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[HELP]Apps/Data on SD: Switching to new SD card

Is it possible if I installed apps/data on SD card to switch to another card and install apps/data on it? I removed my current card and my phone stopped working. I will take help from anyone who has it.

if you want to, you should be able to copy everything to a backup folder and upload to another sd card. you need to do this in linux cause windows does not natively read ext2 partitions. shut down your phone, remove the micro sd card, put in your computer, copy everything to the backup folder, then re-partition your new (hopefully bigger) micro sd card. put back in the phone and boot it up. i have never tried this, but it should work, just as long as you have the ext2 partition the system can read from. good luck.

I agree fully with corp769. In addition, two important things to remember are:
* ext2 must be the second (primary) partition
* you must preserve UNIX access permissions by copying apps and data directories with cp -rp ! That's the reason apps on SD doesn't work without repartitioning.
* you must use a separate card reader, you cannot do this while the card is plugged into your G1. (Unless you can do some fancy mounting/unmounting stuff on the phone, that is. It's certainly easier and safer to use a card reader).
I too have never tried this, but it should work.

creid2352 said:
Is it possible if I installed apps/data on SD card to switch to another card and install apps/data on it? I removed my current card and my phone stopped working. I will take help from anyone who has it.
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i did this on linux from a 2G card to a new 8G card .. my partitions are named so i utilize naming to distinguish one partition from the other:
make two folders on your linux desktop .. "SDD1" and "SDD2" .. the FAT32(sdd1) can be click-and-drag to the desktop folder .. the EXT2(sdd2) needs to be run inside Terminal to retain the permissions (unless someone know a better way)
ie: sudo cp -a /media/sdd2/* /home/LucidREM/Desktop/SDD2
then switch cards
ie: sudo cp -a /home/LucidREM/Desktop/SDD2/* /media/sdd2
obviously substitute your name for mine unless you call yourself "LucidREM"

In the exact same process when you have an error nfs :
In linux with the card reader
unmount both vfat and ext2 partitions and type :
fsck -p /dev/yourext2partition.
fsck.vfat -p /dev/yourfatpartition
that's how I manage to recover 2 MicroSD card

If you want to go the GUI route - go grab a copy of the GParted Live distribution. Put that on bootable media (whatever your case may be, USB or CD/DVD) then boot into GParted and use the GUI to copy and paste the partitions over. GParted will do a consistency check and fix any errors in both partitions first, then copy over into the new SD card.

Thanks a lot for the help everyone. I will give this a shot when I get home. Appreciate all the quick responses.

no prob man, just let us know if it works for you or not.

If you don't have linux, is there a program for windows or mac I can use to do this? Thanks

legaleye2005 said:
If you don't have linux, is there a program for windows or mac I can use to do this? Thanks
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Yes download Wubi (which is like Linux in a box, and can be installed in like 10 minutes and ready to use and removed like a normal program) or download Paragon Partition Manager 9 Trial Version, it must be version 9 not 10. I recommend Wubi however, much easier, and who knows, you might fall in love with it like I did.

I tried the LucidREM instructions and it is looping on startup.
Is there a different way to do this?

Simplest Method
Just in case people still want to know how to change SD cards (ext partition and all), which I suspect will happen a lot since the 16GB cards are going to start dropping in price soon, here's the simplest and best way I know how to do it. I have done this a bunch of times without any issues. I've even used this to go from a G1 to a myTouch (with minor compatibility changes, of course). But simply changing/upgrading SD cards is a breeze.
First thing's first. You will need bart.sh which can be found here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=562292. If you are using a myTouch or simply don't want to bother typing commands, use Amon_RA's wonderful recovery menus with bart.sh already built in. The Nexus One version can be found here (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=611829) but there are links to the recovery menus for the G1, myTouch, Hero, etc. on that page.
You will need to be familiar with how bart.sh works and this is way beyond this post. There is a ton of information on the bart.sh thread. So here are the steps that need to be done.
1) Run bart.sh, either in recovery console or via recovery menu, to backup your entire ext2/3/4 partition (as well as nandroid for simplicity).
2) Back up the fat32 portion of your SD card as you normally would by mounting your SD card to your computer. Make sure that this includes the new bart.sh backup which should be located in the bart folder in the root of you SD card.
3) Partition your new SD card using the method of your choice. Amon_RA's recovery menus have an easy and painless method for this but you can use parted or any other method you choose. If you use your device to partition your new SD card do NOT boot your phone after you partition the card. You will want to finish Step 4 first. Amon_RA's recovery allows you to mount your SD card from recovery to help you complete Step 4 if you do not have a SD card reader.
4) Using Amon_RA's recovery menu or an SD card reader copy the fat32 partition, which includes your bart.sh backup, from your PC to the fat32 partition of your newly partitioned SD card. From the recovery menu, restore your bart.sh backup.
5) Voila. You now have all of your partitions moved to a new SD card.
This process can be simplified into one sentence. Do a bart.sh backup and restore it to the new SD making sure the SD card has the proper partitions and that you don't forget about the fat32 partition. The above is just a list showing the proper order so that you don't lose any data during the process.

Moving installed apps to a new and larger microsd card?

I am running Cynogen Mod 4.1.999.
I have 3 partitions on my stock 1GB microsdhc card.
I want to backup everything and move them to a new microsdhc card that I bought.
Is it possible to transfer the data in all the partitions to the new card without losing my installed apps? I have a friend who only transferred the files that he could see in Windows Explorer to the new microsd card but when he loaded it to his phone, all his apps were gone.
So is it possible to retain what I already have but on a new and larger microsd card?
Help is appreciated.

To move apps off of ext:
adb remount
adb pull system/sd/ %CD%\whateveryouwant
(this pulls everything off of the ext including dalvik which you can delete from the folder and puts it in your user directory. *C:\Users*)
to put back:
adb push %CD%\whateveryouwant /system/sd/
sdcard you just mount and put files into a folder and put them back.
it is not necessary to pull the swap partition.
Hope this helps!

make a ubuntu live cd, run it, mount sd, copy ext partition, put new card in make partitions in gparted since you are there and then copy files over, run fix permissions
simple

The easiest way to do what you're asking is to flash to Amon_RA's latest recovery. He's built-in "Backup and Restore Tool", which essentially does what Nandroid originally did and extended it to the ext partition of your SD card.
Run BART to backup your entire phone from the Recovery Console and you can then replace your SD card, partition it the way you want, and then run BART to restore your entire phone as well.

Copying ext2 from one SD Card to another

Here's what I am looking to accomplish. I wanted a backup sd card just in the event mine goes bad. I ran a search with 'SD Card" in the title and read each thread. Here are my roadblocks.... I installed DiskInternals Linux Reader and although it let me copy the ext3 partition files to my pc, it does not allow me to copy them back to the new card. Partition Manager does not have a 64-bit free version. Installed Ext2 IFS for Windows, however, it refused to see my sd card when mounted. I used RA-dream-v1.5.2 recovery to do a Bart + Ext Backup and verified the ext-backup.tar is on my sd card. I was going to install ADB, however, it doesn't say it works on Windows 7 64-bit. I have already partitioned the new card and have everything copied to the Fat32 partion. How now is the easiest way for me to get the ext-backup.tar untarred to my ext3 partition on the new sd card? Please don't flame me as I have been reading threads since 10 this morning. Thanks for any help!

The best thing I've found for managing the Linux partitions is a GParted Live disc. Just download and burn to a bootable CD. Pop it in and reboot your machine and you're free to do pretty much whatever you want with your SD card partitions without having to worry about Windows getting in the way.

Appreciate it. Gonna try it now. Thank you!

Well, I did as instructed. However, it failed to "Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 57107. Any other way to accomplish what I am looking for?

any possibility that your USB port is flakey? Any way to try it on a differenty machine? I've got one PC that has USB problems and has been known to give similar kinds of error messages.

It seems fine for everything. It's a brand new Dell, only 2 months old. It was kinda freaky when I booted from the cd...lines of text scrolling on my screen for a couple minutes, lol. I was like...this better not be wiping my pc out Then at the end it just died on that error... The one thing I notice in reading threads...people keep giving console commands to do things on the phone using adb, however, I tried and it says adb isn't found... Here is an example. I can't believe there isn't an easy way to do this with so many folks rooted, etc.
----------------------------
best thing to do is this while in recovery, use adb and type
Code:
adb shell mount /system/sd/
adb pull /system/sd/ system_sd_backup
turn off phone, change sd card, go back into recovery, then
Code:
adb shell mount /system/sd/
adb push system_sd_backup /system/sd/

ok so I have copied an EXT from one card to another and this is how you do it. You need to be using RA recovery. Go into your console from recovery and type "bart -e -s EXT" that will create a back up of your EXT in a folder called "bart" on the fat32 partition of your SD card. Plug your phone into your PC and copy the bart folder to the PC. Now take the SD card out of your phone and put in the one that you want to restore the EXT to in. Copy the bart folder from your PC to your new cards fat32 partition. Make sure you partition the new card so that it has an EXT partition on it and then go into the recovery console and type "bart -e -r" it will ask you to select which back up to restore. Input the number for the back up that says "EXT" and restore it.

Joe333x said:
ok so I have copied an EXT from one card to another and this is how you do it. You need to be using RA recovery. Go into your console from recovery and type "bart -e -s EXT" that will create a back up of your EXT in a folder called "bart" on the fat32 partition of your SD card. Plug your phone into your PC and copy the bart folder to the PC. Now take the SD card out of your phone and put in the one that you want to restore the EXT to in. Copy the bart folder from your PC to your new cards fat32 partition. Make sure you partition the new card so that it has an EXT partition on it and then go into the recovery console and type "bart -e -r" it will ask you to select which back up to restore. Input the number for the back up that says "EXT" and restore it.
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Worked flawlesly! Your help coupled with a PM I received from 'shadowch31' made this seamless. Thanks so much!

I tried to run the BART backup via console, but I keep getting an error message as following:
Storing app data...
tar: empty archive
Error occurred during storing of app data...
tar operation failed.
Do you have enough space on the /sdcard?
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Click to collapse
I have about 4 times more free space on the SD card then my ext-4 partition is. What could be the problem?

[Q] Swap Area / EXT2 partitions - Help needed.

Hello, I'm hoping someone can answer a few questions I have regarding the format of the SD Card for the Android system. - Apologies if this has already been explained on this forum, I did a search but didn't find anything too useful that answered my questions.
(I have knowledge of the linux file-system and swap drives, just unsure of the benifits of this for android).
Currently using a 16GB SanDisk Class4 SD Card.
I'm aware that you can format the SD Card to use as a swap-drive and for use of ext2 file-system.
While searching for info on this I found the following xda link which simply explains how to do this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/SD_card_partitioning
My questions are:
1. What are the benifits of having the ext2 file-system? (Would apps stored on SD Card run faster etc?)
2. Do I need to keep a FAT32 partition (as opposed to just having a swap and ext2 partitions without any FAT partition).
3. Does the swap drive greatly improve performance. And is this worth doing on a Class4 SD Card?
Thanks in advance!

Hi.
at the first I must say swat will decrease SD card life.
i recommond you to create EXT3 or EXT4 partition.
1)one of the benefit of EXT partition is your phone storage will not full and its help your phone performance.
2)yes.of course you should have fat32 partition for eg:music-movies...and other files.
3)yes.swap is a very good.and it helps your phone ram.eg:when you play plants vs zombie at the first screen game will exit because of ram and swap will use like ram and its good for gaming.

Thanks for the reply, much apprecaited.
Are you sure I need a FAT32 partition though? Videos, music etc etc can all be saved to ext2/3/4 on a linux OS so I just assumed I could just do away with FAT32 all together?
Is the following just not the same as using an App2SD app?
"1)one of the benefit of EXT partition is your phone storage will not full and its help your phone performance."
Sorry for being a bit fussy but I'd like to fully understand what the Ext/2/3/4 partition is actually used for. Is it just used purely for storage?
Thanks again!

In a short summary (and assuming you are using a Kernel and ROM supporting the features) ...
- "Swap" on a swap partition has its own own "filesystem". The data structures are actually created by "mkswap" and the partition is not directly accessible by the user. If your phone runs low on physical memory unused parts of the memory will be swapped out into the virtual memory to make room for other apps.
Note that this is no "magically increase your RAM" solution. Once swapping occurs it actually slows down the system as the swapped out memory regions need to be copied back into physical memory, sooner or later. It may only help to run "RAM hungry" applications.
- "SD-Ext" is a, most likely, ext2 formatted partition to where Apps you move to the SD (either by Android or App2SD) will go. This increases the amount of apps you can possibly install, but doesn't resolve the problem that apps having widgets or apps that are started during Android boot-up need to reside in the internal phone memory.
- The /sdcard partition where all your user data is being stored should be kept FAT32 (for the simple reason of making a backup of your data by slapping the card into card reader easier - Windows can't read Linux filesystems by default). Some ROMs will allow you to format /sdcard ext3 or ext4 ... the advantage is that ext3/4 (if the mount options are correctly set) may perform a lot better than FAT32, though your mileage may vary.
Roger? ...or do is something still unclear?

Many thanks B.Jay - I'll hit the thanks button after I post this reply! You cleared up all my questions, but just going back to the FAT32 partition;
I use linux as my main OS, so accessing the EXT format partition wouldn't be a problem; Do you know if all ROMs would work without a FAT32 partition and replace it with EXT2/3/4 partition? If you're unsure I can always find out by formatting and loading a rom.
Thanks again, you've been most helpful!

Agenty1609 said:
going back to the FAT32 partition;
I use linux as my main OS, so accessing the EXT format partition wouldn't be a problem; Do you know if all ROMs would work without a FAT32 partition and replace it with EXT2/3/4 partition? If you're unsure I can always find out by formatting and loading a rom.
Thanks again, you've been most helpful!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Linux would, of course, be able to mount a ext partition (even on a SD card put into a card reader).
As for the ROM ... it depends.
The Stock Kernel Modules AddOn of GingerDX introduces ext3 and ext4 modules for the SEMC Stock Kernel, so in theory (I didn't test it!) you should be able to access /sdcard when being formatted ext3/4 - though it could be that you might need to adjust the vold script to properly mount the partition. The modules are mainly for supporting the sd-ext partition for "Apps-to-ext3/4-partition-on-mSD".
There's also alfsamsung's Alfs Kernel which is compatible with GingerDX and some other ROMs. That would be something you could try as well.
Simply look through the ROM threads ... I think MiniCM7 (+nAa's Kernel) should be able to support it, though this could involve some tinkering.
Personally speaking, I only have a ~2GB sd-ext on the SD in my X8 and the rest is a normal FAT32 partition (/sdcard).

yes you need a FAT32 partition.
when you partition your SD card you can move moveable app and games to ext partition.
please dont move app wich they cant move to ext partition.
cause after restart app that you moved to ext will corrupted.
good luck.

Thanks again! I think I'll follow your trend and try the 2GB SD-ext and the rest FAT32.

sd-ext missing!!
hey guys!! I've a small prob, would appreciate some tips. I normally move apps to sd card, if the app is movable by default. if the app is not movable by default, i use this app2sd by droidsail (available in the market) which force moves parts of the app 2 sd card. When I make back ups using xrecovery, i have no problem.
but when I use cwm for back ups, it gives an error saying sd-ext not found and it skips that part of the back up!! so any app I've moved by default or forced moved to sd card doesn't get backed up!! So I presume I have to create a sd-ext partition manually? How do I do it? I do have an sd-ext folder. but its not in sd card. it's in the root. (never had this prob with xrecovery though)
thanks in advance!!

neo_na said:
hey guys!! I've a small prob, would appreciate some tips. I normally move apps to sd card, if the app is movable by default. if the app is not movable by default, i use this app2sd by droidsail (available in the market) which force moves parts of the app 2 sd card. When I make back ups using xrecovery, i have no problem.
but when I use cwm for back ups, it gives an error saying sd-ext not found and it skips that part of the back up!! so any app I've moved by default or forced moved to sd card doesn't get backed up!! So I presume I have to create a sd-ext partition manually? How do I do it? I do have an sd-ext folder. but its not in sd card. it's in the root. (never had this prob with xrecovery though)
thanks in advance!!
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Which version of CWM would that be?

Saipro said:
Which version of CWM would that be?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's cwm 4.0.1.5

[Q] Split memory card to store apps

Guyz,
Seriously bugged with this low internal memory. pls tell me step by step method how to partition my memory card to two n store apps.
I had previously read a thread from XDA developer only and followed steps which made my SD card damaged.
What i did was
1. Backed up SD card contents to PC
2. Downloaded link2sd app to phone.
3. Downloaded root file to phone.
4. Removed SD card and using mini tool s/w made 2nd partition and made it primary and other as logical (Partition was created using FAT32 - 4gb card)
5. Inserted SD card back to phone to copy roof file and link apps to SD card using linktoSD app. But 1ce i inserted SD card it showed memory card crashed.
So pls tell me detailed steps to make it possible. pls pls.. will be a big help.
ADMIN pls help me out by directing to detailed steps.
Regards
Arun

Arun, do the following:
Using Mini tool
Partition 1 will be FAT32 as Primary (For storing your media files)
Partition 2 will be ext3 as Primary (For storing your apps)
Remember, Both partition will be PRIMARY. (None of them will be Logical)
Additional note: Use a card reader, don't go for USB mount.
That should be it.
Q: May I know which ROM are you using with Link2SD?

Use CWM recovery to partition sd card.
Sent from my GT-S5830

Use any partition tools other than the windows native one, basically any that can format your second partition to ext3 or ext 4. Fat32 actually works but not recommended. You should plug in your SD card directly into the computer either by using a card reader or a SD card slot. That will then allow you to partition correctly.
There should be 2 partitions, both primary partitions, make sure that you backup your data before doing any partitioning. Windows will only recognise the first primary partition and mount it. So preferably you should have your data partition in front, and the second partition for your applications. The size of your second partition should be around 512mb.
Once you are done, reboot your phone and launch Link2SD, it should prompt you to ask for the filesystem of your second partition, select accordingly. Then it will begin mounting the scripts, followed by requesting to reboot. After a reboot, open up Link2SD and check the memory status, you should have additional sdext listed there.
Start moving your apps by creating link.
Note: make sure that you have rooted your phone correctly