Develop Bugs

Replacing my SD Card with A2SD apps?

I've been running my A2SD for 2 weeks now and am happy with it - other than a few apps stutter a bit.
I've put this down to my slow 'non classed' 16gb memory card, so I ordered a Class 6 16gb one the other day.
Its turned up today, and I want to swap it for the current one.
As I don't have a Linux computer, whats the best way of doing this? I can't see the partition with the Apps on it in my Windows PC.
Should I just use Titanium Backup and do a batch backup of all my 'User Apps and System Data', then copy the contents of my SD Card to my PC.... then format the new card for A2SD, then copy the contents back and restore my Backup?
Any help appreciated!

download the ubuntu live cd here http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download. it will run from a cd or usb stick and dosent need to be installed, you will be able to see your sd-ext as its a linux os, you can then just copy the apps to your hdd, partition your new card using the native ubuntu disk utility and then copy your apps to your new sd card

Thanks for the reply.
Sounds simple enough - I'll get downloading.
Do I just stick my SD in a USB reader and do it, or read the SD straight from the Desire?

Cant you just copy the files to your pc then paste them back when you put the new SD card in? Worked for me today... well all seems fine upto yet
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

He can't because he has a ext2/3 file system partiotion that he's using for A2SD and ext is not shown in windows.
You probably don't have ext2/3 and that's why it worked without problems for you.
p3eps said:
Do I just stick my SD in a USB reader and do it, or read the SD straight from the Desire?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think it matters, it should work both ways.

Just out of curiousity.... will my Mac see the A2SD partition on my SD card since Apple OS shares a lot in common with Linux?

Wouldnt the easiest option to be to do a nandroid, partition the new sd card, then just restore the nandroid saves faffing about with other stuff.
Depending on what rom your using it may be a better option to use data2sd

wanting to have use desire as 16Gb USB drive but with NTFS?

Dudes, bit of a dilemma, if I format my 16Gb micro sd to NTFS and put it in my desire, the desire doesnt like it and it formats it as FAT32 .. which is ok, but I would very much like to tranfer files as big as 4Gb to the "removable drive" when using the desire as a USB drive.
Only trouble is you cant do that when using a FAT32 drive.
Is there a way of formatting the SD to NTFS but stil the handset will work with it.. Ie if its NTFS the desire will want to reformat it but if its FAT 32 the USB storage options only good for the odd small file.
Anyway around this so that the 16Gb SD card can be used on the desire (ie for apps and the like) but can also be used in the usb storage option to transfer large files of upto say 4Gb ?
bit of a catch 22

Why can't you copy 4GB files to the SD card? My External USB hard drive on my laptop is FAT32 and I copied the contents of my old external HD to it without issue (about 200GB). File system isn't the problem here
And no, you can't use NTFS on the Desire. Which is why it reformats the SD card once you boot Android

No!
You can copy more than 4GB to a fat32 filesystem because FAT32 partition can be larger than that.
But if one file is larger than 4GB then you can't copy it on FAT32, this is a limitation of FAT32 filesystem:
FAT 32 max file size= 4GB

this reason :
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080529220411AADT6Ut
you can move 200Gb worth of stuff but not a single file over 4Gb on a FAT32 file system (apparently)

you see my dilemma ? hehe most annoying

Biggest single file ive ever seen was about 3 GB. Never knew about the 4 GB limitation to Fat32 before. What files larger than 4 GB are there? 1080p files maybe?

.ISO Image files in this case
(work related not smut or pirated material before any suspicions are raised hehe)

I think u like to share Games with your Phone.
Why u do not extract the image files and install from the folder later?
After extracting u can copy the folder to sdcard ;-)

because once i extract the .ISO
the "Beach Hussys" .AVI file is still too large
... but seriously, there has been a few files ive had that are larger, I liked you idea tho x thanks. But there has got to be a way

Wasn't aware of the 4GB limit in FAT32, never had a file large enough to transport around!!

you can use gsplit or h-split!!! to split files on pc!!..

cheers dude that is good to know
but I really want the USB storage facility on the Desire to match having a USB key .. ie tranfer a 4Gb file the same as I would to my USB key (which is optimised and formatted to NTFS) Then I only have to take one around with me.
I have done this and it works (providing you have it plugged into USB as soon as you switch on with NTFS formatted SD in the phone) but then the sd cannot be used in that state to save apps to etc - so its one or the other it seems
ive used the sd formatted to ntfs and put it in my desire and plugged it into a usb straight away and it works - but if u dont do it straight away the handset says "SD card not formatted do you want to format it now" in which case it will format it to FAT32 or not let you use it as USB storage device at all.
hmmph !

i guess it shouldnt be hard as long as you compile the kernl with ntfs support or modprobe.

you can also split your files easily with winrar

What about exFAT? Can Desire read that format?

u can also use programs like winrar to split em in parts as well.. if its a movie u want to playback though, ;p its pretty impossible unless u split it urself with a movie editor..which aint a hard task..

Just use winrar archive the file to multiple archives, copy them over and unpack it
Sent from my HTC Desire HD using Tapatalk

if you have a big sdcard and you transfer a lot of movies or files bigger than 4gb why don't you make 2 partitions on your sdcard....on FAT32 with the size you want on the desire and one NTFS for your data!!! i don't think it would cause any trouble. i might be mistaken though i never tried it. but for usbs works wonders

What about use partitions? Let's say 4GB FAT32 and 12GB NTFS... will it work?
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

I think it should work, but the Desire wouldn't read the NTFS partition, you could only use it for USB file transfer.

[Q] Formating SD card to start fresh

Ive tried to search the forums but cant seem to find the answer.
I wonder if I can safe format my sd card without ruining my DHD

I wonder what happens when SD card is upgraded to a higher capacity one. Is there a way to migrate existing data? Not sure what filesystem it uses either...
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

you can do this on your DHD, go to setting, SD & phone storage, unmount SD card and then you have option to format sdcard. this will fully wipe sdcard and format to fat32 filesystem.
you can format from pc as well, just unmount sdcard, right click on sdcard from pc ,an this you the format option, again format to fat32. only thing is on windows if you have a sd-ext partiton (ext3 or ext4) on sdcard,windows does not see it and won't format this partiton
and the no problem with saving your files on to pc,then formatting and putting those files back on again.

That sounds great. Data migration via PC should be easy. Here I was suspecting they'd somehow lock the content on the SD card.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App

Nah, they could not risk the case that if one's SD breaks, it would break the whole device

[Q] App2sd Oxygen 2.01

I'm currently running oxygen 2.01 and I assume it has built in app2sd as it's using my ext partition on my memory card.
I need to upgrade my memory card and can copy everything apart from the ext partition
I Have SUFBs explorer which can copy the contents of the sd-ext partition onto my FAT32 partition on the current SD-Card. I can then transfer that to my PC, problem is getting the data from the PC back onto the new SD-Card
I've copied the sd-ext folder onto my new FAT32 partition, when I load up my Desire its got none of my installed apps, they're all on the old sd-ext partition! Is there anyway I can force SuFBs or Market to not use APP2SD. I can't find any program icon for app2sd anywhere.

nvm figured it out, moved the file explorer to the SD Card, copied the app to the new SD Card and then overwrote the sd-ext partitions.
What a bloody long winded process, serves me right for using windows I suppose

Yes, that is a major shame that Windows cannot read ext partitions. I hate M$ for that.

SD Card as EXT?

Ok, so I've searched around and haven't really found an answer to my question, sorry if it's been answered before.
I'd like to format my ENTIRE SD card as an EXT3/4 filesystem, and was wondering if it would register as a normal SD card under Android, or will it be used a "system partition"? Would i be able to transfer files freely using a file explorer and would apps using the SD card (not apps on the SD card) for data run properly. I'd like to have a different file system used as FAT32 is a little ancient, and EXT is much better. I'm running Ubuntu as one of my OS, so mounting it on my PC wouldn't be a problem.
Thanks.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1123833
Post 2
It would still be seen as an external SD card whatever file system you format it as.

Thanks. Although, i was reading through that thread and it says that the SD card will be reformated to VFAT on reboot. Is this true for the DHD too?

Possibly. I wouldnt know to be honest. Might aswell wait until somebody who knows about this can answer.