Develop Bugs

Extend ext3 partition on SD Card

Hi everyone,
is there any way to extend an existing ext3-partition (512MB, created with ROM Manager) without loosing the data?
I'm using the DJ Droid 1.1-R1 ROM on a Desire and the internal memory was fine (about 90MB free, no matter what i've installed so far). However after installing a few games today it dropped to a mere 20MB. Is it possible, that the ext3 partition is already completely used and the latest apps were just installed to the internal phone memory?
Thanks for any hint and solution
Best wishes,
hunchi

hunchi said:
Hi everyone,
is there any way to extend an existing ext3-partition (512MB, created with ROM Manager) without loosing the data?
I'm using the DJ Droid 1.1-R1 ROM on a Desire and the internal memory was fine (about 90MB free, no matter what i've installed so far). However after installing a few games today it dropped to a mere 20MB. Is it possible, that the ext3 partition is already completely used and the latest apps were just installed to the internal phone memory?
Thanks for any hint and solution
Best wishes,
hunchi
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can expand the ext3 partition on the SD card by using something like gparted (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php).
This is probably not your problem though. Although your apps are on the SD card the data is still on the internal memory and this is what is reducing your available memory.

Thanks for the help! Will have a look into gparted once it gets necessary. Indeed, the problem was somewhere else: After I rebooted the free internal memory went back to 85MB. However I have no idea what caused this memory usage and the memory release after the reboot... Anyways, as long as it works, I'm happy
Thx again!

extend partition
The most efficient way to extend partition, you asked, and will not wiping data.
I think, want to finish this work, use Extend Partition Assistant Professional Edition. As I knew, this software has gained the best opinion by the users.
And I have tried several times, certainly flawless.
extend-partition.com/extend-system-boot-partition.html

live said:
The most efficient way to extend partition, you asked, and will not wiping data.
I think, want to finish this work, use Extend Partition Assistant Professional Edition. As I knew, this software has gained the best opinion by the users.
And I have tried several times, certainly flawless.
extend-partition.com/extend-system-boot-partition.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My experience with Partition assistant is that it will not recognize a SD card, only hard disk.

I also recommend the use of gparted. But before this action you should save all data (very easy with linux, because it does not hide any files). If you do not have any linux, download ubuntu live cd, burn it and start your computer with it:
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download
When you connect your phone with your computer, linux should recognize two partitions: The FAT32 partition and the ext partition (you can find out which is which by comparing the partition sizes). Copy their content on an external storage (e.g. an usb stick): Create two folders, one for fat32 and one for ext. Copy the content in the corresponding folders. Partition the sd-card again with gparted or your phone's recovery system. Start your computer with ubuntu live, connect phone to computer and copy the content of the fat32 and ext partition back to the sd card.

Hi,
copy your data to you hard drive and then BU all your app + data with nandroid and titanium backup then extend your partition on windows disc manager and restore everything.
Eran.

eranbaruch said:
Hi,
copy your data to you hard drive and then BU all your app + data with nandroid and titanium backup then extend your partition on windows disc manager and restore everything.
Eran.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This will not working. Windows does not support the creating of ext partition (much less the change of it).

I used the GParted GUI utility in Ubuntu. Worked wonders for me!

used gparted also, done twice and no issue. save your data from sd.
to do this i use vmplayer and let run ubuntu distri

fragargon said:
used gparted also, done twice and no issue. save your data from sd.
to do this i use vmplayer and let run ubuntu distri
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you use ubuntu live cd, if you do not want to get used with virtual machines (vm).

@matdroid
i know about live cd even usb... advantage of vmplayer is that you launch it without any reboot while playing with your current OS. nowodays comp are enough powerfull to supporte both environment. give a try

fragargon said:
@matdroid
i know about live cd even usb... advantage of vmplayer is that you launch it without any reboot while playing with your current OS. nowodays comp are enough powerfull to supporte both environment. give a try
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not new to me that computer from today are powerful enough for vms. That's not the point. With live cd's you do not have a running system in background which can disturb. Thats exactly why i use/prefer them. On this way i can concentrate on this one operation very easy. But that's a personal thing.

tool good on pc for fragargon
use MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition

[Q] Desire SD partition for a2sd

Need some pointers from anyone that may be able to help out... I'm a first time rooter/modder, and have successfully rooted and modded my Desire, but for the life of me can't seem to be able to partition my SD card - I thought that would have been the simplest part!
Here's the guff;
PC running Vista
HTC Desire
32GB SanDisk (a real one purchased from play dot com)
Rooted using Unrevoked
Running ClockworkMod 2.5.0.7
Running CyanogenMod 6.1.0 RC1 Desire
All working perfectly, no issues.
Then I got to the point where I need to partition the SD card with an ext partition to allow for a2sd. I've now spent four 2AM nights trawling and googling through the intermaweb trying to figure out how to do this with no luck.
I have had the card for a few months and have been using almost the whole 30GB of the card for storage on and off (transferring to and from in Vista), but I also recently ran verification tests to confirm that there are no bad sectors/issues with the SD.
I have unsuccessfully tried all of the following methods to partition the SD;
ROM Manager --> Partition SD Card --> 512MB ext, 32MD swap and the rest fat, along with a number of other combinations. I am using the premium version 2.5.0.7... ROM Manager goes through the process, looks like it's done it's thing and then reboots, but then doesn't actually create the partitions!
GParted Live CD. I boot using the live CD, but no matter what, the SD just doesn't seem to show up here for some reason - I'm not really sure exactly what state I should be putting the phone in to make it work here??
Android Device Bridge (ADB) using the console manager thing. I get issues with parted, but I think that was because it was needing the Amon-Ra recovery?
Amon-Ra recovery. I couldn't find the proper recovery to use, didn't know what to do with it, and then wasn't sure if I should be getting rid of ClockworkMod, so didn't manage to use this either!
The 'Quick System Info' app confirms the status as:
SD Card Storage: total 29.2GB, free 29.2GB
A2SD storage: "information not available"
Internal storage: total 148MB, free 44.48MB
System storage: total 250MB, 132MB
System cache: 40MB, 38.7MB
Any help would be super-duper appreciated, so thanks in advance for your responses!

I just installed a couple of apps (angry birds/XDA) and rebooted, now Quick System Info says:
SD card storage: total 29.2GB, free 29.18GB
A2SD storage: total 21.3MB, free 6.1MB???*****
Internal storage: total 148MB, free 40.1MB
System storage: total 250MB, free 132MB
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I had faced similar issues as well. I finally used ubuntu live cd that is a free to download bootable iso image and used gparted that is available in that.
gparted live cd did not detect my SD but it did in ubuntu. You can also use it to mount and see the contents of SD and resize if required. I recommend you download it.

I used MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition to part my SD card.....
... actually setting up A2SD on CM6.0.1 alludes me....

I can't remember if cyanogen actually supports a2sd+ or not but make your fat32 partition FIRST then just make your ext3 and swap in ROM Manager
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

Thanks for the replies! - will give the ideas a try next week when get home...
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

Any luck with this?
I _still_ can't get A2SD working with CM6.1

As Gparted live cd was not detecting my SD, I followed vpraveenis' suggestion and used Ubuntu live cd and the Gparted that comes with that - this finally picked up my SD where the Gparted live CD wouldn't.
It showed me that the 'partition SD card' option in ROM manager was actually working, as the SD card was already partitioned with a fat32, 512mb ext and 32mb swap.
I repartitioned it using the Ubuntu live cd Gparted with fat32, 1024mb ext4 and 32mb swap just to see it anything different happened. Same issue. a2sd didn't work.
bugmenot (cyanogen forum) advised that installing Darktremor A2SD fixed their issues so I tried that - this also didn't seem to make any difference.
Looking around now, there seems to be a number of users asking the same question and not getting anywhere.
Could this be a cyanogen mod issue? My understanding is that a2sd is included in 6.1CR1, so it should be working.
I'm currently trying to sort out some of the latest nightly builds so see if I have any luck there. Any other insights would be appreciated.

i faced the same problems with you, but i have solved it.
First, you need to download the unvoked 3.14 << which is the older version
then dl the RA-Desire-Recovery
Using the unvoked 3.14 to custom the RA-desire recovery. (connect the phone to computer)
then boot into the recovery by holding vol - and power and partition here.
Finished~~~~

SD Card cloning issues

I have been trying to clone my 4gb class 4 sd card to the new 8gb class 6, but failed.
I am using Cyanogenmod 7 nightly and app2sd with data moved to sd. My computer OS is linux and I have android tools installed.
1. I partitioned new card with newest clockworkmod, which unfortunately results in ext2, not ext4 so I reformated ext2 to 4 using some partitioning software.
2. Copied content of fat32 partition from the old card, including recent nandroid backup.
3. Booted to recovery and tried restoring sd-ext several times, but I either get 'MD5 sum mismatch', or it starts fine but at some point it stops with error.
I then tried again but this time without reformatting ext2 to ext4 but the result was the same.
I also tried just copying sd-ext directly with 'sudo' but the phone acts just like the new installation then and even 'Fix Permissions' doesn't help.
Help!

I just recently did this myself two different ways, the first was to use acronis disk manager to clone the sd from a 8gb to 16gb. This worked fine but took an extremely long time.
I then upgraded from 4gib to 8 and created the partitions manually and copied over the data from one mount to another. Works fine here.
Did you try restarting your phone and double checking the partitions / types?

Plug both sdcards in the PC then use gparted to copy the two partitions across then grow the fat partition to fill the space if needed.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

mercianary said:
Plug both sdcards in the PC then use gparted to copy the two partitions across then grow the fat partition to fill the space if needed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have only one card reader in my laptop and connecting the card inside the phone makes the ext partition invisible for gparted. This makes copying partitions between two cards impossible.

impactor said:
I have only one card reader in my laptop and connecting the card inside the phone makes the ext partition invisible for gparted. This makes copying partitions between two cards impossible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Put the phone in recovery, then mount USB, it works for me using amonra recovery.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

mercianary said:
Put the phone in recovery, then mount USB, it works for me using amonra recovery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am using newest ClockWork recovery and all I can see in gparted is the FAT partition. Not even empty space where EXT should be.

and thats definitely mounting USB mass storage not mount SD card?
Theres definitely FS issues on the new card if you're getting MD5 sum errors.
Firstly dont use anything other than gparted to partition (see signature).
Flatten the new card completely. Format any partitions that may be there out and start again, from scratch.

rootSU said:
and thats definitely mounting USB mass storage not mount SD card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is the only option in recovery menu. I think if I used something else, I wouldn't even see FAT partition. The ext is ext4, btw.
And we are talking the original card here, not the new one. The new one is in the reader.

impactor said:
This is the only option in recovery menu. I think if I used something else, I wouldn't even see FAT partition. The ext is ext4, btw.
And we are talking the original card here, not the new one. The new one is in the reader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which is the only option? What recovery?

If I boot into recovery and go to 'mount and storage', 'Mount USB storage' is the only option that actually makes the phone visible to the computer. There are pleny of mount/unmount (eg: mount /data) options above this one, but they're supposed to work internally.

Is it Amon-Ra / RMD? Does the size of the FAT partition tally with the total size of the card? did you say had a card reader? just use that if you have

ClockworkMod Recovery 5.0.2.0
If I switch cards, then the one in the phone will still be invisible and I need both at the same time to copy partitions.

Forget copying partitions. Your instinct with nandroid restore was right, however you need to get the fs on the new card sorted
Also I have noticed on ubuntu that the data copy remaining is inaccurate. I leave it for several minutes after it appears to have completed to ensure data is written before ummount
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

rootSU said:
Forget copying partitions. Your instinct with nandroid restore was right, however you need to get the fs on the new card sorted
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Except this doesn't get me anywhere. I tried with ext2, ext4, created in recovery or by gparted and every time got stuck on the same stage.

Then theres a serious issue that needs fixing. Best not to work around. The nandroid is the best option.
Have you a Windows machine? H2testw.exe is a great sd testing app
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

Created partitions are not visible in Gparted if the card is in the phone, contrary to empty space. It took me many attempts in different configurations but I got it done, eventually, using gparted partition copying for EXT and regular copy for the FAT partition content

SD-Card format question

Hi XDA!
Recently, my SD card reached its limit and I now only have around 100 mb of space, no matter what I do.
Using the MIUI file manager, I can see that under the tab 'other' (i think that is what its called, danish locale), it shows 1.7 gb used storage. Searching through the objects in the category, I only see small 20-900 kb files and some 100 mb, which apparently is my backup files.
Seeing it keeps rising, I thought about formatting and start over.
Is there any folders or files (beside my photos etc.) That I need to backup prior to formatting?
Also, could I just format it using Windows, if mounted as external harddrive?
Thanks in advance!
- Nagelzz
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

I'm pretty sure there is no need for a full format, why don't you just delete the folders with those unnecessary backups and locale files?
Folders that I think need to be backuped if you decide to format afterall are those with a dot in the start of their name (altough I'm quite sure that even those are not important) and probably those that contain files that your programs use for backuping things (like notes, smsbackups, dropbox or whatever). I wouldn't format it though with windows, try sd formatter (google it) or format it with gparted just to be sure it won't corrupt your ext partition(s) if you have them...
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA Premium App

Link2SD Problem... HELP!!!
Hello I have a HTC Desire Bravo(GSM) running CyanogenMod9 4.0.4 ICS. I have a 16GB MicroSD memory card and need to partition it to allow Link2SD to move apps and free the *tiny* storage my phone has.
I have got gParted LiveCD and I created a 1.5GB partition for Link2SD and formatted it to EXT3 (as instructed by CM9) but then when I come to open Link2SD on my phone to set it up, it asks me for the filetype so I select "EXT3" and it says the following:
Mount Script Error
------------------
Mount script cannot be created.
mount: mounting /dev/block/vold/179:2
on /data/sdext2 failed: Invalid argument
ext3 may not be supported on your device. Try FAT32
on the second partition.
Now before this I had CyanogenMod 7 build 2.3.7 and it worked fine but up until I upgraded to CM9 ICS it decides not to work. I formatted and reformatted my card to try all other options but it didn't work. Would I HAVE to use FAT32 on my second partition or is there something I am doing wrong??
Thanks

[Q] Files on SD visible only from the phone, not from PC

Hi All,
This is my first post on XDA Dev, so I hope I am posting at the correct place. I would have liked to post on the ROM thread, but it seems that i don't have yet the permission.
I have installed the Wildfire Cracker ROM from m1ndh4x8r on my rooted Wildfire S with Custom Recovery, after partitioning the SD in three (Fat/Ext/Swap)
It seems that since then, The files created by the wildfire on the SD (Photos and more) are not visible when exploring the SD from my computer. They are however accessible from the wildfire.
Does anyone have a clue?
Thanks!

I would start by making sure the phone worked before you updated the ROM. Make sure you have the driver for the phone installed to your computer. (I'm assuming you do, as to install a custom ROM you must be rooted, which requires the driver.)
Download HTCSync from the HTC website. This helped me pull a LOT from the stock ROM and import it to the custom ROM.
Also, some ROM's have bugs. USB mounting may not work as it should in the "Cracker" ROM. If this is the case (I really don't know if it is it not), then booting into ClockworkMod recovery and enabling USB mounting in the recovery menu should work. Its kind of a pain in the butt, but it will work.
Hope this helps!
Sent from my A510c using XDA App

Thanks Bob,
I am talking about accessing the SD filesystem using the phone as a Disk Drive, not through HTC Sync.
Mounting the USB works fine, but only files created before the ROM update are visible... very strange.
The other way around work fine i.e. copying files from the PC to the SD and opening them in Android..
I'll have a look in the custom recovery though

It does this even with a rooted file explorer? (Root Explorer, ES File Explorer, etc..)
Sent from my A510c using XDA App

I've just realized that it is actually stranger than that:
When taking a picture with the phone, i can see it in the phone, on the SD.
If i plug the phone to the PC, i cannot see the new picture on the SD from the PC.
Then, and this is the funny part, if I unmount the sd from the PC and change the mode to charge only, the picture is not visible anymore from the phone, like if it had been erased...
It's like if the ROM was not physically writing on the SD, but in some kind of virtual memory, erased when the sd would be mounted on the PC...

Go market and download Wifi file transfer app,start the app,follow instructions and you are good to go,useful app for many things hope this helps

Are you using a2sd, link2sd, or data2sd?
If you aren't, I'd try a reflash of the ROM.
It sounds exactly like you say. For some reason the phone isn't writing to the SD card.
Sent from my A510c using XDA App

It sounds like some filesystem cache mirror IO messey mabob.
I know what I'm on about.
Backup in the cloud (dropbox or something) first.
Wipe EVERYTHING (not including SD) in recovery, go to mounts and storage -> mount usb storage, connect to pc, take your stuff (if you cant then wipe your sd), copy over a new ROM, repartition your phone but WITHOUT SWAP, format FAT32 and EXT3. Get your stuff back from your pc or cloud service.
Only an idea but it should work.
Sent from my HTC A510e using xda premium

benjamingwynn said:
It sounds like some filesystem cache mirror IO messey mabob.
Backup in the cloud (dropbox or something) first.
Wipe EVERYTHING (not including SD) in recovery, go to mounts and storage -> mount usb storage, connect to pc, take your stuff (if you cant then wipe your sd), copy over a new ROM, repartition your phone but WITHOUT SWAP, format FAT32 and EXT3. Get your stuff back from your pc or cloud service.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
bobdamnit said:
Are you using a2sd, link2sd, or data2sd?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks Benjamin and Bob,
I am actually using link2sd. I am going to follow your advices and reformat my SD and reinstall a ROM.