Related
These patches add ext4 support for your sdcard (in the Nexus S - the internal card.) There are a number of reasons you might want to do this - performance (ext4 is faster, plus mounting ext4 is basically instantaneous, which is very nice on reboots...no more checking sdcard), it's more efficient, you get a bunch of file system security features (if you care...)
You should not apply them if you don't really know what you are doing. The patches are resonably benign. Converting your sdcard partition to ext4 is NOT NOT NOT benign and you can really hose yourself doing it.
I'm not going into great depth with these instructions. If you don't understand them, play around with building cyanogen, installing it, etc until they are crystal clear.
To swap your sdcard to ext4:
* Apply the patches and rebuild cyanogen. Rebuild it. They will change your recovery image and vold.
* Install vold and flash (and/or boot) the recovery image.
* Boot into recovery, mount your sdcard and back it up to your computer (i.e., not nandroid, copy the files.) Nandroid would be a good idea too.
* Format your media partition to ext4 (the one that is vfat, by-name is media, mine is partition 3) mkfs.ext4 can be found by googling, or you can use make_ext4fs from /system/bin. I used mkfs.ext4.
* You should be able to manually mount that.
* Push your files back.
* sync and reboot.
Et Voila, you should have an ext4 sdcard partition.
THIS IS VERY DANGEROUS.
YOU CAN REALLY HOSE YOURSELF DOING IT.
Here are the patches:
http://review.cyanogenmod.com/#change,1705
This one adds ext4 support to vold, thus allowing gingerbread to mount ext4 partitions for the sdcard (which on the Nexus S, is the 'media' partition.)
and:
http://review.cyanogenmod.com/#change,1716
This is a change to recovery, making it seamlessly mount ext4 partitions for /sdcard.
Code:
# mount
/dev/block/platform/s3c-sdhci.0/by-name/system on /system type ext4 (ro,noatime,barrier=1,data=ordered,noauto_da_alloc)
/dev/block/platform/s3c-sdhci.0/by-name/userdata on /data type ext4 (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,barrier=0,data=ordered)
[b]/dev/block/vold/179:3 on /mnt/sdcard type ext4 (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime,barrier=1,data=ordered,noauto_da_alloc)[/b]
/dev/block/vold/179:3 on /mnt/secure/asec type ext4 (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime,barrier=1,data=ordered,noauto_da_alloc)
tmpfs on /mnt/sdcard/.android_secure type tmpfs (ro,relatime,size=0k,mode=000)
....and if you turn on USB Storage, the sdcard shows up as an ext4 disk...
As expected, but this is going to be one for the Linux geeks.
Wow, it is VERY nice to have that sdcard mount instantly on boot. VERY nice.
oh the read/write speeds
If anyone is interested in playing with this, I submitted the change to cyanogen:
http://review.cyanogenmod.com/#change,1705
The tricky bit is getting the filesystem created. You can use:
/system/bin/make_ext4fs.
That leaves me with a recovery which will not currently mount sdcard as ext4 unless I fiddle with fstab and mount it myself. On to look at that.
...and, here's a patch to the recovery which will let it mount /sdcard as either ext4 or vfat, making this change reasonably seamless.
http://review.cyanogenmod.com/#change,1716
i would love to see a Quadrant or a benchmark after this
this is and awesome hack to use with App 2 SD
it'll be lag less
the only annoyance, is that if you want to MOUNT USB on a Windows PC, then you'll need a software to read EXT4
for anyone interested this will be handy
http://www.ext2fsd.com/?page_id=16
i'll definitely be doing this MOD, as i'll be running anything i can from the Internal SD
So this will only work on CM7?
Please some of the genius here may post a step-by-step tutorial or howto for this one? It will be very apreciated.
No, it will work with any build, but you need to rebuild vold in order to get it to mount. The easiest way to get them outside of the CM tree would be to build cm and then copy the vold out and use that. It should work with any ROM.
The latest versions - which are in CM's gerrit - include modifications to the sdcard utility to use fuse to mount the filesystem using FAT semantics (i.e. - bypass security). Frankly, this is a waste. It slows everything down, noticeably, and app problems are few and easily fixed if you know how to fire off a chmod.
I haven't provided step by step instructions since it can seriously hose your phone if you don't know what you are doing.
DebauchedSloth said:
No, it will work with any build, but you need to rebuild vold in order to get it to mount. The easiest way to get them outside of the CM tree would be to build cm and then copy the vold out and use that. It should work with any ROM.
The latest versions - which are in CM's gerrit - include modifications to the sdcard utility to use fuse to mount the filesystem using FAT semantics (i.e. - bypass security). Frankly, this is a waste. It slows everything down, noticeably, and app problems are few and easily fixed if you know how to fire off a chmod.
I haven't provided step by step instructions since it can seriously hose your phone if you don't know what you are doing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wait so it's a waste? It isn't worth using ?
Anderdroid said:
Wait so it's a waste? It isn't worth using ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If done right this would increase the read/write speeds. For example, your boot up time would be much faster and ext4 is more effecient. So it's not a waste but it has to be done correctly otherwise is could do more damage than good
Using the version I posted to CM gerrit, which bounces the file system through fuse and mimics FAT security, is still better than FAT (IMO), but it's not nearly as fast as just mounting the filesystem as Ext4 - though it is more compatible.
I've been running mine mounted as straight ext4 for a couple of weeks. Probably the single best mod I've made to any of my phones. There are occasional app bits that I need to fix manually (such Dropbox resetting file ownership), but it's worth it for the quicker boot up and faster overall operation.
Here you find the ROM CyanogenMod 7 compiled for Nexus One with ext4 sdcard mount support:
- https://github.com/diegostamigni/nexus/tree/master/one
Is the only reason to pipe it through fuse to get it to mount on m$? If so I'm not going to bother - I only use linux almost exclusively these days
diego.stamigni said:
Here you find the ROM CyanogenMod 7 compiled for Nexus One with ext4 sdcard mount support:
- https://github.com/diegostamigni/nexus/tree/master/one
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No version for Nexus S?
Looking forward to this develpoing, as the ext4 conversion (done via modaco rom beta2 in recoverymode) made a HUGE difference to the galaxy tab i have (halved the loading times of everything). ^^
Unfortunately im far to noob to help out though ...will be keeping a keen eye on it all and learning
Forgive my ignorance, but why don't phones come like this?
NicholasQ said:
Forgive my ignorance, but why don't phones come like this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
window$ more then likely.
window$ can't even see Linux file systems without special drivers installed.
if i mess this up would it brick my phone? i'm really wanting to try this but i don't want to turn my Nexus S into a paperweight
so if we did this, would the windows computer be able to read the mounted sd card? is there any other things that would be needed after this mod? or just format to ext4 and be done with it?
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.
Hello,
I think it would be interesting in the next buid of CM10 implement FUSE.
For those not familiar with FUSE, this makes the EMMC (Internal) and DATA partitions are one.
FUSE is the standard in new android devices like the Galaxy S3.
With this gain in space, since both would have 6.7 GB of user data (photos for example) and for applications.
This would require using a repartitioning and as it should be, we could give more space to the partition and Partition System Cache.
I made a build with FUSE on, and doing great. It should be a standard in CM10 for P990.
A greeting and I apologize for the translation.
no thanks, i really like having my system and sd card separated...
60nine said:
no thanks, i really like having my system and sd card separated...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, SDCARD is the defaul name for internal.
FUSE = (Internal EMMC + DATA)
Without FUSE:
Partition 8 = DATA [1,5GB]
Partition 9 = EMMC [5,3 GB]
With FUSE only have:
Partition 8 = USERDATA [6,8 GB]
The user can see 6,8 GB in Internal SD
Sounds good but will it work,
If you want the CM team to pick it up you will have to talk with them directly.
Good luck
Sent from my LG-P990 using xda app-developers app
Tamps said:
Sounds good but will it work,
If you want the CM team to pick it up you will have to talk with them directly.
Good luck
Sent from my LG-P990 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Only change two files, and they here in the p990 repo.
Other solution is clone a p990, change two files and create a p990-fuse repo.
why would i fuse those two partitions? they are fine like they are now.
if i want to format the internal storage without affecting apps data i can while i'm using the actual partitions set, i cannot with the new mixed one.
this fuse leads what advantages?
pidocchio said:
why would i fuse those two partitions? they are fine like they are now.
if i want to format the internal storage without affecting apps data i can while i'm using the actual partitions set, i cannot with the new mixed one.
this fuse leads what advantages?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
- You can format only DATA, and can format only EMMC too with FUSE with CWM.
- When you use a file manager, you see the same that without FUSE but you have 6,7GB.
- You can install 6,7 GB of APP.
- FUSE is ANDROID standard. All new Android devices use FUSE.
sounds great. make a flashable zip, we'll start using it
Sure
I'd give it a try i have a device i can use for testing
Ok,
I'll upload a zip with NVFlash and partitions.
Anyone can upload misc and lgdrm partitions?
Open Terminal
su
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p3 of=/storage/sdcard0/misc.img
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p6 of=/storage/sdcard0/lgdrm.img
After doing this, in the internal memory of the device, there should be two new files: lgdrm.img and misc.img.
Screenshot:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/90/screenshot2012110410465.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/12/screenshot2012110410462.png/
ProgMaq said:
Ok,
I'll upload a zip with NVFlash and partitions.
Anyone can upload misc and lgdrm partitions?
Open Terminal
su
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p3 of=/storage/sdcard0/misc.img
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p6 of=/storage/sdcard0/lgdrm.img
After doing this, in the internal memory of the device, there should be two new files: lgdrm.img and misc.img.
Screenshot:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/90/screenshot2012110410465.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/12/screenshot2012110410462.png/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
misc.img: http://www.mediafire.com/?ik7gq8ddxxx0ujz
lgdrm.img: http://www.mediafire.com/?mf6oe0mio7xh9g9
I hope they are useful
Very thanks Chuck Bartowski
But your lgdrm.img is empty when mount.
This occurs when you have used nVFlash, not a problem, but I would like the original partition lgdrm compare with mine.
Anyone can upload original misc and lgdrm.
Thanks.
What about usb storage(internal storage) mounting after FUSING ?
Will it work as before ?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
ProgMaq said:
Very thanks Chuck Bartowski
But your lgdrm.img is empty when mount.
This occurs when you have used nVFlash, not a problem, but I would like the original partition lgdrm compare with mine.
Anyone can upload original misc and lgdrm.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, sorry, I didn't know.
I have reflash 10b with NVflash ( stock partition ), ROOT and Recovery, and I have flash cm10.
misc.img: http://www.mediafire.com/?1n0pmdbembdeorr
lgdrm.img: http://www.mediafire.com/?dan8jpucxjdw4ok
Chuck Bartowski said:
Ok, sorry, I didn't know.
I have reflash 10b with NVflash ( stock partition ), ROOT and Recovery, and I have flash cm10.
misc.img: http://www.mediafire.com/?1n0pmdbembdeorr
lgdrm.img: http://www.mediafire.com/?dan8jpucxjdw4ok
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks again, but even installing the stock version, the misc partition lgdrm and do not return to be the same (missing files)
What about usb storage(internal storage) mounting after FUSING ?
Will it work as before ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Working same
Good news, I have uploaded the file. Zip
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=33671985
Take a look at this link
teamw.in/DataMedia
So i think we might loose usb mounting on pc
Sent from my LG-P990 using xda app-developers app
ProgMaq said:
Sorry, SDCARD is the defaul name for internal.
FUSE = (Internal EMMC + DATA)
Without FUSE:
Partition 8 = DATA [1,5GB]
Partition 9 = EMMC [5,3 GB]
With FUSE only have:
Partition 8 = USERDATA [6,8 GB]
The user can see 6,8 GB in Internal SD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
and still - i like it as it is
i still have 2 partitions with 6,8 GB total - but i can keep things more organized with 2 partitions than with one...
for me it's just like having 2+ PC harddrives - one only for the system, and other disks for the other files...
how do I flsh this to files with nvflash?
instead of fuse of internal memory(1.5gb) n internal sd(5.5gb).....
can i have fuse of internal sd(5.5gb) n external sd(i have 16gb) so that i can get...
external sd---21.5gb....
imo 1.5gb is enough for app data but 5.5gb is not enough for sd data files(nova 3 almost 2gb)
i hav mounted my externalsd as internalsd so that sd data files are saved in ext but 16gb not enough(game addict)...
hope u can help..thanks
ullekh99 said:
instead of fuse of internal memory(1.5gb) n internal sd(5.5gb).....
can i have fuse of internal sd(5.5gb) n external sd(i have 16gb) so that i can get...
external sd---21.5gb....
imo 1.5gb is enough for app data but 5.5gb is not enough for sd data files(nova 3 almost 2gb)
i hav mounted my externalsd as internalsd so that sd data files are saved in ext but 16gb not enough(game addict)...
hope u can help..thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like it ,interesting thought
But what will hapn when sd ejected and phone restarted
Sent from my LG-P990 using xda app-developers app
Hello,
I re-open this thread because I have new information about the compatibility of N.E.A.K. kernel with my card formatted in exFAT.
N.E.A.K. Kernel don't support this file system!!! That's the reason why my card doesn't work with...
I restart to "0" because I think the alone solution is to use EXT4 with auto-mount at boot.
@ scote (or other):
Can I use your manual mount cmd on init.d or other way?
Hello,
With n7100 international + Omega v10 (Android 4.1.2 based) + N.E.A.K. kernel v1.4x
With various µSD card (but especially with my new Sandisk UHS 64Go) I would know how to use ext4 filesystem.
After computer formatting in ext4 the card can't be really usable by phone:
- Storage menu don't see him.
- Recovery can't do anything with (mount / format)
- Some apps can see him. (like empty 64GB / or 0Gb card capacity !)
- ES Files explorer work with but by the /mnt/extsd/card directory and if no SD card in slot work to !!!
thus I expect doesn't work really
If you have any information about what work, can or can't work, or anything about filesystems, software...
Thank you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had the same thing happen. I plugged it not my computers sd card reader and the computer acted as if nothing was there. I tried to force a format through DOS but it failed. Ultimately I had to buy a new MicroSD card.... Now it works.
Update: Card doesn't work with my reader/computer
What file system are you using?
Why not just use exFat? It useable on Note 2 and readable by Windows. Just make sure to use the latest TWRP for system bqckup
Re: SD Card file system usable by OS apps
You can mount ext4 file system manually if you are rooted, from a terminal or adb shell
mount -t ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 <some directory>
substitute <some directory> with the path without the <> I used /sdcard/mnt
of course if you wont be able to read the card with windows pcs
I think there might be an app to do this for you, usb mounter
Android won't mount ext4 by default.
Also, windows can't mount ext4 drives but you can use something like minitool partition wizard to reformat it to ExFAT or NTFS if you're on samsung ROMs, or Fat32 if you're using CM/AOSP ROMs.
Pongster said he'd be making a test kernel to see if he can get ext4 to auto-mount in the HyperDroid JBX thread, but that's not released yet.
You aren't using TWRP 2.4.0.0 or 2.4.0.1 by chance?
!!! Sorry, XDA doesn't mail me for new answer.
Thanks your help men
Why not just use exFat? It useable on Note 2 and readable by Windows. Just make sure to use the latest TWRP for system bqckup
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't like Microsoft. If I have a Linux device like Android N7100 I want to use it the more possible with Linux environment.
I useCWM Touch v6.0.1.4-jb moded by Xiaolu. Good?
You can mount ext4 file system manually if you are rooted, from a terminal or adb shell
mount -t ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 <some directory>
substitute <some directory> with the path without the <> I used /sdcard/mnt
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thus can't be used like a FAT SD Card? By Samy explorer and others softs? Can't be see by system like an external card, not possible to manage it very good (capacities disponnible by exemple) ?
You aren't using TWRP 2.4.0.0 or 2.4.0.1 by chance?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No; why?
Re: SD Card file system usable by OS apps
Once its mounted any explorer or app dont care or know what the filesystem is
Yes, but can I will see the SD like a "normal" FAT formatted card?
I want to say, in menu/storage like a external SD?
If the card like this, have all the same functionality of FAT card, can you help to auto-mount at boot?
My card is actually broken: phone or PC won't see anything when connected
'll try with a new 64GB in few hours.
Re: SD Card file system usable by OS apps
StreamingMT said:
!!! Sorry, XDA doesn't mail me for new answer.
I don't like Microsoft. If I have a Linux device like Android N7100 I want to use it the more possible with Linux environment.
I useCWM Touch v6.0.1.4-jb moded
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't see how it related. Both fat and exfat are MS. And exFat is the only option works across Note 2 Android, TWRP,Windows, and can be mounted as thumb drive (with the benefit working with > 4gb files). It's up to you if you want to get yourself into troubles by using other format.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using XDA Premium App
jackleung
I like more ext4, but apparently this is a little bit difficult to do what I want (And I think it's what broke my firts SD). Thus I'll use extFAT for my new one.
That's work perferctly! Just funny to see my new card in packging pre-formatted in extFAT...
All is good for me now, thanks you every body for your help ;p
Hello,
I re-open this thread because I have new information about the compatibility of N.E.A.K. kernel with my card formatted in exFAT.
N.E.A.K. Kernel don't support this file system!!! That's the reason why my card doesn't work with...
I restart to "0" because I think the alone solution is to use EXT4 with auto-mount at boot.
@ scote (or other):
Can I use your manual mount cmd on init.d or other way?
Hello folks. Before going further I need to apologize. I really fighted to use Link2SD on my Galaxy tablet and I succeeded more or less. I thought that my tentative could be useful to others. So I posted this topic.
I worked a little more, and now I am convinced that I was wrong from the beginning.
The reality is that Apps2SD and Link2SD are obsolete utilities.
Forget creating a second volume on your external SD Card :
- Android/Samsung declare your SD Card as corrupted and always wants to reformat it.
- TWRP mounts the wrong partition and you have to manually unmout it and remount the good one
- The partitions need to be declared with a wrong type and this is really not clean
etc...
I suggest that you do not loose your time, forget Link2SD, and read this excellent topic:
https://www.xda-developers.com/divi...gles-fuse-replacement-will-reduce-io-overhead
My Galaxy tab A has only 11 Go available for the user. I bought a 128 Go external SD card to extend both /storage/emulated/0 and /data.
When you first install your SD Card, Android automatically mount this card as /storage/xxxx-xxxx.
This is a FAT volume extended on all your SD Card (128 GB for me).
This is fine for storing ebooks, music, video, and your backups.
But impossible for Link2SD to move your apps on this volume and put a symbolic link on the previous location, because FAT is not a UNIX file system. Link2SD (or Apps2SD) needs a second disk volume on partition 2 (/dev/block/mmcblk1p2) formatted with a UNIX file system (ext4 is fine).
Of course you need to have rooted your device. [A non rooted tablet is not better than a vulgar iPhone ]
To re-partition my SD Card I used ROEHSOFT PARTITION TOOL (SD-USB). (I tried unsuccessfully Aparted, it crashed every time I launch it). ROEHSOFT is convenient but tricky to be used by an advanced user :
- You cannot create a partition in a specific slot (for example /dev/block/mmcblk1p2): It automatically use first slot for the first partition you create, the second slot for the following partition, and so on.
- If you try to foul it, deleting a partition and recreating it in another empty space, it suddenly decides to reorganize your 4 slots. It really wants /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 to be the first partition on your SD Card, /dev/block/mmcblk1p2 the following, etc...
- You cannot create a partition at a specific offset inside an empty space.
After fighting with ROEHSOFT I finally won. I discovered too late that "fdisk" is part of BusyBox. If you know "fdisk" my advice is to use it instead of fighting with a software which pretends to be user friendly but is too limited.
OK, stop bla-bla and work.
1 - Dismount your SD Card : Parameters/Device Maintenance/Storage/Menu-Storage Parameter/Dismount
2 - Delete the only one partition
3 - For a misterious reason, my Android was not happy with his FAT volume on /dev/block/mmcblk1p1. Link2SD wants his UNIX volume on /dev/block/mmcblk1p2. So, if you use ROEHSOFT you need now to create a small dummy partition on /dev/block/mmcblk1p1. For me I created a 4 Go partition to be used by Linux Deploy. This partition needs to be declared as FAT32 (LBA) but should not be formatted as a FAT file system. EXT4 is a good choice.
4 - Create the second partition for Link2SD. I suggest not too much space for it, because you probably want a huge space for the third partion. This partition needs to be declared as FAT32 (LBA) but should be formatted with a UNIX file system. EXT4 is a good choice.
5 - Create the third partition to be used as SD extension for Android. This partition should be very large : you will store on it your music, your movies, your ebooks, and above all your backups. This partition needs to be declared as FAT32 (LBA). I formatted this partition as a EXFAT file system.
6 - Reboot. If you are lucky you will get two notifications : one saying that you have a corrupted memory card, and one saying that you are ready for media files. You will get those two notifications at each reboot.
8 - Recreate mounting scripts inside Lin2SD (or Apps2SD), and reboot.
7 - If you are a UNIX user just type "df -h" in a terminal to verify that the two partitions are mounted with correct sizes).
8 - You can look what Android think of your partitioning :
/Parameters/Device Maintenance/Storage/Menu:Storage Parameter/.
Do not try to mount the two first volumes and NEVER try to reformat them with Android. Those volumes are declared as corrupted but this is normal. Android does not expect to find a UNIX file system on a partition declared FAT32.
If one day, you forget this and ask to Android to reformat a corrupted partition you will have the terrible surprise that Android will not only erase your partition, but will erase everything and recreate one and only one big empty partition. (I guess that you keep all your backups on this SD Card, like me, so this is a really bad surprise).
Do not ask me why Android does not want his SD-Card on first partition. I have no idea. I guess that Android or Samsung reserve this partition for something else.
Do not ask why I had to declared all my partitions as FAT32 even if two of them are formatted as EXT4. I just realized that this configuration works well after fighting during a full day.
I hope that this topic will help some of you.
You really need the second partition on the SD? Or you can have only one ex4 partition that fills all the SD? (Remove the FAT and only have one ext4)
Palatosino said:
You really need the second partition on the SD? Or you can have only one ex4 partition that fills all the SD? (Remove the FAT and only have one ext4)
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No, I tried but it doesn't work.
I found today a very interesting topic that I will try to master and hopefully wil, understand everything better :
https://www.xda-developers.com/divi...gles-fuse-replacement-will-reduce-io-overhead
Maybe I was wrong from the beginning : perhaps LinkSD and apps2SD are historic patch that are not useful anymore. Perhaps all the burden will be fixed easily just by not using those utilities anymore.
"sdcardfs" is something very new for me who is an old UNIX fellow. This seems to be a major improvement for Android.
I will update this topic when everything will be clear for me.
I didnt have this problem on android 6, but on android 7 . My phone wants to use ext4 as data partition and says its corrupted, link2sd detects this second partition normally, but my data partition fat 32 detected on phone settings and its says its ready but there is no option to mount it.
As far as i understand from this tutorial i need to make 1 fake ext4 partition say 1mb, then second partition ext4 for use with link2sd, and third partition fat32 for use as data storage ??
My phone is samsung j7 2016
So i did follow this , but now my phone wont detect fat32 and link2sd didnt detect 1 of other ext4 partitions
Looking for a definitive way to Root and use link2sd to have my SM-T580 use the SD as a primary parition for apps and data. Been researching and trying a dozen different methods already to no avail. Bonus if there's a way to roll it back easily. Am on the latest android release.
Thank you for all replies.
larpoux said:
I hope that this topic will help some of you.
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Click to collapse
You're my saviour, thank you ! I've been fighting on the same issue for days and didn't think about that trick to declare an ext partition as FAT32 !
I know you probably won't see this, but I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciated this guide.
I have a Galaxy Tab S3 and every since going to a custom rom, I haven't been able to get this working which was such a pain with less than 23 gb of storage. The Rom improved my performance far too much for me to change back and every guide I attempted pointed me in the wrong direction but finally, I'm able to use my 120 gb SD card which has made my tablet worth using again.
To anyone who may attempt in the future,
I'm using Android 9 + Magisk. Using the Advanced type Mount script was the only way it get it functioning but I've had no issues with linking apps and no message regarding a corrupted SD card. It can take a few minutes on boot for everything to properly load in, but the apps all update and there's no performance/loading time issues.
Thanks again!