[Q] Internal Storage seems to have vanished - TouchPad Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I picked up my Touchpad today to play with it, and my Internal Storage seems to have disappeared in Android. I rebooted to WebOS, and everything seems to be OK there, but when I reboot back to CM10, there's no "SD Card". There aren't any errors or anything...I wouldn't have noticed except that I opened ES File Explorer and it said "SD Card empty, unmounted or not present". I'm not sure how to troubleshoot this...any ideas? I'm running [12/16] Unofficial CM10 Preview by Jcsullins.

Strangely the same thing happened to me today as well. I booted into WebOS and checked the filesystem and there were some corruptions and I fixed that but it didn't change anything so I just reflashed my rom and that fixed everything...for now. I did notice that somehow I suddenly had both superuser and supersu so I had to disable one of those, maybe check that too

I have Ubuntu (13.04 alpha, from the thread in the Dev forum) installed on the Touchpad, and I noticed in the dev thread that there was some kind of problem with mounting the "SD Card", that it was mounted with the wrong uid or something. Could that be connected to my problem? I can access the "SD Card" in WebOS and Ubuntu, just not in Android, which makes me think it's some kind of mounting issue. I'd prefer to troubleshoot the issue, maybe get a solution that will benefit others, as opposed to going with the WebOS Doctor nuclear option. Any thoughts?

All that worked for me is reflashing the ROM.
Sent from my HP TouchPad using xda-developers app

Tired_ said:
I picked up my Touchpad today to play with it, and my Internal Storage seems to have disappeared in Android. I rebooted to WebOS, and everything seems to be OK there, but when I reboot back to CM10, there's no "SD Card". There aren't any errors or anything...I wouldn't have noticed except that I opened ES File Explorer and it said "SD Card empty, unmounted or not present". I'm not sure how to troubleshoot this...any ideas? I'm running [12/16] Unofficial CM10 Preview by Jcsullins.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had the same thing happen. I wiped/reset, wiped cache, formatted system and wiped dalvik cache. Reflashed ROM and gapps. So far so good.

Ok, so I tried reflashing my Android. I wiped cache/Dalvik, but nothing else. My internal storage was fine when I was done this, and I didn't lose any files or settings. Sounds great, right? Well, I rebooted into Ubuntu 13.04 Alpha, and everything seemed fine there, till I rebooted into Android, and lo and behold, internal storage not found. Just for laughs, I went into Terminal, and typed "mount -t vfat /dev/store/media /sdcard", and then I was able to access the files on the internal storage, but only through a file manager by going to /storage/sdcard0...none of the apps could see the internal storage the normal way. I still think this is some kind of mounting or permissions problem, and now that I can replicate the problem reliably, maybe we can put our heads together and find out why.

What recovery have you been using please?

sstar said:
What recovery have you been using please?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am currently using TWRP 2.4.3.0. I was using an earlier TWRP, in the 2.3 series, but I upgraded it today when I reflashed my rom.

Tired_ said:
I am currently using TWRP 2.4.3.0. I was using an earlier TWRP, in the 2.3 series, but I upgraded it today when I reflashed my rom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have a read of this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2177905.
You are not the only one, your files are probably in a folder called Lost.Dir but renamed to an unusable number.

sstar said:
Have a read of this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2177905.
You are not the only one, your files are probably in a folder called Lost.Dir but renamed to an unusable number.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My files are all there, not renamed, not in a lost directory. I can access each and every one in WebOS (same way as always), in TWRP (again, the same way I always could), and in Ubuntu...and in Android if I manually mount /dev/store/media (but they're in /storage/sdcard0 rather than /sdcard). I'm pretty sure I said this already.
The file "loss" happened from booting Ubuntu. Before I booted Ubuntu, the "SD Card" was present, and accessible in Android. I boot Ubuntu, just to see if it came up OK (it did), so I rebooted back to Android. Immediately, it says SD card unavailable or not mounted, until I remount manually, which made the files appear in /storage/sdcard0 until reboot, at which time I'd have to manually remount again to see them.

Related

My phone says sd card removed

It happened yesterday when I upgraded to xrom. I have formatted and repartitioned my sd card. Nothing is working. When I connect my sd card to my computer I noticed a lot of weird files were being stored on it. They reappear every time I delete them.
My phone is creating files like this "qxdm_20090910_184004_3.dm" (32 megs!)
hmm....very interesting... reboot into recovery and repair the ext files? it might work. most likely not, but its worth a shot.
I though about trying that but I don't have cyanogens recovery .
Mine just did the "sd card has been removed" thing half an hour ago.
I just copied a new theme .zip to my sdcard and then rebooted into recovery.
I could not apply the update since it could not mount the mmcblk0p1 partition. When boot all the way up to android i get the icon saying that the sdcard has been removed.
i just did an adb push of a file to my /sdcard from the recovery console and it returned no errors...but i cannot see any files on the card.
wtf.
Any ideas?
Yeah my problems still not fixed. I have searched the XDA, forums, Google, none have offered any solution. I have found a lot of people with this same problem.
are you using swapper? if you dont turn it off, this could happen.
i would recommend getting cyans recovery image, it has a lot of tools to debug.
get a live cd of linux/gparted and see if you can see all your partitions. if not, your sd card is most likely dead. try reformatting. if that doesnt help, you may need to get a new card.
if it does show up on your pc, but doesnt work on your phone, then post here again
Have the same problem. Got it right after updating cyanogenmod 4.1.2 I've also been looking for answers and I think I'm just gonna get a new one
I have never used swap. I tried installing cyans recovery image through terminal but it can't find my sd card. I can still update my rom through jfs utility. My sd card works perfectly fine on my computer.
Something like this happened to me a while ago. It first said Sdcard was damaged and i couldnt access it via any file manager. I rebooted and turned out all my apps went up in the air and dissapeared and my fat32 partition was gone to. i reccomend backing up your sdcard and reformatting your card then go froom there
I have already tried all that. Nothing so far has worked :-(. Man this is horrible. I can't even take pictures!

[Q] No sdcard or sdcard-ext with Minimoto 1.7 ROM

Hello,
With the issues I was having with the CM 10.1 nightlies, much as I would like to stay, I decided to install the Minimoto 1.7 ROM into the second ROM slot (created with Safestrap 3.05). First, let me say "wow!" I never thought I would see this much speed and available RAM on my Droid 3. Thank you very much, thingonaspring.
For the most part, everything is working great *except* access to both the sdcard (internal) and sdcard-ext (external) storage areas. I read many posts in the Minimoto thread and searched around but nobody else appears to have encountered this which I find rather odd.
After the initial install and after reboots, these areas were still not accessible. I finally ran the terminal emulator and found that, for some unknown reason, they were *not* mounted. I *did* find the internal storage (/dev/block/emstorage) mounted at /ss but not at /mnt/sdcard. I became root using "su" and did the following:
# mount /dev/block/emstorage /mnt/sdcard
# mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 /mnt/sdcard-ext
Now I can access them along with all of the files I previously had there. The included file manager, when started, presents buttons for "Internal Storage" and "SD", but it still complains that internal storage is not mounted. It will allow me to access the SD card, though.
Under Settings->Storage Settings, everything under "Internal storage" and "SD card" says "unavailable" and both the mount and format buttons are grayed out. Yet, under the "Windows Media Sync" heading, I *can* choose between internal and SD *and* it even shows the correct available/total space values.
Why were these not mounted to begin with? Is mounting them manually an acceptable solution? If it is, where do I put this information so that it occurs at boot like it should (there is no /etc/fstab on Android)? Did I perhaps do something wrong when installing this ROM, maybe because I used ROM slot 2 instead of 1 (which still contains the most current CM 10.1 nightly)?
I really want to get this resolved because, so far, everything else appears to work wonderfully. Even 3g access, which I still haven't gotten working with CM 10.1.
--John Gruenenfelder
I've been running Minimoto for months and both /sdcard and /sdcard-ext are mounted at bootup for me, always, just like stock.
So, I wish I could tell you why, but I cannot.
I guess what I would do is start over. Reboot into Safestrap, remove that second slot and recreate it. Flash the ROM and restart the phone. Do not wipe data/factory reset after flashing the ROM or you will be missing some files (basically, some files required by the customized initial setup application.)
It seems to be fixed! See below for (perhaps) how...
Okay, I gave this a try. Rather than wiping ROM-slot-2, I had enough free space to create slot-3 and I reinstalled Minimoto 1.7 there. Also, this time I downloaded the zip file on my PC and transferred it over rather than downloading it directly onto the phone. Using the UNIX "cmp" tool told me the two files were identical, but I still used the "new" one. It installed fine and I did *not* perform a data wipe.
Unfortunately, same issue. When the device starts I can see the "Preparing XXX storage" messages appear in the notification bar for both internal and SD storage. There are no error messages, but it also did not actually do anything. Then, using the terminal emulator, I gave a long read through the dmesg output. I am more familiar with the kernel messages one sees when booting Linux on a PC, but I still did not see anything unusual.
So, back into Safestrap recovery. This time I tried something different. First, I noticed that the Safestrap file manager *can* see both storage areas and in the locations where they ought to be. This is not new, actually, it has always been the case. Second, I uplugged the USB cable. I have been using it for charging (of course), but at present it was plugged into my laptop and not into the wall charger. Depending on how the mounting occurrs and the exact mount order, I thought this might interfere. Thirrd, and finally, I used the "Fix Permissions" button available in Safestrap on ROM-slot-2 where I had first intalled Minimoto.
After doing these two changes I rebooted the device back into ROM-slot-2. Surprise! I once again saw the "Preparing" messages in the status bar except this time it really worked. The two storage locations are available where they should be and I an access the data just fine. Even the "Storage properties" screen in Settings shows both as mounted with the correct available/total space values given.
Since a plain reboot did not work previously, I have to assume one of the two changes I made fixed the problem, though, since I did both at the same time, I cannot be sure which fixed it.
Now I can get back to enjoying the impressivee speed from Minimoto while I wait to see if (or perhaps when) either the 3g or HW keyboard ALT-key issues are fixed in CM 10.1. Of course, given how much slower CM 10.1 operates (by virtue of using *much* more RAM than Minimoto), I think I might find it very difficult to switch.
--John Gruenenfelder
If you've been trying to hoot while plugged into your laptop I can see it causing issues as when usb mass storage is active, the device can no longer see the sd cards. That is why we have a separate data partition for apps and app data. So if the computer is trying to mount them and denies the phone the ability to mount then I could see issues arising
Sent from my XT860 using xda premium

[Q] Jacked up Touchpad after attempting "internal storage" increase

I posted this on rootzwiki, but I'm hoping someone here will help guide me back.
I have CM9 installed, which was working great except that I kept having "not enough memory" errors when trying to install apps from the Market.
I went to the CM7 sdcard problem fixes thread, found here:
http://rootzwiki.com/topic/13277-cm7-fixes-for-sdcard-issues/
These fixes work for CM7 and 9, so there is no compatibility issue there.
I attempted to expand the data partition by 1gb by flashing the correct .zip. However, after waiting 1.5 hours, with no change in the screen, I was forced to reboot it. I don't think I was too mistaken for thinking otherwise. No error message was given.
Now:
1. It reboots into CM9 okay, except the "checking SDcard" sign is on forever. Thus no access to the SDCard.
2. It won't reboot into WebOS anymore. It stays at the hp icon. This is most concerning to me, because to me it implies that something more than then Android install is broken now.
3. In Clockwork Recovery, it won't allow me to restore! Selecting that option just freezes CWM. However, it will allow me to browse the sdcard contents when selecting "install from zip"
4. From CWM, I can mount USB access and see all contents of the SDCard.
5. I did some searching, and one post suggested removing fsck_msdos from system/bin. I did this, which allowed me to access the SDCard in CM9 as this circumvented the SDcard checking. This obviously is not the right solution, so I restored it.
Next steps please?
I've got backups so the data isn't so important.
I think the sdcard partitioning is wonky due to the aborted memory expansion attempt, so I'm not sure running ACMEuninstaller will fix that.
I'm thinking I attempt to run ACMEUninstaller first, followed by WebOSdoctor if it won't boot into WebOS?
Take a look at this guide : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1426244
Yup, ended up doing that and looks like it's doing well.
Basically jacked up the storage partition so badly there were an infinite # of errors. Because WebOS uses that same storage for some of its files, couldn't boot either.
I've had to do it 3 times already.
It's a big PITA, but it works....... If your partitions get fracked, I've found this to be the best option.

Mount issue with internal SD Card-is there a permanent fix?

Thank you to all the developers on here.
I recently wiped everything, flashed the Baked ROM and got the following error messages when trying to use the camara:
---------
No Storage
No external storage available
Insert an SD card before using the camara.
-------------
I have just over a gig available on my internal card and have 27 gig on my external card. So the capacity is not the issue. I also can't download podcasts since it is giving me a similar error message.
I tried sdswap but when I went to reboot, got stuck on the boot animation for a half hour.
I then went into cwm recovery, wiped everything and tried the AOSP ICS 4.04 ROM, but ran into the same issue. I then wiped everything again and tried the AOKP 4.2.2 ROM and am still getting the same errors.
My phone works fine, but I can't take pictures or download any attachments till this gets fixed.
I searched the forums for the exhibit and saw some temporary fixes.....but all of those fixed are gone when phone is rebooted. I don't want to have to do a fix after every reboot. Please help.
Thanks,
David
d1david said:
Thank you to all the developers on here.
I recently wiped everything, flashed the Baked ROM and got the following error messages when trying to use the camara:
---------
No Storage
No external storage available
Insert an SD card before using the camara.
-------------
I have just over a gig available on my internal card and have 27 gig on my external card. So the capacity is not the issue. I also can't download podcasts since it is giving me a similar error message.
I tried sdswap but when I went to reboot, got stuck on the boot animation for a half hour.
I then went into cwm recovery, wiped everything and tried the AOSP ICS 4.04 ROM, but ran into the same issue. I then wiped everything again and tried the AOKP 4.2.2 ROM and am still getting the same errors.
My phone works fine, but I can't take pictures or download any attachments till this gets fixed.
I searched the forums for the exhibit and saw some temporary fixes.....but all of those fixed are gone when phone is rebooted. I don't want to have to do a fix after every reboot. Please help.
Thanks,
David
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is bizarre, I wonder if your device is/was/has gone bad? Also I would avoid SwapSD unless it's been determined the ROM is 100% compatible based on user comments. Those things cause more problems then they solve sometimes. Also have you checked file apps like ES Explorer to see if your cards are being read? Check settings/storage and if you are getting reads on all three storage elements then something else is at work. In that case IDK?!
ArtfulDodger said:
This is bizarre, I wonder if your device is/was/has gone bad? Also I would avoid SwapSD unless it's been determined the ROM is 100% compatible based on user comments. Those things cause more problems then they solve sometimes. Also have you checked file apps like ES Explorer to see if your cards are being read? Check settings/storage and if you are getting reads on all three storage elements then something else is at work. In that case IDK?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. Es file explorer recognizes the external sd card...but clicing on storage (internal sd card), it says its unmounted.
I rebooted into cwm recovery... mounted only the internal sd card, rebooted, and es file manager still says it is unmounted. You are probably right, probably a hardware issue, but it's weird how if I go to system settings, storage, it tells me how much available internal storage I have available which implies the internal sd card is mounted...
d1david said:
Thanks. Es file explorer recognizes the external sd card...but clicing on storage (internal sd card), it says its unmounted.
I rebooted into cwm recovery... mounted only the internal sd card, rebooted, and es file manager still says it is unmounted. You are probably right, probably a hardware issue, but it's weird how if I go to system settings, storage, it tells me how much available internal storage I have available which implies the internal sd card is mounted...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
During my recent trials, I have learned that you can't mount your ext sd card with CWM, but you have to do it with a computer (at least, that's what I read). CWM was not recognizing my ext sd, either. I did not spend time learning how to get the ext card recognized, as I was worried about solving other problems, but I do remember that CWM can't mount your external card.
Proud2banoob said:
During my recent trials, I have learned that you can't mount your ext sd card with CWM, but you have to do it with a computer (at least, that's what I read). CWM was not recognizing my ext sd, either. I did not spend time learning how to get the ext card recognized, as I was worried about solving other problems, but I do remember that CWM can't mount your external card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you meant to say internal sd. Either way, I did read that hooking it up to the laptop will mount it... but I don't want to have to do that after everytime I reboot.... just seeing if there is a permanent fix.
thanks
d1david said:
I think you meant to say internal sd. Either way, I did read that hooking it up to the laptop will mount it... but I don't want to have to do that after everytime I reboot.... just seeing if there is a permanent fix.
thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Btw you're not using an app called SD Card Boost are you? If so that is what's causing your problem as the exact same thing happened to me when using that.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Exhibit running AOIP.
ArtfulDodger said:
Btw you're not using an app called SD Card Boost are you? If so that is what's causing your problem as the exact same thing happened to me when using that.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Exhibit running AOIP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope--- this whole thing is due to me being a NOOB. NOOB's take notice! Don't be like me.
I realize what the problem was....after switching to baked bean ROM originally, I did a backup with cwm... not realizing that the back up would take most of my internal sd space.... I had less than 100 mb left on the internal card and so the internal card shuts down, even though it has plenty of space to take a few pictures or download some pdfs... it just wasn't accessable.
I freed up another 100 mb on the internal... and lo and behold I can take pictures or download. Now I have the option when using the camera to use the external sd card (not sure why it doesn't give you that option to begin with)...
I was looking at the wrong setting earlier.... I saw I had .96 gig available... but that must have been the ram...not the internal sd card.
Sorry for wasting everyone's time.... I am back to the 4.2.2 AOKP rom and loving it. Sorry everyone.
Hey, I'm kinda having a similar problem (since it's similar and from my lack of posts I cant post on the 4.4 thread. I thought I'd ask here ).
When I flash the 4.4 ROM, it seems my external and internal sd isn't mounted, it gives me an "invalid path" when using Es File Explorer.
Not sure if this is a problem everyone has and it's not fixed yet (If its even a problem at all), or I'm just having this problem, lol.
I'm not receiving this problem on any other rom I flash just the 4.4.
Note: I wipe Dalvik, Cache, and Data. I also tried wiping my system and Ext SD. I tried to Google a solution, but all I found was weird ritual answers, like take out battery and sd. Wait 5 min, while you wait, do the Hokey Pokey, lol.
d1david said:
Nope--- this whole thing is due to me being a NOOB. NOOB's take notice! Don't be like me.
I realize what the problem was....after switching to baked bean ROM originally, I did a backup with cwm... not realizing that the back up would take most of my internal sd space.... I had less than 100 mb left on the internal card and so the internal card shuts down, even though it has plenty of space to take a few pictures or download some pdfs... it just wasn't accessable.
I freed up another 100 mb on the internal... and lo and behold I can take pictures or download. Now I have the option when using the camera to use the external sd card (not sure why it doesn't give you that option to begin with)...
I was looking at the wrong setting earlier.... I saw I had .96 gig available... but that must have been the ram...not the internal sd card.
Sorry for wasting everyone's time.... I am back to the 4.2.2 AOKP rom and loving it. Sorry everyone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We all started and were noobs at some time, don't feel bad!
---------- Post added at 01:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:27 AM ----------
Doobski said:
Hey, I'm kinda having a similar problem (since it's similar and from my lack of posts I cant post on the 4.4 thread. I thought I'd ask here ).
When I flash the 4.4 ROM, it seems my external and internal sd isn't mounted, it gives me an "invalid path" when using Es File Explorer.
Not sure if this is a problem everyone has and it's not fixed yet (If its even a problem at all), or I'm just having this problem, lol.
I'm not receiving this problem on any other rom I flash just the 4.4.
Note: I wipe Dalvik, Cache, and Data. I also tried wiping my system and Ext SD. I tried to Google a solution, but all I found was weird ritual answers, like take out battery and sd. Wait 5 min, while you wait, do the Hokey Pokey, lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately this is a bug with 4.4. The internal card actually should show up twice in ES Explorer (4.4 ROM only), and only 1 path invalid. The external card has path problems in Titanium Backup and RAM Expander. This is why I ended up not using KitKat for this phone.
ArtfulDodger said:
We all started and were noobs at some time, don't feel bad!
---------- Post added at 01:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:27 AM ----------
Unfortunately this is a bug with 4.4. The internal card actually should show up twice in ES Explorer (4.4 ROM only), and only 1 path invalid. The external card has path problems in Titanium Backup and RAM Expander. This is why I ended up not using KitKat for this phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahh, thank you. Yea, I really wanna use it, but I guess I cant till a solution comes along.

[Q] Need help mounting /system and /data from external SD. Internal SD is dead :/

Hello,
I figure someone here might be able to help since most of where I found information regarding my issue came from this subforum. My phone is i897 (Captivate), but I think it should be similar; I posted there as well but no luck .
I normally can get by pretty well, and I have done numerous searches before posting for help. This time I have really run into a brick wall, and I really need help here.
Basically, I did something really stupid where I did not know that the phone had been booting off a external SD (my mom gave it back to me like that). Actually, I suspected that it did because the phone would have not booted without the card, however, I could flash my phone even if I removed the external SD card (as if the internal SD were there, but it wasn't), but it had always required me to insert the card back in for it to reboot from a flash. So I thought maybe internal SD was fine.
Originally, I had a Samsung 8gb class 6, but I wanted to change it to a 32gb class 10 ( to help the OS run smoother IF it were running on external SD). This is where I made a great mistake; I formatted the 32gb card and made 3 partitions. The first one is in FAT32 of 24 gb, 2nd is in EXT4 4gb, 3rd is the rest in EXT 4 as well. The original setup that was working had about 5.5gb in FAT32 and about 1.88gb of EXT(not sure which). The mistake was that I also formatted the 8gb card as well. In chronological order, these were what has happened:
1. I did a Odin stock reset to 2.3.5 with CWM injected
2. Installed Corn Kernel
3. Formatted both external SDs and repartition as mentioned above
4. At this point, I didn't know there was an issue. CWM sees the external SD and I tried to install CM 10.3 since I read in one of the threads that JB has a weird file systems and it needed to be installed twice to fix sdcard0 and sdcard1
5. CM10.3 installed kernel, and failed afterward since there was no /system and /data. At this point, I have Neat Kernel installed and lost bootloader along with fastboot and cannot access download mode.
6. I have tried to change EXT4 to EXT3 or EXT2 to see if there would be any luck in file system recognition, but no luck
7. The only way I can connect to the phone was through ADB, and verified that my internal SD card was dead because mmcblk0 was not there when I removed external SD
8. I tried to mount mmcblk0p1 (4gb EXT4 partition) and mmcblk0p2 as /system and /data, but I had been getting an error
9. I tried to use USB mount in TWRP, but no additional drive showed up (confirmed dead internal SD)
9. I tried to look for vold.fstabs but /system does not exist. The only *.fstabs file founds were in /etc file (not /system/etc) and is, for example, aries.fstabs
I know for the fact that it can be done because the phone was working before, but I really don't have enough linux knowledge or the what the phone looks at in chronological order in order to figure out how to remedy this. I would really appreciate if someone can guide me to a right direction. Thank you.
Below are major references I have gone through (not including youtube videos, etc..):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2057004
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1897918
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2057004
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2199215
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=30415128#post30415128
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=31017954&postcount=5335
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=911228
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1463756
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1241574
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=845708&page=2
PMrjn83 said:
Hello,
I figure someone here might be able to help since most of where I found information regarding my issue came from this subforum. My phone is i897 (Captivate), but I think it should be similar; I posted there as well but no luck .
I normally can get by pretty well, and I have done numerous searches before posting for help. This time I have really run into a brick wall, and I really need help here.
Basically, I did something really stupid where I did not know that the phone had been booting off a external SD (my mom gave it back to me like that). Actually, I suspected that it did because the phone would have not booted without the card, however, I could flash my phone even if I removed the external SD card (as if the internal SD were there, but it wasn't), but it had always required me to insert the card back in for it to reboot from a flash. So I thought maybe internal SD was fine.
Originally, I had a Samsung 8gb class 6, but I wanted to change it to a 32gb class 10 ( to help the OS run smoother IF it were running on external SD). This is where I made a great mistake; I formatted the 32gb card and made 3 partitions. The first one is in FAT32 of 24 gb, 2nd is in EXT4 4gb, 3rd is the rest in EXT 4 as well. The original setup that was working had about 5.5gb in FAT32 and about 1.88gb of EXT(not sure which). The mistake was that I also formatted the 8gb card as well. In chronological order, these were what has happened:
1. I did a Odin stock reset to 2.3.5 with CWM injected
2. Installed Corn Kernel
3. Formatted both external SDs and repartition as mentioned above
4. At this point, I didn't know there was an issue. CWM sees the external SD and I tried to install CM 10.3 since I read in one of the threads that JB has a weird file systems and it needed to be installed twice to fix sdcard0 and sdcard1
5. CM10.3 installed kernel, and failed afterward since there was no /system and /data. At this point, I have Neat Kernel installed and lost bootloader along with fastboot and cannot access download mode.
6. I have tried to change EXT4 to EXT3 or EXT2 to see if there would be any luck in file system recognition, but no luck
7. The only way I can connect to the phone was through ADB, and verified that my internal SD card was dead because mmcblk0 was not there when I removed external SD
8. I tried to mount mmcblk0p1 (4gb EXT4 partition) and mmcblk0p2 as /system and /data, but I had been getting an error
9. I tried to use USB mount in TWRP, but no additional drive showed up (confirmed dead internal SD)
9. I tried to look for vold.fstabs but /system does not exist. The only *.fstabs file founds were in /etc file (not /system/etc) and is, for example, aries.fstabs
I know for the fact that it can be done because the phone was working before, but I really don't have enough linux knowledge or the what the phone looks at in chronological order in order to figure out how to remedy this. I would really appreciate if someone can guide me to a right direction. Thank you.
Below are major references I have gone through (not including youtube videos, etc..):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2057004
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1897918
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2057004
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2199215
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=30415128#post30415128
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=31017954&postcount=5335
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=911228
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1463756
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1241574
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=845708&page=2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you looked over this guide ? or this ?
Höhenheim said:
Have you looked over this guide ? or this ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. I'll try when I get home to my desktop. For some reason, my laptop does not recognize the phone through adb. It shows "SGH-i897" in device manager with an exclamation mark. And yes, I have tried quite a few drivers, etc... :/
I might need to try this...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1761968
Höhenheim said:
Have you looked over this guide ? or this ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just had a chance to look at it more thoroughly. The biggest problem for me is that my phone does not have an OS, and it's on semaphore kernel where I cannot access download mode nor fastboot. I have tried to install gingerbread kernel to try to recover download mode/fastboot (speedmods), but I kept running into error 0. I have also tried to modify the su.binary, but that didn't work :/. Any idea how to start? Thanks.
PMrjn83 said:
I just had a chance to look at it more thoroughly. The biggest problem for me is that my phone does not have an OS, and it's on semaphore kernel where I cannot access download mode nor fastboot. I have tried to install gingerbread kernel to try to recover download mode/fastboot (speedmods), but I kept running into error 0. I have also tried to modify the su.binary, but that didn't work :/. Any idea how to start? Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Based on your earlier comments on the partitions failing to mount, you should format: system, data, datadata, cache.
gsstudios said:
Based on your earlier comments on the partitions failing to mount, you should format: system, data, datadata, cache.
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Click to collapse
Well, I tried. If it doesn't mount at all, how can you format?

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