I thought I was at least a little savvy about this stuff but I'm feeling a bit noobish. I have a SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 running Cognition 3.04 with the default Cog kernel and modem. This evening I was messing around with Clockworkmod and did the "Partition SD Card" option (512M ext, 32M swap) thinking this was going to partition my external (4 gig) sdcard. Instead, it appears that CWM actually partitioned the internal (16 gig) sdcard. Best I can tell it created a root partition using ext3 or similar fs and then formatted the remainder of the card as vfat. So, this leaves me with two questions?
1. What is the value of this? Obviously I'm not gaining any storage just by splitting up the internal card, and I would assume the downside is this limits the amount of apps I can install to the space on the root partition?
2) What's the easiest way to get back to single partition? I have CWM and TBU backups prior to formatting and run linux on my home desktop.
Thanks.
bump.. anyone?
I believe this is if you wanted to have APPS2SD if your internal ROM is full for apps. This way you could install apps on your internal SD card by fooling the OS into thinking the ext partition on your sd card part of your ROM.
At least this is what formatting the SD card with an ext partition was for on my previous android.
Ive personally never used APPS2SD because it just seemed more trouble if anything but this is an option for those who fill up the 2GB of ROM space that i believe android alots.
Hopefully that helped you out.
Related
Yesterday I upgraded to cyanogen's 4.0.4, it said that i would have to partition my sd card(8gb) to allow the apps2sd to automatically work, a friend of mines recommended Paragon Partition Manager, i installed it, and partition my sd card, to ext 3 format, so i have about 1.3 gb of partitioned sd card and about a little over 6 gigs for music and videos. The cyanogen FAQs said that " 4. How do I set up apps-to-sd?
You need to create a second partition on your SD card in the ext2/ext3/ext4 format. Search the forums if you don't know how to do this. Once created, the ROM will move your apps automatically and new apps will be installed to the SD by default. " but it hasnt freed up any space on my phone, and when i download new apps, it still goes directly to the phone. Am I doing somthing wrong and should i consider reformating the whole sd card, partioning over again and adding a lower amount for apps and a linux swap partion also.
mrhalfdeadman said:
Yesterday I upgraded to cyanogen's 4.0.4, it said that i would have to partition my sd card(8gb) to allow the apps2sd to automatically work, a friend of mines recommended Paragon Partition Manager, i installed it, and partition my sd card, to ext 3 format, so i have about 1.3 gb of partitioned sd card and about a little over 6 gigs for music and videos. The cyanogen FAQs said that " 4. How do I set up apps-to-sd?
You need to create a second partition on your SD card in the ext2/ext3/ext4 format. Search the forums if you don't know how to do this. Once created, the ROM will move your apps automatically and new apps will be installed to the SD by default. " but it hasnt freed up any space on my phone, and when i download new apps, it still goes directly to the phone. Am I doing somthing wrong and should i consider reformating the whole sd card, partioning over again and adding a lower amount for apps and a linux swap partion also.
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You aren't meant to make one bigger than 1.5, yours is very close so it could be the issue.
A good way to check if its working is if space is being used up on the ext3. Go to Setting > SD > secondary partition.
Also try rebooting, you might find that your internal space increases afterwards.
If neither of those work then reformat and make a smaller ext partition. I'm struggling to fill up my 500mb, why anyone would need 1GB+ is beyond me.
also,i am noticing since i have done this partitioning, that if i have my sd card in the phone and reboot, that after the android boot screen, that my phone will go blank, and if i pull the card and battery out and reboot with no card in the phone will do fine.
mrhalfdeadman said:
also,i am noticing since i have done this partitioning, that if i have my sd card in the phone and reboot, that after the android boot screen, that my phone will go blank, and if i pull the card and battery out and reboot with no card in the phone will do fine.
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Hold on. Your phone will only boot properly without the sdcard. You should not remove the card when the phone is on, because it can bork your entire partition.
If I was you I'd wipe the card and start over, adding a smaller ext partition.
ahh shoot, ok then, i just formatted the partion back to fat 32, so you suggest me to just, re partition it in ext 3 and make it smaller to about 500 mb should i also make a linux swap?
and also, although i formatted it back to fat 32, it wont let me merge the files back into 7.3 gigs. or maybe i am not doing it right.
mrhalfdeadman said:
and also, although i formatted it back to fat 32, it wont let me merge the files back into 7.3 gigs. or maybe i am not doing it right.
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Click to collapse
merge files? got no idea what you're talking about.
Just wipe all partitions on the card. Make one ~7GB FAT32, ~500mb ext3 and if you want 32mb linux swap. To be safe wipe your phone and reflash cyanogen mod.
yea well, i dont know what is going on with it, but i have wiped, and rebooted, now and it is still blank after the android boot screen, and the sd card is in it now. i dont know what to say now.
i have the same issue
The problem is the Recovery IMG
Try install this recovery image: RA-dream-v1.2.3 Recovery Image
The make the partitions again from the recovery console
Jesus, man...
I suppose because of lingering paranoia from the days of filling my phone up daily, I've always made an Ext partition around a gig. I've never, ever, ever even filled half of it.
Then again, since I don't usually listen to music on my phone I also Have a nearly 7 gig fat 32 partition that I don't often fill. Honestly, it's probably because I keep losing the damned jack adapter and I haven't seen the earbuds I bought with the jack attached in months.
I have so many 3.5mm headphones around and still, those damned adapters elude me.
having a few issues in this area as well, all is partitioned as reccomended within the recovery console, (~7Gigs'ish fat32 and a 500MB part on ext3...) apps to SD is still blanked out... weird from my POV, as it worked fine until i updated to CyanogenMod 5.0.7 test 5..
Can anyone reccomend a more stable "2.1" based Cyan rom? or is the 5.*.* series the first of its kind to utilize 2.1? sorry for veering off-topic, but i feel my problem may be the newest releas of CM as it IS a test build...
Any words of wisdom would be greaaaaatly appreciated. not new to this stuff, but the apps2sd thing i never bothered with untill now (i do so mu h reformatting and build testing its becoming a pain to re-install all my apps... as i refuse to pay for the MyBackup app lol)
~Dark
Hi,
I was not able to find the reason behind partitioning the sdcard for nexus one.
I have just installed the CM 5.0.6 but I do not know whether I should parition the sd card or not.
Thanks.
You should just partition the SD card if you want apps2sd, or debian.
Why? Because it's formated as a single FAT32 volume by default, basically to store all your stuff (media, pics, data, etc...), but if you want Android to use it (linux, basically) you have to partition it and format your new partition as extX.
Hope it helped.
you don't have to partition. but, it allows you to do things like install apps to your sd card since the n1 doesn't have much available space to begin with.
So I recently got the "almost out of space" notification and I realized that it says that I only have 2.7 gb total for my sd card (4 gb card). I remembered way back when i formatted a ext3 partition to it for apps2sd, but that was when i was running an older version of Fresh. I have since switched to CM6, and as best I can tell its not installing apps to that partition.
Gparted is saying theres only one partition available (2.7 gb), and is calling it unallocated space. Im not really keen on how android uses different partitions, so i had a few questions:
1. Can i backup all files on the card to my comp, format the card, then copy them back without losing any data/ apps?
2. Should i format it all as one partition (and if so what filesystem)?
3. Would formatting the card with a partition for swap benefit me at all?
Great question! I'd like to know too.
cerialphreak said:
So I recently got the "almost out of space" notification and I realized that it says that I only have 2.7 gb total for my sd card (4 gb card). I remembered way back when i formatted a ext3 partition to it for apps2sd, but that was when i was running an older version of Fresh. I have since switched to CM6, and as best I can tell its not installing apps to that partition.
Gparted is saying theres only one partition available (2.7 gb), and is calling it unallocated space. Im not really keen on how android uses different partitions, so i had a few questions:
1. Can i backup all files on the card to my comp, format the card, then copy them back without losing any data/ apps?
2. Should i format it all as one partition (and if so what filesystem)?
3. Would formatting the card with a partition for swap benefit me at all?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you talking about the internal memory is getting low notification in the status bar? If so, that is not your SD, it's internal memory. Check in settings/storage and see what it says. I think the warning comes up if you go below 20-25mb.
Also, CM6-7 roms do not come with a2sd/firerats/data2ext/etc. You would need to do that seperately if you want.
The notification was from the card, and I dunno what its called, but when I check an app in the apps management setting theres an option to move to phone/sd card.
I am gonna state that obviously this is a dumb question. I have flashed the custom froyo but can't figure out how to access the 8gb of internal storage. Can anbody point me in the right direction?
sd card or emmc?
You'll have to resize a partition on the card. I don't know if the windows partitioning tool can handle this, but i would think it would. Gparted on linux is nice for this and comes with basically every linux ever, including the ones that boot off of a cd.
The partition you want to size is probably the last one, and it's probably fat32. It is on HC anyhow. Haven't messed with froyo though so ymmv.
by internal storage i think he meant emmc
it is mounted at /media and you can access it through Astro file manager
what's annoying is that the browser doesn't want to save any files onto it.
sorry guys, it is emmc, i have the sd card partition thing down. looking for info on getting the full 8gb of internal storage available on emmc
i just need to have it available, phone storage says 793 mb available. i just want the whole 8gb to put stuff on
I was looking into this myself awhile ago. Specifically I wanted to reformat the ~5GB /media partition from FAT32 -> ext3 and mount that on /data. Unfortunately I gave up because the mount points are defined in the ROM and they can't be changed without rebuilding the ROM.
But, its still there. Like aijaja said, its in /media. You can use the NookColorUMS utility to mount it to a LUN and access it via USB. Think of it as an "internal SD card" for the time being.
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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Click to collapse
Which version of CWM would that be?
Saipro said:
Which version of CWM would that be?
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Click to collapse
It's cwm 4.0.1.5