexus One is about the limit as I run out of space in data primarily from dalvik cache.
There are also ways to move dalvik cache to SD but there are performance hits.

[Q] SafeStrap 3.0.x, multiple ROMs, and installing to SD card

Hello,
I've been patiently following this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1804665 for the past several months. Thanks to the selfless, hard work of Hashcode, dhacker, and also sylentprofet and jarveson (and apologies to anyone I haven't credited), the recent builds seem to have arrived at a level of functionality and stability that I'm thinking of trying to install my first custom ROM (I've already had SafeStrap 3.0.x installed for months).
My question is the following: I understand from the above thread and from Hashcode's blog that now the external SD card will be used as the default storage location. I was wondering what happens when an app is "installed to SD". From my previous experience on an original Motorola Droid, I know that "installing to SD" would move some files to a special directory on the SD card. I was wondering if this would cause collisions if the same app was installed under multiple ROM slots using SafeStrap.
Thank you for entertaining this newbie's question.

Actually the way I understand it is there is still the internal storage and external SD which are the same, but the internal storage gets partitioned separate from the rest of the storage so if you install an app to the SD card, I think it just goes in a regular folder. The system thinks the /system partition is in the regular storage for it but it actually is tricked to the internal storage.
I hope that makes sense.

MrObvious said:
... so if you install an app to the SD card, I think it just goes in a regular folder ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you very much for your response.
Is this regular folder on the external SD card? If so, does it mean that this regular folder will be shared by the ROMs in multiple slots if I have the same app installed under the ROM in multiple slots?
Thank you again.

alvin_a_garcia said:
Thank you very much for your response.
Is this regular folder on the external SD card? If so, does it mean that this regular folder will be shared by the ROMs in multiple slots if I have the same app installed under the ROM in multiple slots?
Thank you again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it's on the external SD then yes it is.

I had the same doubt when I recently started using ROMs on my Droid3. This thread helped me a lot.
I have lots of apps in my stock ROM that I've installed before rooting it. Do I have to install it all again on external SD? If yes, do I have to use a new flashed ROM or the stock ROM?

Thiago AmP said:
I had the same doubt when I recently started using ROMs on my Droid3. This thread helped me a lot.
I have lots of apps in my stock ROM that I've installed before rooting it. Do I have to install it all again on external SD? If yes, do I have to use a new flashed ROM or the stock ROM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On minimoto I noticed it was using the exact same sd configuration as stock, perhaps because its stock based. On CM10 the external SD card is the default /sd card but you can still access the internal sd.
Regardless of how the sd card is configured you'd still have to reinstall apps when going to another ROM. I recommend using Titanium Backup then its quite simple to restore apps on another ROM. For SD data you could just manually copy and paste the folders from the internal to external SD.

spunker88 said:
On minimoto I noticed it was using the exact same sd configuration as stock, perhaps because its stock based. On CM10 the external SD card is the default /sd card but you can still access the internal sd.
Regardless of how the sd card is configured you'd still have to reinstall apps when going to another ROM. I recommend using Titanium Backup then its quite simple to restore apps on another ROM. For SD data you could just manually copy and paste the folders from the internal to external SD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! So, a separate partition on SD Card would be a waste of "space", since the ROM's doesn't share acess to this partition. I've only tried with CM10, I'm going to try with MavROM and Minimoto, but i'm almost sure that I'll end backing all up with Titanium.

Thiago AmP said:
Thanks! So, a separate partition on SD Card would be a waste of "space", since the ROM's doesn't share acess to this partition. I've only tried with CM10, I'm going to try with MavROM and Minimoto, but i'm almost sure that I'll end backing all up with Titanium.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sort of kind of. Basically this would be useful if you want to share apps and their settings between the custom and Stock ROMs installed on your phone [may be odd on an app by app basis depending on a few things but a good number *should* work [I dont use external SD as it eats the battery and is MUCH slower than using the /data partition so haven't tested this], so following should be close if not 100% correct
You would in stock ROM set your apps2SD app up [I DO NOT advise you to use the sdcard function found in manage apps>app area instead you should be using an app like Link2SD that actually creates a partition on your external SD and formats it to EXT3 or EXT4 [suggest using EXT4]. This way things like widgets still work whereas they don't when using the built-in android function [this happens as android uses a folder on the SDCard [which is FAT32 by default] and file permissions needed to run Widgets and some code can't be copied as needed on to a FAT32 partition so by using an app that partitions [or the recovery can do this but you would still need an app to manage which apps are in this partion] the SDCard app instead actually formats part of the card to the EXT 3 or 4 File system so it is the same as the /data partion so Android can copy EVERYTHING and nothing is affected and broken.
So you open your SDCard app manager in Stock ROM and format the External SD [THIS WILL ERASE EVERYTHING RUN APPROPRIATE BACKUPS BEFORE PARTIONING [move them to a computer and back if you dont have enough internal storage to absorb your data]]
When that completes open the app again [usually needs a restart first to mount the new partition before continuing].
Once you get that done open the Manager app and select the apps to move to this new partition.
CUSTOM ROM: Now once that is done boot in to safestrap and either setup a Custom ROM or change to it's boot slot. Next boot in to Custom ROM and install the same SD Card App Manager you used in Stock.
Next, once you open it it should say it found a partition and ask if you want to use it if it doesn't and just lists the app view the settings in the Manager app and HAVE IT SETUP AN EXISTING PARTITION. DONT PARTITION YOUR SDCard AGAIN [or all your newly moved data will bite it].
Now restart and allow it to boot back in to the Custom ROM again. Once this happens all the apps you moved to the SDCard partition should magically appear and be usable.
SO LONG AS YOUR STOCK AND CUSTOM ROMs ARE THE SAME VERSIONS DONT DO THIS IF YOU HAVE ICS ON THE SAFE SIDE AND JELLYBEAN AS A CUSTOM ROM IT WILL MOST LIKELY CAUSE ALL KINDS OF PROBLEMS