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I'm just curious. I know what the recommendations are, and mostly I do remove the cards, but I want to know, how do you flash your phones .
Johny_G said:
I'm just curious. I know what the recommendations are, and mostly I do remove the cards, but I want to know, how do you flash your phones .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
(Assuming you're talking about flashing a rom using the USB-connected-to-PC method.)
I never remove my card when flashing an OS-rom and nothing has ever gone wrong for me in dozens of rom-flashes.
YMMV.
I read that you should remove the sim so a phone call or text message won't interrupt the flash.
jayr04 said:
I read that you should remove the sim so a phone call or text message won't interrupt the flash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've read the same, and that's obviously the best way to insure that never happens...but I would think that turning the radios off while in the old ROM would be enough at that point, and the new ROM wouldn't receive any signal until the flashing is complete anyway...?
It's probably like the old adage about letting your PC sit for a minute (long enough for the capacitors to naturally discharge) before powering it back on during a reboot....it's not really necessary in the majority of instances, but it's never a bad idea to do, just to be safe
jayr04 said:
I read that you should remove the sim so a phone call or text message won't interrupt the flash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sirphunkee said:
I've read the same, and that's obviously the best way to insure that never happens...but I would think that turning the radios off while in the old ROM would be enough at that point, and the new ROM wouldn't receive any signal until the flashing is complete anyway...?
It's probably like the old adage about letting your PC sit for a minute (long enough for the capacitors to naturally discharge) before powering it back on during a reboot....it's not really necessary in the majority of instances, but it's never a bad idea to do, just to be safe
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Turning off the radio before flashing has been my approach, too. If it was easier to remove the sim card I might do so, same goes for the sd card...but it's too hard...and I prefer the excitement of living on the edge anyway.
There's no real point, IMO. You're not on the network when flashing with the SPL, so there's no reason to remove the SIM, and flashing via MicroSD is an accepted method of flashing ROMs, so that's also out of the question. The last post I've seen from a major PPC hacker to remove both cards was made years ago, and I don't really think it applies anymore, especially with HardSPL. It's pretty hard to brick with HardSPL, so I don't bother removing the cards ever. Hell, I don't even go into airplane mode. The only time I've ever had to remove the SIM was when I upgraded HardSPL on my old Kaiser, because the SSPL wouldn't flash a new SPL until both cards were removed. I have yet to brick a device, and I don't ever remove cards
There are no interactions going on b/t the rom flashing and you having a sim inside the phone, I keep my SD in my leo never took it out before.
Thank you guys. I think I will not remove them anymore, because it's just so annoying . You don't even enter a PIN until the flash is completed anyway...
TyTN->Kaiser->Touch->Touch Pro->Xperia->Touch Pro 2... I dont know how many flashes in total, but always had my cards in... Also few flashes with i600 (backup phone)
Same here,
5 years flashing with both inside with no prob
--------------
Don´t forget to vote!
I used to take them out, but now that I have set up my UC, I don't know why I would want to remove my SD.
Our phones have Samsung kby00u00vm-b450 NAND pre-installed from factory.
With all frequent flashing and wiping, I am worried about how long this NAND will last and does it have a limit on read/writes/wipes.
I am looking for someone to develop an app which analyzes health of the NAND and also possibly predicate number of read/writes completed and remaining.
Any thoughts/ideas??
Ummmmmm....no offense intended but are you serious?
The only way to analyze the "health" of memory would have to be something along the lines of an app that would be able to determine bad disk sectors.
There really isn't a way to just say "Hey, you have a hundred writes left and then kiputz." Its just not feasible....
I could be wrong though....
~Jasecloud4
LMAO.. Funny... i have never thought about it in terms of an app, but i have often wondered if there is a limit to how long the NAND would last... i am a flashaholic!!
sshark said:
Our phones have Samsung kby00u00vm-b450 NAND pre-installed from factory.
With all frequent flashing and wiping, I am worried about how long this NAND will last and does it have a limit on read/writes/wipes.
I am looking for someone to develop an app which analyzes health of the NAND and also possibly predicate number of read/writes completed and remaining.
Any thoughts/ideas??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
all RAM has read write limits, and likely flashing/wiping every damn day (like some of us) was not taken into account when creating android phones.
actually not a terrible idea, something like SMART status would be kinda nice...
typical "ram testing" type applications for PCs would not work because they actually read/write to the sectors, and of course we dont want that... hm.
and likely it would have to be run in recovery too.
also, for future reference, try posting this kinda stuff in the Q&A, or general threads.
Every nand is good for exactly 9999 flashes, so just start keeping track of flashes.
jasecloud4 said:
Ummmmmm....no offense intended but are you serious?
The only way to analyze the "health" of memory would have to be something along the lines of an app that would be able to determine bad disk sectors.
~Jasecloud4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It does not have to be Android app, it could be low-level memory management/analyzer that could be run from recovery or just from PC.
kingdazy said:
all RAM has read write limits, and likely flashing/wiping every damn day (like some of us) was not taken into account when creating android phones.
actually not a terrible idea, something like SMART status would be kinda nice...
typical "ram testing" type applications for PCs would not work because they actually read/write to the sectors, and of course we dont want that... hm.
and likely it would have to be run in recovery too.
also, for future reference, try posting this kinda stuff in the Q&A, or general threads.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, something in recovery would be nice, which at least can assess number of good/bad sectors.
Also, if all of the devs agree on a common format, then with each flash or wipe, a cookie/text file can be updated to the SD CARD to reflect dates of all flash/wipes.
Since this is a development request I posted in this section, I know the general rules.
flash destroyer
dangerousprototypes.xxx/2010/05/25/prototype-flash_destroyer
ustream.xxx/channel/flash-destroyer
11,494,060 was the final write count
edit: dont have enough posts for url, replace xxx with com in urls
zoydberg said:
dangerousprototypes.xxx/2010/05/25/prototype-flash_destroyer
ustream.xxx/channel/flash-destroyer
11,494,060 was the final write count
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is this and how did you get it?
Joekrim would be the canidate for this project
snandlal said:
Joekrim would be the canidate for this project
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, I will need to get hold of him.
Challenge would be to get everyone (all developers) buy into this common format or something which can really keep track of flash/wipes.
The way we flash is safe, the whole nand corrupt thing correlates to something like a jtag xbox. When I flash through with a lpt (printer) cable, you have to watch the nand, the way we do it is safe and nothing to worry about. If it were an xbox itS recommended to flash as few to one as possible to prevent damage, flash away!
The nand has about 10000 write cycles. If you flash twice a day on average thats almost 15 years.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA Premium App
sounds like a challenge, lets see who can overflash their NAND first, award TBA at successful brick
sshark said:
Since this is a development request I posted in this section, I know the general rules.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my bad.
woot! 400 posts.
NewZJ said:
sounds like a challenge, lets see who can overflash their NAND first, award TBA at successful brick
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
*Raises Hand With Barney Stinson Voice* Challenge accepted!
You know what? This IS a really good idea! I've noticed that all 5 of the EVOs I've gone through (dont ask, long story) have had diminished performance the more I flash... I've grown past flashing EVERY ROM I see, and stuck to a really reliable ROM, and outside of a bad camera sensor (EVO #6 on the way) this one has performed flawlessly. I tried un/rerooting a few times, and that cleared bad/conflicting code, but didn't completely address the issues I was having... not until now did I think about connecting these dots. That being said, 1: THANKS for the eye opener!
2: I'd buy this app! (as I think many devs/ROM free basers would)
Nice work!
sent killing time on my EVO while she watches desperate housewhores...
IP IHI II IL said:
You know what? This IS a really good idea! I've noticed that all 5 of the EVOs I've gone through (dont ask, long story) have had diminished performance the more I flash... I've grown past flashing EVERY ROM I see, and stuck to a really reliable ROM, and outside of a bad camera sensor (EVO #6 on the way) this one has performed flawlessly. I tried un/rerooting a few times, and that cleared bad/conflicting code, but didn't completely address the issues I was having... not until now did I think about connecting these dots. That being said, 1: THANKS for the eye opener!
2: I'd buy this app! (as I think many devs/ROM free basers would)
Nice work!
sent killing time on my EVO while she watches desperate housewhores...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
an app that tells us something we already know? Why doesn't a dev make an app to tell me what phone i have, I think it's an Evo but i want to make sure
iitreatedii said:
Why doesn't a dev make an app to tell me what phone i have, I think it's an Evo but i want to make sure
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check out ROM Manager. When you click on flash cwm recovery it tells you what phone you have and asks you to confirm it. I don't know if it works for all phones but I can confirm it correctly identifies my phone as a CDMA Evo and correctly identifies my Nook Color.
doesn't recognize my nook color! it keeps calling it a encore, wtf!
Thread moved to Q&A.
May seem like an odd question but on my old Kaiser (Windows phone I know) I started to get block errors after flashing Android to NAND repeatedly. The developers and gurus there said it was a known problem and that it would continue to worsen, at which point I stopped
The question is, is it possible to over flash the G2?
I KNOW... different device/hardware/OS and all but I confess to being concerned. Is there any chance that repeated flashing is going to cause long term issues?
Don't think you can but I would like a straight answer from someone who knows what there talking about also
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA Premium App
No. Things just age with use.
It's like the same question with computers, If i never shut it down will it kill my computer? If i reformat my hard drive too much will it kill it? no. while many factors do need to be take into consideration but not so much with phones, And most electronics do have hours powered on stats and each device does have that. but as far as phones i really couldnt tell you.
flash memory can be rewritten 100,000,000 times..... so the answer is yes... (thats a real fact btw)
master.peterm said:
flash memory can be rewritten 100,000,000 times..... so the answer is yes... (thats a real fact btw)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah but not typical. i have a better chance in dropping my phone in the toilet then over flashing haha.
master.peterm said:
flash memory can be rewritten 100,000,000 times..... so the answer is yes... (thats a real fact btw)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh crap! Since I'm a 'flashaoholic' Its getting up there on that many time times! GEEZ!
Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk
Once a week....
Thanks to all for the answers. I guess I've got a long way to go to 1,000,000,000 but if devs keep putting out new and improved ROMs I'll keep flashing them.
Good to know the concensus is that, even at one a week I have a few years worth
NAND is typically good to at least tens or hundreds of thousands of read/writes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory
So even for flashaholics, the frequency of flashing is really not much of a concern. Sure, there is some tiny possibility that memory can randomly fail at any time. And the more you do it, the higher the chance of that occuring. But its not significant, and I wouldn't worry about it.
Even when talking about flash memory on things like SSD drives, that get re-written much more frequently, I believe the mean failure time is often spoken of as being at least 10 years, and often much longer due to various wear-leveling techniques.
xamadeix said:
No. Things just age with use.
It's like the same question with computers, If i never shut it down will it kill my computer? If i reformat my hard drive too much will it kill it? no. while many factors do need to be take into consideration but not so much with phones, And most electronics do have hours powered on stats and each device does have that. but as far as phones i really couldnt tell you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Eh I disagree. Reformatting too much can be a problem with flash memory. My mother, for example, always used to reformat her camera SD card instead of just erasing all the images normally (I know, facepalm). Over only two or three years, her pictures were unable to be developed because the SD card was corrupt. The gold strips on it looked like they had been beat to hell. It wasn't a cheap brand either, it was a Sandisk.
Although, with phones I don't think it's a problem. Lets face it, most of us won't have the same phone for over two years, many won't even have them past one year. We won't be using our phones long enough to get to that point.
slapshot30 said:
Eh I disagree. Reformatting too much can be a problem with flash memory. My mother, for example, always used to reformat her camera SD card instead of just erasing all the images normally (I know, facepalm). Over only two or three years, her pictures were unable to be developed because the SD card was corrupt. The gold strips on it looked like they had been beat to hell. It wasn't a cheap brand either, it was a Sandisk.
Although, with phones I don't think it's a problem. Lets face it, most of us won't have the same phone for over two years, many won't even have them past one year. We won't be using our phones long enough to get to that point.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know how you thought that reformatting something could physically damage the gold contacts on it. That's probably because she took the card out and put it back in a ton of times.
Sent from my G2 running Cyanogenmod 7.
Omg i was actually thinking of your question.. cause my battery is really hot!! Hopefully its not for that reason.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App
ibemad1 said:
I don't know how you thought that reformatting something could physically damage the gold contacts on it. That's probably because she took the card out and put it back in a ton of times.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, it sounds like some physical abuse, and not just from reformatting it. I've swapped SD and Micro-SD cards in and out of devices and card readers countless times, and never had any damage to the contacts. Mama might be inserted the card incorrectly, or to forcefully.
In any case, that example is just anecdotal. The failure could have been for any random reason. Memory can just stop working one day. Doesn't mean that formatting it was the cause.
Wow....didnt even know that overflashing is possible. ...... . But still on a low number i will get there in less than 10 years (maybe)
hello folks,
does anybody hav an idea of how many times a ROM or a custom ROM can be flashed on a device(HTC wildfire s)
thanks in advance
Good topic.. i was searching for the answer of this queation. Hope i will get it now.
Sent from my HTC Wildfire S using XDA
I have no idea. I've reflashed my phone so many times I thought my phone would stop working, but apparently it can take it There was a time I flashed a new ROM every two days or so, but these last two week I haven't really flashed anything new. But I must have flashed something new around 30 times or so, so far.
stil no answer..?
kantry123 said:
hello folks,
does anybody hav an idea of how many times a ROM or a custom ROM can be flashed on a device(HTC wildfire s)
thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
abhi8569 said:
Good topic.. i was searching for the answer of this queation. Hope i will get it now.
Sent from my HTC Wildfire S using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
johnnyspritz said:
I have no idea. I've reflashed my phone so many times I thought my phone would stop working, but apparently it can take it There was a time I flashed a new ROM every two days or so, but these last two week I haven't really flashed anything new. But I must have flashed something new around 30 times or so, so far.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
kantry123 said:
stil no answer..?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its like this: average NAND flash chip will take over 1000 cycles,so no worries there.
When i say over 1000 i mean like 10000
Also important to know that life of a flash memory is beyond your capability to destroy it with flashing roms every day-so...no worries there too.
Now i would have to type whole night,or to copy/paste a bunch of tech stuff here to explain...YOU JUST HAVE TO TRUST ME
Another thing-VERY IMPORTANT-Constant overclocking WILL shorten the life of your CPU if not fry it like an egg....so avoid that if you dont really need it.
For OC you need to understand how much is safe,and then you can play all you want.
Hope i helped....answer in the end is-FLASH AS MUCH AS YOU WANT WITHOUT FEAR...
CHEERS!!!
Fikus011 said:
Its like this: average NAND flash chip will take over 1000 cycles,so no worries there.
When i say over 1000 i mean like 10000
Also important to know that life of a flash memory is beyond your capability to destroy it with flashing roms every day-so...no worries there too.
Now i would have to type whole night,or to copy/paste a bunch of tech stuff here to explain...YOU JUST HAVE TO TRUST ME
Another thing-VERY IMPORTANT-Constant overclocking WILL shorten the life of your CPU if not fry it like an egg....so avoid that if you dont really need it.
For OC you need to understand how much is safe,and then you can play all you want.
Hope i helped....answer in the end is-FLASH AS MUCH AS YOU WANT WITHOUT FEAR...
CHEERS!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thank you so much for your answer... i have no fear now for flashing roms...
am i the only one who flashed his phone over 300 times in 3 months ? God i probably shoulda asked same question long time ago. Well no harm no foul
baluuu said:
am i the only one who flashed his phone over 300 times in 3 months ? God i probably shoulda asked same question long time ago. Well no harm no foul
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here, probably more I switch between 3 roms, each have different strenghs eg. Cm7 for flash player, cm9 beauty, stock for sat nav & battery. I too did wonder how many flashes I would be able to safely accomplish. Sometimes I flash twice a day.
baluuu said:
am i the only one who flashed his phone over 300 times in 3 months ? God i probably shoulda asked same question long time ago. Well no harm no foul
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
me too, but more out of necessity than curiosity....i'm still trying to find a reliable, stable rom that gives me plenty of storage room for apps.
it seems to me that with this phone you basically have to choose whether you want a "smart" phone that will totally die out on you every few days, or a "basic" phone which will not allow you to have really any personal apps, but which will then last for a good couple of weeks before giving you the dreaded "low storage" messages and start lagging like hell.
but yeah, i've had to flash mine literally hundreds of times in the last 6 months, and it's still going (well....just about, as i said, this phone has never been "reliable" as such)
Gloris said:
me too, but more out of necessity than curiosity....i'm still trying to find a reliable, stable rom that gives me plenty of storage room for apps.
it seems to me that with this phone you basically have to choose whether you want a "smart" phone that will totally die out on you every few days, or a "basic" phone which will not allow you to have really any personal apps, but which will then last for a good couple of weeks before giving you the dreaded "low storage" messages and start lagging like hell.
but yeah, i've had to flash mine literally hundreds of times in the last 6 months, and it's still going (well....just about, as i said, this phone has never been "reliable" as such)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thank u so much..!
Well this isn't technically true. You can do no serious damage to your phone via flashing but every flash you do has the possibility of corrupting your phones internal storage due to it formatting the /system partition. This could create bad sectors on your phones internal mtd - this slowly eats away your internal memory by about 8bytes each time. That's about 8 ANSII characters (letters/numbers/symbols) so there isn't anything to worry about really.
From all the constant file transfers, installations and wipes I do each day I have about 6 bad sectors.
This is ABSOLUTELY nothing to worry about by the way, I just thought it would be interesting.
You would need around 500000 corrupted MTD sectors to lose the equivalent to ONE MP3 SONG on your internal memory.
Please note that its late at night here so my math may not be totally correct, but it'll be pretty close.
Sent from my HTC Wildfire S A510e using xda premium
benjamingwynn said:
Well this isn't technically true. You can do no serious damage to your phone via flashing but every flash you do has the possibility of corrupting your phones internal storage due to it formatting the /system partition. This could create bad sectors on your phones internal mtd - this slowly eats away your internal memory by about 8bytes each time. That's about 8 ANSII characters (letters/numbers/symbols) so there isn't anything to worry about really.
From all the constant file transfers, installations and wipes I do each day I have about 6 bad sectors.
This is ABSOLUTELY nothing to worry about by the way, I just thought it would be interesting.
You would need around 500000 corrupted MTD sectors to lose the equivalent to ONE MP3 SONG on your internal memory.
Please note that its late at night here so my math may not be totally correct, but it'll be pretty close.
Sent from my HTC Wildfire S A510e using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thank u so much...but is there a way to wipe those bad sectors..??
thanks in advance...!
I have done a general search on Google and found several articles relating to this subject, but when I searched XDA I didn't find anything conclusive or useful or even informative. The Samsung Galaxy S4 was supposed to be at least a 16GB phone. To me, that means 16GB of usable space to install apps. I knew there would be some bloatware, but when I got my SGS4, I was annoyed to see that the device memory total space was only 9.72 GB, and the bloatware was installed in that space! That left me with only a measly 8GB to install my apps. So where did the other 6.28 GB go? From what I read, it was used by the "system" and hidden "Samsung recovery partitions".
Well, I do not care about recovery partitions. I would rather trust Titanium Backup and my Nandroid backups and have more usable space than have a recovery partition I can't access. I am stingy with my storage, which is at a premium on mobile devices. I like to have control over every megabyte and I don't like the manufacturer deciding how my space is used. I already got an SD card for it, but I still want that missing space back.
So here is my question; how does one re-partition or re-size the partitions of the internal memory of the Samsung Galaxy S4? I know that linux has some amazing partition editors like gparted that can re-size partitions without destroying them, and Android is based on linux, so is there anything like an "aparted"?
I think in the system partition aside from the actual OS there's an odd 2-3 gigs of temp space to be utilizing during updates via Kiev etc. Since the size of TW roms are so big it makes sense in some weird way.
However anything I've read regarding repartioning is supposed to be pretty risky procedure. A lot of us that have gone to the Google Edition rom are also stuck with the original partitions even though GE rom nearly a gig smaller than TW rom. So especially wasted space for us.
Sent from my GT-I9505G using Tapatalk 4 Beta
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lazaro17 said:
I think in the system partition aside from the actual OS there's an odd 2-3 gigs of temp space to be utilizing during updates via Kiev etc. Since the size of TW roms are so big it makes sense in some weird way.
However anything I've read regarding repartioning is supposed to be pretty risky procedure. A lot of us that have gone to the Google Edition rom are also stuck with the original partitions even though GE rom nearly a gig smaller than TW rom. So especially wasted space for us.
Sent from my GT-I9505G using Tapatalk 4 Beta
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See, that's exactly what I am talking about. I don't plan to ever update my stock rom via Kiev, assuming I ever update it at all, since I flashed a modified stock kernel to get root. Where did you read about repartitioning being risky? I couldn't even find that much. Is it equally risky for all devices, or do the more modern devices have more options? I also flashed the Google Edition rom hoping to get the space back, but nope! It really sucks that a non-touchwiz, non-samsung rom would still allow a wasted partition.
Zaron DarkStar said:
See, that's exactly what I am talking about. I don't plan to ever update my stock rom via Kiev, assuming I ever update it at all, since I flashed a modified stock kernel to get root. Where did you read about repartitioning being risky? I couldn't even find that much. Is it equally risky for all devices, or do the more modern devices have more options? I also flashed the Google Edition rom hoping to get the space back, but nope! It really sucks that a non-touchwiz, non-samsung rom would still allow a wasted partition.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In order to partition that internal memory you have to wipe it. And that means everything. System, recovery, download mode, boot loader, everything.
The connection with Odin or adb at this point would be totally housed in RAM. It would need to maintain that connection in order to complete the task of adding the new partition, adding the download mode back, adding recovery, and finally the ROM itself.
If the phone lost its connection during that process or lost power or the update process got pushed out of ram for any reason the phone would be hard bricked as there would be no way to reestablish communication with it to restart the process. You couldn't power it on or boot it to anything. It would be a $600 paper weight.
Meanwhile the alternative option is to just go buy an $8 external 16gb SD card or a $20 external 32gb SD card. That carries no risk whatsoever and expands your phone's storage well beyond the original 9gb of usable space you started with.
Sent from your phone. You should be careful where you leave that thing.
Skipjacks said:
In order to partition that internal memory you have to wipe it. And that means everything. System, recovery, download mode, boot loader, everything.
The connection with Odin or adb at this point would be totally housed in RAM. It would need to maintain that connection in order to complete the task of adding the new partition, adding the download mode back, adding recovery, and finally the ROM itself.
If the phone lost its connection during that process or lost power or the update process got pushed out of ram for any reason the phone would be hard bricked as there would be no way to reestablish communication with it to restart the process. You couldn't power it on or boot it to anything. It would be a $600 paper weight.
Meanwhile the alternative option is to just go buy an $8 external 16gb SD card or a $20 external 32gb SD card. That carries no risk whatsoever and expands your phone's storage well beyond the original 9gb of usable space you started with.
Sent from your phone. You should be careful where you leave that thing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! And yes I also hit the thanks button . I had no idea that partitioning the internal memory was THAT risky. I am surprised nobody has come up with a better way, like how you would boot from a CD to partition your computer. Maybe a way to boot from external SD or something? It also makes me curious; if the manufacturer started with blank internal memory, how did they write the initial recovery and ROM to it in the first place? What are they able to do that we can't do?
Zaron DarkStar said:
Thanks! And yes I also hit the thanks button . I had no idea that partitioning the internal memory was THAT risky. I am surprised nobody has come up with a better way, like how you would boot from a CD to partition your computer. Maybe a way to boot from external SD or something? It also makes me curious; if the manufacturer started with blank internal memory, how did they write the initial recovery and ROM to it in the first place? What are they able to do that we can't do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your computer has a bios that exists on a saparate chip from everything else. The bios is like a pre-boot that waits for you to hit the power button, then it looks for a hard drive with an OS to get going the rest of the way. If it doesn't find a hard drive it will look to a CD ROM drive that will take the next step.
The operating sysem resides on your hard drive. So you can wipe your hard drive and the bios will at least let the computer physically turn on.
On your cell phone all that stuff resides on the same internal memory. So if you wipe it clean, it doesn't even have something like a bios that can look for a secondary boot option on an SD Card.
Samsung probably programs the memory chips on a separate machine before they even put them on the mother board. Think of an old 8 bit Nintendo. Super Mario Bros. exists entirely on the game cartridge. It's pre programed to hold the game. You then take that game cartridge (which is essentially just a memory chip on a circuit board inside the plastic case) and insert it into the Nintendo in order to boot up the game. Without the game inserted the power button just blinks and the Nintendo doesn't know what to do. Same thing with your phone. Samsung programs the memory chip somewhere else, then puts the fully prgrammed chip onto the mother board and it boots up. (This is a VERY generic example. There are about 500 things that are different about how these two sysems boot. I am well aware of this. I jus used it as an example to help clarify the concept.)
Skipjacks said:
On your cell phone all that stuff resides on the same internal memory. So if you wipe it clean, it doesn't even have something like a bios that can look for a secondary boot option on an SD Card.[/I]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ugh that seems like a bad design choice. And all manufacturers are doing this? Nobody has managed to squeeze in a separate chip for the recovery, even on tablets?
Skipjacks said:
Samsung probably programs the memory chips on a separate machine before they even put them on the mother board.[/I]
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So what you are saying is that the process Samsung probably used can't be used after the chip has been placed in the phone without extreme risk? Got it.
Zaron DarkStar said:
Ugh that seems like a bad design choice. And all manufacturers are doing this? Nobody has managed to squeeze in a separate chip for the recovery, even on tablets?
So what you are saying is that the process Samsung probably used can't be used after the chip has been placed in the phone without extreme risk? Got it.
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You probably need to unsolder the chip from the board and use a chip programmer to write everything back to the chip.
macaumen said:
You probably need to unsolder the chip from the board and use a chip programmer to write everything back to the chip.
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I don't think I'll be attempting something like that. That would make me even more nervous than wiping the internal memory. I'm a GTAW welder, and I still don't think I would have steady enough hands to go messing with the physical chips inside my phone.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda app-developers app
One chip?
Anyway my other question still remains. Android software/hardware is all designed to run off of one internal chip that holds everything? Even on tablets? And nobody has attempted to break this mold?
You can actually adjust the partition details through what is called a pit file (partition information table)
There is a thread where someone was able to create the pit files flashable through Odin. While they are flashable, I have tried everything on my s3 to get it to work. I think there is some bootloader code which ignores unsigned or not genuine pit files. There is just something preventing them from taking effect even though it says it flashed successfully.
You should easily be able to take some blocks from system partition and add them to data without and risks.
Btw it's impossible to hard brick this and the s3. You would just need a jtag device to rewrite the bootloader back to the device. Some people have said that the USB jigs you see on eBay work. And for 5 bucks what the heck lol.
But generally speaking, playing with pit files and partitions can get costly.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk 2
I'm still very interested in this. I intend to only use the Google Play ROM's, which are 500MB, rather than 2GB
Samsung said that the S4's system only uses 1GB more than the S3, yet consumes 2GB more in total :/
DON'T TRY THIS. OTHERWISE IT'LL BRICK YOUR DEVICE
There's a solution for S4 i9500, but apparently it was officially released by samsung. I don't believe samsung or t-mobile will do the same, but I hope so. Or if anything could be done from this to be adapted to m919 would be great.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2429309
Zaron DarkStar said:
Ugh that seems like a bad design choice. And all manufacturers are doing this? Nobody has managed to squeeze in a separate chip for the recovery, even on tablets?
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I strongly suspect this goes to how ARM Systems-on-a-Chip work. These devices don't expect to encounter any kind of hardware intermediary between the processor and the chips. That's what the drivers are for. These devices are designed for simple bootstrapping, and the best way to do that is to connect the CPU to a single internal store of flash memory. Also, no device manufacturer expects to need to repartition their internal flashes within the device's working life. The partition sizes were chosen very carefully so it isn't necessary. They trade in some leeway space to be able to "set it and forget it." In the end, they don't expect anyone (including themselves) to tinker with it after it's been all set up. Normal users won't be in a position to encounter the recovery system, and even skilled amateurs trying to fix something mildly serious would find the stock recovery system sufficient. If that doesn't work, it's probably going back to the manufacturer.
Still a bad design.
WhosAsking said:
Also, no device manufacturer expects to need to repartition their internal flashes within the device's working life.
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So when they advertise a device as having a certain amount of storage, yet the actual user controlled usable storage space is almost half that, they don't think people are going to have a problem with that and will want to get that storage space back, through re-partitioning if necessary?
WhosAsking said:
The partition sizes were chosen very carefully so it isn't necessary.
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The partition sizes weren't chosen by ME, the consumer, owner, and end-user of the device, so it is quite necessary I have control over the storage I paid for.
WhosAsking said:
They trade in some leeway space to be able to "set it and forget it."
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You mean they trade so of MY hardware's capability for the current/future needs of whatever services they might decide to implement, even if I will never use said services.
WhosAsking said:
In the end, they don't expect anyone (including themselves) to tinker with it after it's been all set up.
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I tinker with all my electronics to suit my needs. I change the partition structure of my computer occasionally when my storage allocation needs change enough that it becomes necessary.
WhosAsking said:
Normal users won't be in a position to encounter the recovery system, and even skilled amateurs trying to fix something mildly serious would find the stock recovery system sufficient.
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This isn't about trying to fix a problem. This is about being able to control and use ALL of the storage I expected to have on a device I paid for.
It just sounds like you are making excuses for Samsung. Please don't. It is bad enough that we have to deal with bloatware, but for a manufacturer to reduce a device's functionality, knowing that it is risky/difficult to reverse, for the sake of their proprietary services that the user may not want is just unacceptable.
If I wanted a device where the manufacturer makes the decisions for me the I would buy an Apple. I choose Android for its openness and customizability, so I get annoyed when I see manufacturers deliberately reduce a device's customizability to make way for their proprietary services. I think manufacturers should respect the spirit of the platform they are making devices for, otherwise they are making devices for the wrong platform. More specifically, I think Samsung should respect the spirit of Android, and stop trying to shove their proprietary bloatware down our throats.
Zaron, let me put it another way. The sizes you hear advertised on TV and ads and so on are much like hard drive sizes and the "up to" internet speeds you also see; you're not expected to actually get every last bit that's advertised. The only way you'll fix that is to change advertising laws; good luck trying to get something like that through a legislature.
There's also the fact that those of us here do not represent the typical user of these phones. The average person wants to be able to just get their apps done and be done with it. Quite simply, you can't please everyone, so it's better to annoy a small number of diehard geeks than a larger number of less-technically-literate buyers. As for the "spirit of Android," I don't see any such thing. Android is what manufacturers make of it (like with Amazon). We're talking companies here; not bleeding hearts. For Samsung, Android just happens to be the non-Apple system best at hand. It's not like they're betting the farm on it, either; they're developing Tizen, too, which will be going into their Gear 2 line of smartwatches.
WhosAsking said:
Zaron, let me put it another way.
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Ok let's break this down since it sounds like once again you are making excuses.
WhosAsking said:
The sizes you hear advertised on TV and ads and so on are much like hard drive sizes and the "up to" internet speeds you also see; you're not expected to actually get every last bit that's advertised.
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I have gotten nearly ALL of the storage space I paid for on EVERY hard drive I have ever bought. There is a miniscule loss for the formatting overhead and partition table, and maybe a couple hundred megabytes for the Windows recovery partition if I CHOOSE to have one. This is quite minor compared to the 500GB - 3TB of space my drives have. On the GS4, I got nearly half, HALF of the usable storage I thought I was buying. There is a huge difference between minor overhead cost and HALF. Also, most of the time I get exactly the amount of bandwidth I pay for as well, for both my home internet and mobile data. It is rare I get any slowdown. So don't give me this nonsense about not expecting to get what is advertised.
WhosAsking said:
The only way you'll fix that is to change advertising laws; good luck trying to get something like that through a legislature.
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I don't need to change any laws to vote with my wallet, which is the only thing Samsung should be concerned with: how customers vote with their money.
WhosAsking said:
There's also the fact that those of us here do not represent the typical user of these phones. The average person wants to be able to just get their apps done and be done with it.
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Really? Because everyone I know who has an Android got one for the ability to customize/tinker with it. But even assuming there is a larger user base I haven't seen that doesn't care as much about customizing, what if said "average people" want to install many apps on their phone? Maybe they want to try out one of the many relatively large Android games on the market. Even an "average" user of a mobile device can do simple math. If they install a few games that are a couple GB each and then run out of space, and then add up the total space they used and compare it to how much their device should have, they would notice they got cheated real quick. All they have to do is go into the app manager in the settings and look at the amount of space used/free to see they don't have as much space as they thought.
WhosAsking said:
Quite simply, you can't please everyone, so it's better to annoy a small number of diehard geeks than a larger number of less-technically-literate buyers.
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I do agree that it is difficult to please everyone. However, who exactly are they pleasing by cutting the usable storage space in half? Answer: nobody but themselves, in order to exert control over their customers. That is all. I have not heard a single person say, "I am so happy with all of Samsung's built-in services, and I don't mind at all that I have only half the space listed on the box!"
WhosAsking said:
As for the "spirit of Android," I don't see any such thing.
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When I say spirit of Android, what I mean is the desire to make a useful device that puts the power of customization in the hands of the user. I mean a device that is the opposite of an Apple device. I mean a device that can be used independently of its creator company. I mean the ability to change the ROM, the launcher, the dialer, the SMS app, and allowing pretty much every other part of the device's software to be modular and customizable. I mean the ability to sideload apps, install other market apps, and not be tied down to one marketplace. I mean the ability to have a device that doesn't make you feel beholden to any entity. That is the spirit of Android. So when a company makes an Android device with features that deliberately move away from customization and towards proprietary dependence, aka dedicating almost half of the SGS4's internal storage for proprietary services, while advertising it as having the full 16GB, that pisses me off. If Android was a religion, it would be the equivalent of blasphemy. When I am in the market for a new device, a company gets my attention by having a more powerful device with more customization options. Also, nothing makes me switch manufacturers faster than when I feel like they are trying to lock me in to their economy.
Now, if you respond to me in the same manner as your last two posts, full of industry excuses and reasons why we shouldn't criticize our corporate overlords, then I will assume you are just a shill, and I will ignore you. I have better things to do than argue with a shill, so prove to me you aren't one.
You're right. It sucks. You should get the entire cell phone industry (valued at several hundred billion dollars) to change its' marketing systems.
Let me know how that works out for you.
The rest of us don't like it either, but we've moved on because we learned how to interpret the manufacturer's claims into what we can actually except to see. Now stop yelling at everyone on XDA who is just trying to explain it to you. We're not the ones who came up with these shadey marketing practices. And just because we understand the shadey marketing practices doesn't mean we support them.
You are preaching to the chior. We all agree with you.
Skipjacks said:
You're right. It sucks. You should get the entire cell phone industry (valued at several hundred billion dollars) to change its' marketing systems.
Let me know how that works out for you.
The rest of us don't like it either, but we've moved on because we learned how to interpret the manufacturer's claims into what we can actually except to see. Now stop yelling at everyone on XDA who is just trying to explain it to you. We're not the ones who came up with these shadey marketing practices. And just because we understand the shadey marketing practices doesn't mean we support them.
You are preaching to the chior. We all agree with you.
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You were helpful to me before, why do you sound so angry now? I wasn't yelling at "everyone". I was disagreeing with one person about the premise that no matter what we do, we should expect to get screwed in some way every time we buy a phone. I don't accept that. I don't even have a problem with people who do accept it, but I do have a problem when people explain it to me, and then sound like they are trying to get me to accept getting screwed. This thread started with me asking if there was a way to easily re-partition the internal memory of the SGS4, and when the answer was basically "no", the purpose of this thread was pretty much served. However, it went on to become a discussion about why things are the way they are, which inevitably led to the business practices of Samsung, at which point it started to feel like I was being told to just accept the situation, which got me riled up. Big corporations wouldn't be big without their customers, so I intend to stay a customer who cares. I won't give in to apathy or complacency, and I won't accept corporate control, even if I can't directly do anything about it. I appreciate the explanations, and I am sorry offended anyone.