[Q] Android directories questions - Nook HD, HD+ Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi, I'm new to this forum and to using an Android device in general. I have been a long time Windows user (made some attempts at Linux in the past) so I'm trying to get used to this new system. I couldn't resist changing my Nook to CM 10.1, followed everything exactly, and love the improvements on my Nook. I just have a question about how the files work. In File Manager, when I take a look at storage, there is "emulated", "sdcard1" and "usb0". I'm trying to understand these three folders and differentiate them. "sdcard1" and "usb0" contain nothing at the moment. Are they referring to an external sdcard and external usb? Under /emulated there is "0" and "legacy" which appear to show me the same information and files. Those files are my app files and personal files. Are they the same thing under different names? Why are there two?
Also, even though I did a factory wipe when installing CM, there are folders in "0" and "legacy" for some of the apps I had before that I didn't have after CM went into effect. Should I go through and delete Barnes and Noble data that used to be installed (and I no longer need), and some of the Google apps data that I'm not reinstalling? And last question, where do I find the folders where apps are actually installed? I was pleasantly surprised that all my data in "0" and "legacy" was intact after doing a factory reset with CWM.
These are probably incredibly dumb and simple Android questions but I had trouble finding this information. I've been reading through this forum for days and finding so much useful information. I am very grateful for verygreen and leapinlar's (and others) hard work, and I hope to understand my device better as time goes on.
-NookNoob

alexb54 said:
Hi, I'm new to this forum and to using an Android device in general. I have been a long time Windows user (made some attempts at Linux in the past) so I'm trying to get used to this new system. I couldn't resist changing my Nook to CM 10.1, followed everything exactly, and love the improvements on my Nook. I just have a question about how the files work. In File Manager, when I take a look at storage, there is "emulated", "sdcard1" and "usb0". I'm trying to understand these three folders and differentiate them. "sdcard1" and "usb0" contain nothing at the moment. Are they referring to an external sdcard and external usb? Under /emulated there is "0" and "legacy" which appear to show me the same information and files. Those files are my app files and personal files. Are they the same thing under different names? Why are there two?
Also, even though I did a factory wipe when installing CM, there are folders in "0" and "legacy" for some of the apps I had before that I didn't have after CM went into effect. Should I go through and delete Barnes and Noble data that used to be installed (and I no longer need), and some of the Google apps data that I'm not reinstalling? And last question, where do I find the folders where apps are actually installed? I was pleasantly surprised that all my data in "0" and "legacy" was intact after doing a factory reset with CWM.
These are probably incredibly dumb and simple Android questions but I had trouble finding this information. I've been reading through this forum for days and finding so much useful information. I am very grateful for verygreen and leapinlar's (and others) hard work, and I hope to understand my device better as time goes on.
-NookNoob
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A factory reset with CWM does not effect your media files stored in internal memory. That is why they were still there.
Apps are actually stored in /data/apps, but you do not want to be messing with that if you are a noob. The earlier installed stock apps were erased in your factory reset.
This 0 folder is Android's attempt to isolate the media files of different users in their multi-user setup. User 2 would have a 10 folder.
Emulated is Android's new way of creating an emulated sdcard from /data. If you look in /data/media, you will see it is the same as emulated.
Sent from my Nook HD+ running CM10.1 on emmc.

/sdcard1 is the external micro sd slot / card and yes usb.....

Thanks, guys! Leapinlar, I don't plan on playing with anything in there. I just hope to better understand where my files are located and how some of these things work. New concepts for me. I really appreciate the help!

Related

Data Recovery

I know before I start that this is a dumb question, but are there any utilities for Android/Galaxy S for Data Recovery?
I have just had a difficult time flashing a new ROM, and at the end of it the system has been wiped, including all data on the internal SD card, in the past when flashing new ROMs only the internal memory was affected, but like I said, this time I had a few issues.
What I'm most concerned about are my photos and videos, I know in a Windows environment recovery tools work well, I'm just hoping Android is the same, but I think I'm wrong.
eeney said:
I know before I start that this is a dumb question, but are there any utilities for Android/Galaxy S for Data Recovery?
I have just had a difficult time flashing a new ROM, and at the end of it the system has been wiped, including all data on the internal SD card, in the past when flashing new ROMs only the internal memory was affected, but like I said, this time I had a few issues.
What I'm most concerned about are my photos and videos, I know in a Windows environment recovery tools work well, I'm just hoping Android is the same, but I think I'm wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have seen it suggested that once you can mount the internal SD to your PC, you can use the same tools you would use to recover data from any SD card. I can't confirm that however.
I would imagine that the main problem will be having data overwritten when you installed the new ROM. However, you can't lose anything by trying.
I try to save all such things on the external SD as much as possible, out of fear of just this sort of issue. Also it is a good idea to backup to your PC or to Dropbox any pictures or videos on your phone you couldn't bear to lose if someone swipes your phone...or if the SD is formatted.
Google Recuva and try what you can recover .
But wipe means wipe even under windows .
jje
Thanks guys, I did try a standard windows based data recovery on the mounted SD, which found a lot of data, however I am unable to locate my photos and videos.
I can find a lot of the photos by searching for jpegs, however all the ones I retriever are very small, much smaller than the original resolution. I'm starting to wonder where the full size images are stored and if they are stored as jpgs.
Seems odd that I can find the small image files but not the originals, the smalls ones are between 40 and 100kb each.
any more ideas?
eeney said:
Thanks guys, I did try a standard windows based data recovery on the mounted SD, which found a lot of data, however I am unable to locate my photos and videos.
I can find a lot of the photos by searching for jpegs, however all the ones I retriever are very small, much smaller than the original resolution. I'm starting to wonder where the full size images are stored and if they are stored as jpgs.
Seems odd that I can find the small image files but not the originals, the smalls ones are between 40 and 100kb each.
any more ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is a strange question, but are you SURE the photos themselves were stored on the internal SD? I often store things on the external card and forget I set it up that way. You may want to check through all the folders on the external SD and see what is hiding there.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App
Data recovery froom Android/Galaxy S
Hi,
Sorry to hear of your difficulty. You are absolutely correct you can use any of the data recovery software to recover your lost data.
Regards,
Stellar Phoenix Solutions
[email protected]
"trusted data recovery solutions"
eeney said:
I know before I start that this is a dumb question, but are there any utilities for Android/Galaxy S for Data Recovery?
I have just had a difficult time flashing a new ROM, and at the end of it the system has been wiped, including all data on the internal SD card, in the past when flashing new ROMs only the internal memory was affected, but like I said, this time I had a few issues.
What I'm most concerned about are my photos and videos, I know in a Windows environment recovery tools work well, I'm just hoping Android is the same, but I think I'm wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Where are my photo's

Hi All,
I have just rooted my One.
I backed up the entire SD Card and I have copied some things back (DCIM, Downloads, My music (apart from my Play store offline files).
I cannot locate many of the images I took with the phone prior to root. I can also not for the life of me figure out why so much space is consumed on my memory considering what I have on the device.
Regardless, I didnt know if there was some secret hiding place that things go to hide.
I had many of these photo's in their own folders within the Gallery, these are also unavailable.
I have since backed up my photo's to DropBox, and they all appear in there, so I am looking to sync my PC with my dropbox tonight then copy the photo's I want back to the phone, but firstly I need to know these files arent still hiding on my "sd card" before I go and further duplicate them.
Is there anyone out there who has gone through the same thing and has some pointers as to what to look for as I find the file structure within ES File Manager quite confusing with SD and 0/ with emulated partition that seems to be a dupliucate of SD Card etc etc.
Sorry, very noob question, however I have been rooting phones for ages, my last being the HTC OneXL and everything seemed to make so much more sense on that phone.
Any advice would be greatly greatly appreciated.
Thanks for any help in advance.
Scott
Yes, the SD and 0/ folder is a duplication of your storage, so do not need that folder. You can delete any other stuff inside the media folder, though. If everything is already stored on your computer, how about you format the SD card and use adb to sideload a ROM? In other words, a clean, fresh install.

[Q] Can a data/media setup help keep webOS and Android seperated better?

Hello,
I read alot but couldn't find an answer to a question that came to my mind when I first learned about the data/media setup milaq's 10.2 nightlies require. I'd appreciate it if someone could help me out here.
I am still using webOS regularly and never liked the fact that the webOS photo app is full of icons and pictures from all the android apps on android's 'SDcard' (which is of course webOS's internal storage at the same time). For sharing music between both systems this setup is great, but I would very much prefer to not see anything of android apps in webOS (be it in the photo app or just the standart android folders in webOS).
Is a data/media folder hidden from within webOS? I dug through the file system a lot to see if I can or cannot find the /data folder to answer myself that question, but I'm not familiar enough with Linux file structure to be sure it's worth the work switching to milaq's 10.2s with all the necessary partitioning.
Thanks

[Q] titanium backup broken- only backs up to internal memory

Hi,
Just got a new LG L90 and wanted to back it up. On my old phone, I used TB and it worked ok most of the time.
But this newer version only backs up to the internal memory which is a no-no. After I discovered that it was defaulting to internal memory, I moved the directory to the sd card, went into prefs and changed it to the sd card. I figured something was wrong when TB claimed there were no backup files in the directory when clearly there were.
But I did a backup anyway, pointing to the SD card, yet it went right back into internal memory.
No error messages, just doesn't work.
Fixable, or get something more modern?
Thanks.
fletchb1 said:
Hi,
Just got a new LG L90 and wanted to back it up. On my old phone, I used TB and it worked ok most of the time.
But this newer version only backs up to the internal memory which is a no-no. After I discovered that it was defaulting to internal memory, I moved the directory to the sd card, went into prefs and changed it to the sd card. I figured something was wrong when TB claimed there were no backup files in the directory when clearly there were.
But I did a backup anyway, pointing to the SD card, yet it went right back into internal memory.
No error messages, just doesn't work.
Fixable, or get something more modern?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, same thing. I looked closer and found out what is going wrong. It is defaulting to /mnt/sd but that is pointing to internal memory. I am not sure if this is a LG or Android problem but anyway, I found the real location but it won't let me select it for some reason. Did kitkat move away from /mnt locations? I am going to keep digging .. I don't know android that well but know general linux and /mnt was used for years.
fletchb1 said:
I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, same thing. I looked closer and found out what is going wrong. It is defaulting to /mnt/sd but that is pointing to internal memory. I am not sure if this is a LG or Android problem but anyway, I found the real location but it won't let me select it for some reason. Did kitkat move away from /mnt locations? I am going to keep digging .. I don't know android that well but know general linux and /mnt was used for years.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google introduced new security features in KitKat. Apps are no longer allowed external sdcard access without some kind of patch. I use, with CM11 and also LG Stock, Xposed framework with 3 other modules. They are "HandleExternalStorage", "KitKat SD Card Full Access", and "XInternalSD". I also use Link2SD to help conserve user data space.
shinobisoft said:
Google introduced new security features in KitKat. Apps are no longer allowed external sdcard access without some kind of patch. I use, with CM11 and also LG Stock, Xposed framework with 3 other modules. They are "HandleExternalStorage", "KitKat SD Card Full Access", and "XInternalSD". I also use Link2SD to help conserve user data space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks..I did some reading and stumbled apon this info. Surprised TB is not away of the issue though. I found something in the playstore that changes permissions and now it is working.
I guess I need to relearn the newer androids as I am coming from 2.3
Thanks again.

Making an exact copy

Hey everyone.
So a few days ago I unfortunately dropped my nexus 6, destroying the screen. It's fully blacked out with no sense of touch. That's what I get for not using a case right. Anyway, I am looking to order a new one very soon and I would like to be able to pick up exactly where I have left off. Because the phone is in completely working condition besides the screen (Proven by using airdroid, android control and adb, as well as my lightflow and everything acting normally) I was wondering what I need to do to be able to put everything onto my new phone. What I think I need to do is run a TWRP backup of system, data, and boot by using the command line, as seen here. After that, I believe I need to use the adb pull command. Once that is all done, can I simply put TWRP onto my new devices, restore the backup, use adb push to replace the contents of my /sdcard partition and boot up as if it were the old device? I think I have it figured out here but, I wanted to run it by the smart people of xda. A couple of notes, although I assume it is irrelevant, are that I am running the PureNexus Project ROM, Elementalx on 6.0.1 unlocked.
Thanks,
TriguyRN
And I'm sorry everyone, this was meant to be put in the Q and A section :/
triguyrn said:
And I'm sorry everyone, this was meant to be put in the Q and A section :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You would be best advised not to do that. You could mess up your device alot to the point of bricking it. If you back up anything only back up the data partition as that is where your apps are.
zelendel said:
You would be best advised not to do that. You could mess up your device alot to the point of bricking it. If you back up anything only back up the data partition as that is where your apps are.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
agreed you can probably get away with a /data restore after reinstalling your rom but transplanting /system or boot partitions could easily go south. Best to reinstall purenexus with the zip.
zelendel said:
You would be best advised not to do that. You could mess up your device alot to the point of bricking it. If you back up anything only back up the data partition as that is where your apps are.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So if I understand this correctly, /data contains my appdata and that apps themselves, while /sdcard contains some extra documents etc. correct? Assuming yes, then I should back/restore up the data partition in TWRP and selectively movie around some folders from my /sdcard backup to my new device. Thank you for the advice and moving my thread.
triguyrn said:
So if I understand this correctly, /data contains my appdata and that apps themselves, while /sdcard contains some extra documents etc. correct? Assuming yes, then I should back/restore up the data partition in TWRP and selectively movie around some folders from my /sdcard backup to my new device. Thank you for the advice and moving my thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you backup /data you'll have all your apps and internal storage files. /sdcard is just a shortcut pointing to /data/media/0 which is where your documents and whatnot are actually stored.
StykerB said:
if you backup /data you'll have all your apps and internal storage files. /sdcard is just a shortcut pointing to /data/media/0 which is where your documents and whatnot are actually stored.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is incorrect.
A TWRP backup of /data *does NOT* backup your internal storage. That's the reason that there's a different option.
Same way that if you wipe /data it doesn't erase your sdcard (internal storage, we don't have sdcards).
You are correct though, /data/media/0 is *technically* where the internal storage is located. However a /data backup will not back this up as it traditionally skips the /data/media directory completely to prevent crazy issues on devices without a true sdcard.
Think about it.
You have 32gb of device storage. Let's say you have a ton of music, movies, documents and such on your internal storage/sdcard totaling 15-20gb. Even with a full /system, /data, /boot backup... it averages about 3-5gb. There's no way that it's getting that level of compression and backing up the 15-20 gb of stored files you have.
On top of that, it would have to include the backed up backup in the backup since it was also on internal storage, casuing a cycle that would simply fill up the device before failing due to a lack of free space.
Realistically, the only way to backup the internal storage is by using a usb-otg device as the target. Or by manally copying everything from there off to a computer.

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