Database Develop

Question - migrating memory cards

I'm currently using a 2GB MicroSD card with an apps2SD partition (Ext2) and a storage partition (FAT32)
I have a 4GB card that I'd like to move everything to. I could surely partition it the same way I did my 2GB card, but then it would be a blank, partitioned card. What's a good way to get all my apps and such moved over, as I'm running windows (which won't read the Ext2 partition)
Would Norton Ghost do it?

no try Ext2IFS_1_11a
can't remember where it is: if it doesnt work DL linux and boot into it from disc (no need to install) and copy onto disc from there...

Use linux.
plug in uSD card, do NOT mount. If it automounts, UNMOUNT it. Check device name "tail dmesg".
If device name is for example, sdb, then copy contents to hard disk;
"dd if=/dev/sdb of=~/sdbackup" -- this will create a file in your home directory called "sdbackup".
pull card, insert new card. If it mounts, unmount it. Again check device path.
"dd if=~/sdbackup of=/dev/sdb"
Now pull card, the data on the new card mirrors the old card. Plug back in. Note: we pull and then reinsert to make sure that the kernel reloads the partition table. There are other ways of forcing this, but this is the easiest and most fool-proof.
You have unpartitioned free space at the end of the card.
Use a combination of "parted" and "resize2fs" to resize/move partitions, or just use gparted to handle these operations graphically.
jook11 said:
I'm currently using a 2GB MicroSD card with an apps2SD partition (Ext2) and a storage partition (FAT32)
I have a 4GB card that I'd like to move everything to. I could surely partition it the same way I did my 2GB card, but then it would be a blank, partitioned card. What's a good way to get all my apps and such moved over, as I'm running windows (which won't read the Ext2 partition)
Would Norton Ghost do it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Thanks for your help.
lbcoder said:
Use linux.
plug in uSD card, do NOT mount. If it automounts, UNMOUNT it. Check device name "tail dmesg".
If device name is for example, sdb, then copy contents to hard disk;
"dd if=/dev/sdb of=~/sdbackup" -- this will create a file in your home directory called "sdbackup".
pull card, insert new card. If it mounts, unmount it. Again check device path.
"dd if=~/sdbackup of=/dev/sdb"
Now pull card, the data on the new card mirrors the old card. Plug back in. Note: we pull and then reinsert to make sure that the kernel reloads the partition table. There are other ways of forcing this, but this is the easiest and most fool-proof.
You have unpartitioned free space at the end of the card.
Use a combination of "parted" and "resize2fs" to resize/move partitions, or just use gparted to handle these operations graphically.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are these directions explicit/comprehensive? Will I need to partition first? I don't know very much at all about linux, but I've got an ubuntu cd downloading. I've poked at it a little before - I can at least get a terminal and follow your directions, if this is all there is to it.
edit
I'm trying copying things manually in ubuntu's file.. explorer.. thingy. Then I'll partition the new memory stick with gparted and copy the files there.
This seems more natural to me, since I'm not familiar with command-line operations much anyway. Personally, I don't see why it won't work.
edit again:
I don't have permission to copy the folders "app" "app-private" or "dalvik-cache"
How can I do this?
edit edit again
google found me a "sudo nautilus" command which seems to open a file browser window with more permissions. I still can't actually copy the folders I mentioned before, but I recreated them in my backup location and I can copy the contents. Maybe this will take care of it.
update:
nope, that worked for "app" and some (but not all) of "dalvik-cache" but not "app-private"
How do I gain permission to copy it?
I'm willing to go back to the terminal, but I get an error on the tail command. There's nothing found, or somesuch. Sorry, I meant to copy the message exactly but I forgot before I rebooted the computer I was doing it with.

Can anybody help me out a little more with this?

The error I get right off the bat is "tail: cannot open 'dmesg' for reading: no such file or directory"
The only access to linux I have is an ubuntu live CD
Code:
To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".
See "man sudo_root" for details.
[email protected]:~$ tail dmesg
tail:cannot open `dmesg' for reading: No such file or directory
[email protected]:~$ _

MontAlbert said:
no try Ext2IFS_1_11a
can't remember where it is: if it doesnt work DL linux and boot into it from disc (no need to install) and copy onto disc from there...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do I make use of this? It sounds like it should make Ext2 partitions appear in Windows Explorer just like anything else...
I installed it, but the Ext2 partition still doesn't show when I plug in the SD card. Do I need to do something particular?
I have rebooted.

Can anyone please give me more information on this, please? I've been poking at it different ways and still can't get it to work. Who knows something I don't?

jook11 said:
Can anyone please give me more information on this, please? I've been poking at it different ways and still can't get it to work. Who knows something I don't?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Code:
dmesg | tail
All the information to do this has been stated in this thread by now.

SOLVED Backup EXT3 Partition

I've got a new 8GB card, and I want to transfer my stuff from my 2GB card.
so they way I see it I have to:
1: backup rom using cyanogens recovery
2: backup backup onto computer
3: backup data using mybackup
4: backup this backup onto computer!
5: SDparted the sd card, (do I need to create a swap? if so how much?)
6: transfer the apps partition to the new partition using adb or terminal, (do I just use this?
To backup your sd partition:
Code:
tar -cvvzf /sdcard/systemsdbackup.tar.gz /system/sd/
and then take the file off your sdcard and copy it to your new one.
To restore your sd partition:
Code:
tar -xvvzf /sdcard/systemsdbackup.tar.gz -C /system/sd/
Or you could just adp pull system/sd \computerdirectory
then cd to computerdirectory and adb push it to system/sd again.
7: then run the permissions thing
8: install rom
9: install the backups
am I missing anything?
cheers

im having real trouble with this guys!
i formatted the sd card, parted it, put all the stuff that was on the 2GB card on the newly partitioned 8GB, but i still cant get the ext3 partition backed up.
i cant seem to use terminal i just get adb:not found
can someone give me the terminal commands please!
thanks

do u have ubuntu if u do u can just copy everything off of ur old ext3 then paste to the new one

no im using windows vista.
I got it to work in the end but it didnt copy all of my apps!

Well that stinks
Doesn't ubuntu sound like an ethnic dish?
It's yummicous and is key to getting your computer's daily value of essential vitiams and minerials
Or.........
A ubuntu a day keeps the windows viruses at bay
Just a thought

Im really strugling here!
i've backed up my ext3 partition using adb.
i'm putting this ext3 partition on my new card, but its seems to be stalling when getting to the dalvik cache, its not doing anything after this.
also when I restarted my phone (thinking it might have finished) i get FC's on some of my apps.
i ran the fix_permissions script but it doesnt seem to be helping.
any ideas??

Put back in old card, appmanager or backup for root users, backup the apks
Put in new card, clean off your ext3 and reinstall apks using either of the before
mention apks

thanks man!
all sorted!

i like it when people say that there problem is solved. It makes you feel all warm and tingily inside, opps wait. nevermind i just have to pee

gridlock32404 said:
Well that stinks
Doesn't ubuntu sound like an ethnic dish?
It's yummicous and is key to getting your computer's daily value of essential vitiams and minerials
Or.........
A ubuntu a day keeps the windows viruses at bay
Just a thought
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol both r very true. i had it on my pc b4 it died becuase of lame as windows. a soon as i buy a new laptop, netbook, or pc guess what will be my os of choice

Hey I am in the same boat, windows chewed up my power supply so it was already messed up before I put on ubuntu. Now I am burned out so my choice of os is gonna be the same as yours

Make back up of froyo sd card?

Any way to transfer Froyo from one SD card to another?
I would like to move it to a larger card but on my mac only 2 partitions mount but would love to put it on different device
Can this be done with adb?
is there a tool?

For windows you can use Win32DiskImager. You just select the letter of the drive containing the sd card (must be on an sd reader, not nook itself).
For linux you can use the command dd. You just have to do:
dd if=/dev/sd"letter of mount point here" of=/home/User/Desktop/SD_Backup.img
(to check for the letter you can use gparted, it can be gotten from the synaptic package manager if running ubuntu)
As for Mac, i have no clue. That being said you can easily download an Ubuntu live cd and use that to back it up

MattJ951 said:
For windows you can use Win32DiskImager. You just select the letter of the drive containing the sd card (must be on an sd reader, not nook itself).
For linux you can use the command dd. You just have to do:
dd if=/dev/sd"letter of mount point here" of=/home/User/Desktop/SD_Backup.img
(to check for the letter you can use gparted, it can be gotten from the synaptic package manager if running ubuntu)
As for Mac, i have no clue. That being said you can easily download an Ubuntu live cd and use that to back it up
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do I know the mount points? Can I just make one. Img file that will expand to the 4partitions?
From 1.1 Nook Color with 1.1 ghz overclock

Load up gParted once in ubuntu, in the top right it will have an arrow pointing down that lets you switch physical Hardrives (or in our case an SD card). Unless you have multiple HDD that are 2GB or 4GB (whatever size your SD card is) it should be easy to be able to find which one is the SD card. It will be /dev/sdX where x is the letter its mounted under.
Once you get that letter open up a terminal and type
dd if=/dev/sdX of=/home/"You User Name Here, exclude quotes"/Desktop/Backup.img
again, where X is the mount letter
Once it's done it you will have all 4 partitions backed up into one img file, so once you wish to restore it you just type
dd if=/home/"You User Name Here, exclude quotes"/Desktop/Backup.img of=/dev/sdX
(and again, X being the mount letter)
If you just wanted to say backup your /system partition you would do
dd if=/dev/sdX2 of=/home/"You User Name Here, exclude quotes"/Desktop/Backup.img
no number = backs up entire card
1 = backs up boot
2 = backs up system
3 = backs up data
4 = backs up media (stuff that your nook see's as being on the sd card such as what you download from a browser)

Canadoc said:
How do I know the mount points? Can I just make one. Img file that will expand to the 4partitions?
From 1.1 Nook Color with 1.1 ghz overclock
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is there a way to make a working backup (that can be recopied to a different card) without switching out of Windows Vista 32 bit? The backups I made with Win32DiskImager or WinImage don't let the NookColor get any farther than the flashing 'android_' screen at start when I copy them to a different card.

Try packing your boot, system, data and sdcard partitions into a .img file then use winimage/win32 or dd to write the image to a new sd card. (Kinda like making your own custom ROM image.)

RileyGrant said:
Try packing your boot, system, data and sdcard partitions into a .img file then use winimage/win32 or dd to write the image to a new sd card. (Kinda like making your own custom ROM image.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@ RileyGrant - Thanks for the quick reply. I haven't done much coding in years and the Nook is my first attempt at rooting/roms/etc (better to brick a $250 toy than a $500 one...). Anyway, I don't have any problems following instructions - can you point me to somewhere that would explain the above procedure in more detail?
Thanks!

ShadowKatcher said:
Is there a way to make a working backup (that can be recopied to a different card) without switching out of Windows Vista 32 bit? The backups I made with Win32DiskImager or WinImage don't let the NookColor get any farther than the flashing 'android_' screen at start when I copy them to a different card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same problem. I 'm trying to move froyo to a 16GB sdcard but it keeps getting stuck on the "Android_" text. Any advice?

You probably failed to reproduce system permissions while copying files.
An easy way of transfering a working OS from one SD to another would be to:
- Download my USB mass storage utility in dev forum
-Install it
- Mount each partition of your SD to your PC, one at a time.. And do the following for each of them:
- Make tar/zip files of partition content
- Then uncompress the files on each new partition of the new SD..
Don't forget to expand 4th partition for maximum SD capacity...
Sam
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

Worked like a charm! Thanks Sam!

[Q] Format SD card to ext2

I bought new SD card i want to wipe my phone completely and install Darkys Rom. I formated my new SD card to ext2 in Ubuntu but my phone didn't recognize the file system. Then i used Clockwork to format my (external) SD card and what i did i formated my internal SD card. I'm completely failed. Can somebody give me step by step tutorial how to format external SD Card to ext2 or ext4. Also i would like to know if i will be able to copy data under windows when the phone is connected through USB.
Thank you
Sorry for my English

Hi! Please tell me why do you want to format your SD card to ext2 or ext4? There is no need for that. Just format it tu FAT and that's it. If you want to apply lagfix then do it under recovery with the lagfix option under advanced features.
Greets from Croatia.

DanXo said:
Hi! Please tell me why do you want to format your SD card to ext2 or ext4? There is no need for that. Just format it tu FAT and that's it. If you want to apply lagfix then do it under recovery with the lagfix option under advanced features.
Greets from Croatia.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would like to have option to transfer bigger files than 4GB.

+1
how do I format my external SD card to ext2? I have Samsung Captivate. I got Cygwin, since I use Windows. Does anyone know what commands to type in cygwin?
I want to put files larger than 4GB on my card as well.
I think this will be useful for a lot of people.

I found a thread http://android.modaco.com/content/h...an-i-bind-mount-e-g-system-sd-xxx-sdcard-xxx/
But I am a noob in Linux, and it would be GREAT to have step by step commands I would have to type in to format my external SD card, while its in the phone, etc
Possible problem I see is that the phone might not recognize external card if its ext2/3/4 . We might have to have small FAT32 partition on there as well? Or may be Froyo has that ability...

I'm looking into doing this myself, in my case so I can use symlinks to copy apps "data" folders (not the "data" partition, but the folders in /mnt/sdcard where apps put different things) onto the larger, external sdcard. It seems like it could be possible, just need to make sure the /etc/fstab file is updated properly, and of course make sure your kernel has the ext2 and/or ext4 modules loaded and running (which you probably will if you have a lagfix installed). I will play with this and post back my results here...

I have been looking for this myself for a while aswell, but on 4 different kernels and CWM v2.5 and CWM v3.0, I couldn't find any option on how to change the ext. SD to Ext4. If anyone knows how to then please post it here!
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App

So, progress report...
Still no success in this matter, although I have learnt a bit today about Android's internal workings. After backing up my system with CWR, I first tried formatting my ext sd card with gparted on my computer. Bad choice... Even though no config files were stored in it as far as I could tell, Android "panicked" and decided to restore all my configs to default, severely crippling my system and making a lot of apps force close when I restarted the phone.
At that point I thought, since it is now broken, might as well play with it So the next thing I tried was formatting my internal sd card (only the vfat partition that gets mounted in /mnt/sdcard) to ext2, but this time using the "busybox mke2fs" command, on the terminal emulator on the phone. This seemed to be successful, and I could read and write to the new ext2 partition, although for some reason, I got the feeling that apps kept resetting their settings (not sure what caused this, didn't really looked into it much). So once that was up and running, I decided to modify the /etc/fstab file, like I would do in a normal linux environment, to automount this partition on boot, as ext2.
At this point I rebooted the phone, but hmm... Android converted the partition back to vfat. Not good. This leads me to believe there must be some kind of "recovery" commands run on startup, in case the system detects the partition is not the default file system, or something along the lines of that. At this point it got kinda late, so I decided to document my progress, restore (which thankfully left my phone the way it was at the beginning of the day) and call it a day.
So, things that I still need to find out:
1) How does the system convert the partition back to vfat on startup and how could I avoid it from doing it? Maybe by having a small vfat partition to fool it into thinking all is good and normal?
2) When I had my partition as ext2, I couldn't see it on my computer when connected via USB (I'm on a linux system so the fs being ext2 is not a problem). Wonder why...
3) If I had a small vfat partition, how would I go about mounting the ext2 partition on the same mount point after the system checks the vfat one? Maybe by binding it? Gotta look into that as well.
4) Finally, have to check why the apps couldn't maintain their settings after a certain amount of time (for example, if I opened terminal emulator and changed the colors, these would stay if I closed and opened the app again right away, but if I closed it for a while, say half an hour, and opened again, it would be back to default...)
I'm on a Galaxy S btw. If anyone has any insight on any of these matters, would be much appreciated!

Any progress? Would really like to use +4 GB files.

morow said:
I would like to have option to transfer bigger files than 4GB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is immpossible because of hardware limitations of the SD card And often if the file is big it just fail!

Hristov1 said:
It is immpossible because of hardware limitations of the SD card And often if the file is big it just fail!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not true, read the rest of the thread before u post! Its not a hardware limitation, its because Android uses fat32 as filesystem.

hello everyone,
I just wanted to check to make sure that there is no solution for this 4gb limitation with Android yet? I too have been looking for something besides resizing files.
thanks
uki

I have ext2 on my external 32GB SDCard, just formatted it on my PC and put it in the phone, working without any problems. I just watched a full length 720p movie with DTS sound on my phone without having to re-encode the mkv
I'm using CM7.1 on my phone which auto-mounts the SDCard even with ext2. It won't work on stock ROM, but any kernel that has ext2 support should be able to read ext2-formatted cards but they might not auto-mount the sdcard.
On my PC I had to install a ext2 file system driver (google ext2fsd) for Win7 to be able to read the card when attaching the phone to the PC.

Partition SD card on Windows for people who can't be bothered to do it properly ;)

Firstly, BlaY0 has a great tutorial on how to do this properly, I suggest you do that to learn something.
Secondly, I cannot confirm that this is 100% safe. BlaY0's method should be 99% safe, I don't know about this as it is all automatic. BlaY0's method is tried and tested, this is not. I only used this method as I had a new SD card and I was in a hurry (exams coming up ) and I didn't have time to remind myself of BlaY0's method, and CWM only allows you to create up to 512mb partition. Also, I had a new computer, and I don't have time to set up ADB all over again.
Anyway, this is a method for people who don't want to use ADB to partition their SD card for A2EXT or DATA2EXT (a.k.a. apps2sd, etc etc), and are using Windows. If you're running linux, you could use something like gParted to partition it, not sure about OS X though. This method will allow a Windows user to create an EXT partition on their SD card alongside the FAT partition.
1) Download and install Minitool Partition Wizard, from here.
2) Open the program and delete all partitions from the SD card (which you will have inserted into the computer using an adapter or something). DO NOT DELETE THE PARTITIONS FROM THE HARD DISK! MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DELETING. Oh, and make sure the SD card is backed up
3) Create a FAT32 primary partition. You decide how big you want it, but I'd advise you leave 1024mb (1gb) for the EXT partition.
4) Create an EXT2/EXT3/EXT4 (you decide) primary partition. Use up the rest of the space on the SD card.
5) Click assign/OK/whatever and wait for it to complete
6) You now have your partitioned SD card ready for an A2SD ROM!
7) You need to assign a drive letter to the FAT32 partition. Not sure about the EXT partition. At first I forgot to do this and my card didn't show up in Windows, though Partition Magic can still see it.
Like I said, do yourself a favour and use BlaY0's method here, but if you're lazy or you don't have time or ADB doesn't work anymore, use this.

Nice one m8. You mentioned that CWM doesn't offer adding partitions bigger than 512 MB. Well, you're right but that's why I made a customized version of fake-flash that can do bigger... to 1 GB. It can even add second ext partition for some exotic types of data2ext. On top of that I added auto block alignment which is described in my guide (the manual one) so no more calculations and manual labour
Sent from my HTC Legend

BlaY0 said:
Nice one m8. You mentioned that CWM doesn't offer adding partitions bigger than 512 MB. Well, you're right but that's why I made a customized version of fake-flash that can do bigger... to 1 GB. It can even add second ext partition for some exotic types of data2ext. On top of that I added auto block alignment which is described in my guide (the manual one) so no more calculations and manual labour
Sent from my HTC Legend
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, I didn't know about your customized CWM, I think I'll just use that next time

BlaY0 said:
Nice one m8. You mentioned that CWM doesn't offer adding partitions bigger than 512 MB...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I remember some version had the ext menu up to 4GB
BlaY0 said:
On top of that I added auto block alignment which is described in my guide (the manual one) so no more calculations and manual labour
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Didn't know that, good to know, for those of us still using data2ext, this is important...

Wish this was up earlier, spent an hour repartitioning my card using parted.Couldn't upgrade to EXT3 and ended up using CWM 3.0.2.8 to do it instead lol

What CWM is using under the hood for partitioning is actually parted.
Sent from my HTC Legend

Tried it but it didnt work not sure what the problem is...
formatted my SD to FAT 32 and reserved 1G for EXT3 both as primary partition in the Mini Partition Tool
Plugged it in my phone,
Ran ADB shell
# a2sd --enabled, rebooted
on reboot nothing seemed to have changed... went back to ADB shell
tried a2sd --free it says A2Sd is not active ...
a2sd -- enabled again and it says it is enabled but not active
so im guessing it cant read or recognize the EXT3?!
Any clues... i didnt want to move my Dalvik to SD ... should I try EXT4 or even EXT2?

QkSi1ver said:
Tried it but it didnt work not sure what the problem is...
formatted my SD to FAT 32 and reserved 1G for EXT3 both as primary partition in the Mini Partition Tool
Plugged it in my phone,
Ran ADB shell
# a2sd --enabled, rebooted
on reboot nothing seemed to have changed... went back to ADB shell
tried a2sd --free it says A2Sd is not active ...
a2sd -- enabled again and it says it is enabled but not active
so im guessing it cant read or recognize the EXT3?!
Any clues... i didnt want to move my Dalvik to SD ... should I try EXT4 or even EXT2?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Take me through what you did, step by step. You say you reserved 1G for EXT3, but did you actually format it as another partition?

QkSi1ver said:
Any clues... i didnt want to move my Dalvik to SD ... should I try EXT4 or even EXT2?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It has been mentioned here like a gazilion times, boot up your device with logcat and see the first few lines...there is your answer!
Google how to wait for the device with logcat

1) Downloaded and installed Minitool Partition Wizard from your link. I got the free home edition
2) backed up my SD card and Open the program and delete my SD card partition ( which is in a card reader)
3) Created a FAT32 primary partition of 69xx MB and left the rest 1024 MB for the other unallocated space
4) Right click on the Unallocated Space to create an EXT3 as primary partition with the default cluster size.
5) At this point, it showed 2 partition on my SD, one with the drive letter for windows FAT32, and the 2nd one Ext 3 with 1GB and Primary. Clicked OK and Apply and wait for it to complete.
6) once complete , put it in phone, plugged usb and ran adb shell
7) ran a2sd --enable, it said reboot phone.. i made a mistake to reboot by adb the first time but then did the whole process again a 2nd time using reboot from the phone....
Tried logcat using this command "adb -d logcat>mylogfile.txt"
couldnt find the file anywhere ... if i dont redirect to the txt , it goes too fast to read and there's soo much debug messages what do i need to look for?
I thought it would save me time to get it done through windows... but its taking me as much time it w0uld probably get me with the manual way...
i'll give it a try tomorrow...
8) rebooted fine, and i was still low on space.. so went back in adb sheel to check a2sd --free but this is where it says not active..

QkSi1ver said:
1) Downloaded and installed Minitool Partition Wizard from your link. I got the free home edition
2) backed up my SD card and Open the program and delete my SD card partition ( which is in a card reader)
3) Created a FAT32 primary partition of 69xx MB and left the rest 1024 MB for the other unallocated space
4) Right click on the Unallocated Space to create an EXT3 as primary partition with the default cluster size.
5) At this point, it showed 2 partition on my SD, one with the drive letter for windows FAT32, and the 2nd one Ext 3 with 1GB and Primary. Clicked OK and Apply and wait for it to complete.
6) once complete , put it in phone, plugged usb and ran adb shell
7) ran a2sd --enable, it said reboot phone.. i made a mistake to reboot by adb the first time but then did the whole process again a 2nd time using reboot from the phone....
Tried logcat using this command "adb -d logcat>mylogfile.txt"
couldnt find the file anywhere ... if i dont redirect to the txt , it goes too fast to read and there's soo much debug messages what do i need to look for?
I thought it would save me time to get it done through windows... but its taking me as much time it w0uld probably get me with the manual way...
i'll give it a try tomorrow...
8) rebooted fine, and i was still low on space.. so went back in adb sheel to check a2sd --free but this is where it says not active..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tbh I'm really not sure. One thing I forgot to mention in the guide is that you should assign a drive letter to the FAT32 partition or it won't show up in Windows. I didn't assign one to my EXT4 partition though, and DATA2SD is working great for me. Try deleting all partitions from the SD card and start again. It'll only take 10 minutes, and if it still doesn't work just use the manual way.
Sorry.

alexhtclegend said:
Tbh I'm really not sure. One thing I forgot to mention in the guide is that you should assign a drive letter to the FAT32 partition or it won't show up in Windows. I didn't assign one to my EXT4 partition though, and DATA2SD is working great for me. Try deleting all partitions from the SD card and start again. It'll only take 10 minutes, and if it still doesn't work just use the manual way.
Sorry.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah i assigned a drive letter to FAT32...
Also the FAT32 , was my first block allocated partition, the 2nd partition was EXT3... i will redo the whole process and recreate EXT4 instead.
"DATA2SD is working great for me" ... you mean "A2SD working great for me" ... right? unless i'm missing something else that i needed to run..
ps: I recalled, after it was not working, i took out the sd and put it back in the reader to open MiniTool, it showed EXT2 instead of EXT3 ( which i was sure i chose )... and what's weird is it was reporting used space like 41MB... so obvisouly, the ROM wrote something on it...
Formatting it again to EXT3, didnt delete the 41 Used space, but it did convert it back to EXT3 ...probably nothing but mentioning as well

QkSi1ver said:
Yeah i assigned a drive letter to FAT32...
Also the FAT32 , was my first block allocated partition, the 2nd partition was EXT3... i will redo the whole process and recreate EXT4 instead.
"DATA2SD is working great for me" ... you mean "A2SD working great for me" ... right? unless i'm missing something else that i needed to run..
ps: I recalled, after it was not working, i took out the sd and put it back in the reader to open MiniTool, it showed EXT2 instead of EXT3 ( which i was sure i chose )... and what's weird is it was reporting used space like 41MB... so obvisouly, the ROM wrote something on it...
Formatting it again to EXT3, didnt delete the 41 Used space, but it did convert it back to EXT3 ...probably nothing but mentioning as well
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I suggest you start over, something seems to have gone wrong.
A2SD is where the apps are stored on the EXT partition.
DC2SD is where the dalvik cache is also stored on the EXT partition.
DATA2SD is where the entire /data partition on the phone is stored on the EXT partition of the memory card.
Partitioning the SD card with a FAT32 partition and EXT partition is done first, then you decide which one is for you. DATA2SD does have one or two issues, such as the risk of corruption - you'd then have to completely reinstall the ROM. A2SD and DC2SD are fine but I still found myself running out of internal memory.

i gave up and used ROM Manager to create my partition ...i couldnt set it to 1G because 512MB is maximum but it was painless to create.
it asked me to create a swap partition... i've read somewhere that swap partition is useless or barely used in newer android os? do you guys have any swap partition if so how big are they?
Also, did you move Dalvik cache to sd? isnt it slower on SD? i mean shouldnt dalvik cache be on RAM whihc i assume is faster than any external sd?
thanks for your insight

QkSi1ver said:
i gave up and used ROM Manager to create my partition ...i couldnt set it to 1G because 512MB is maximum but it was painless to create.
it asked me to create a swap partition... i've read somewhere that swap partition is useless or barely used in newer android os? do you guys have any swap partition if so how big are they?
Also, did you move Dalvik cache to sd? isnt it slower on SD? i mean shouldnt dalvik cache be on RAM whihc i assume is faster than any external sd?
thanks for your insight
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I used the full DATA2SD, which includes Dalvik2SD.

ok so sorry for a double post but im having an issue partitioning.
32 gb card san disk brand new
primary Fat32 10gb
primary Ext2 rest of space
once mini tool is done it sats successful but shows the sd card as Bad disk?!?
is there somthing im doin wrong? is used this guide here http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/SD_card_partitioning
all help deeply appriciated
Acer Iconia Tab A110 rooted, Cwm, 4.1.2

Can you actually have a 22gb ext partition? This might be something to look into to see if you can do it.
Edit: this got me interested so I searched myself, yes you can but apparently it depends on the chosen block size and hardware limitations, so u may have an issue with either.
Sent from my Legend using xda app-developers app

alexhtclegend said:
Firstly, BlaY0 has a great tutorial on how to do this properly, I suggest you do that to learn something.
Secondly, I cannot confirm that this is 100% safe. BlaY0's method should be 99% safe, I don't know about this as it is all automatic. BlaY0's method is tried and tested, this is not. I only used this method as I had a new SD card and I was in a hurry (exams coming up ) and I didn't have time to remind myself of BlaY0's method, and CWM only allows you to create up to 512mb partition. Also, I had a new computer, and I don't have time to set up ADB all over again.
Anyway, this is a method for people who don't want to use ADB to partition their SD card for A2EXT or DATA2EXT (a.k.a. apps2sd, etc etc), and are using Windows. If you're running linux, you could use something like gParted to partition it, not sure about OS X though. This method will allow a Windows user to create an EXT partition on their SD card alongside the FAT partition.
1) Download and install Minitool Partition Wizard, from here.
2) Open the program and delete all partitions from the SD card (which you will have inserted into the computer using an adapter or something). DO NOT DELETE THE PARTITIONS FROM THE HARD DISK! MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DELETING. Oh, and make sure the SD card is backed up
3) Create a FAT32 primary partition. You decide how big you want it, but I'd advise you leave 1024mb (1gb) for the EXT partition.
4) Create an EXT2/EXT3/EXT4 (you decide) primary partition. Use up the rest of the space on the SD card.
5) Click assign/OK/whatever and wait for it to complete
6) You now have your partitioned SD card ready for an A2SD ROM!
7) You need to assign a drive letter to the FAT32 partition. Not sure about the EXT partition. At first I forgot to do this and my card didn't show up in Windows, though Partition Magic can still see it.
Like I said, do yourself a favour and use BlaY0's method here, but if you're lazy or you don't have time or ADB doesn't work anymore, use this.
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Hahah! Thanks for you detail guide. It is so helpful for me!