Develop Bugs

Partioning SD Card

Sorry, done a search and looked through all posts but can't seem to find a guide to partition sd card for use with apps2sd.
My phone is rooted and have rom manager installed where it looks I can perform the partition. Can someone point me to a noobs guide to partition or give us a hand. I have read about all different extensions to make the partition to but have no idea what they all are. Any help appreciated.

Swap - 0
Ext3 - as little or as much as you wish (usually 512-1024mb)
FAT31 - the rest

obviously this will wipe the sd card, what about all backups etc. Do i just copy to pc then copy them back when partition is complete?

Yes, but remember you will have less space on for data since a part of it will be taken up by Ext3 partition.

no problem, cheers for that

Make this sticky!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
memphisuklf said:
Sorry, done a search and looked through all posts but can't seem to find a guide to partition sd card for use with apps2sd.
My phone is rooted and have rom manager installed where it looks I can perform the partition. Can someone point me to a noobs guide to partition or give us a hand. I have read about all different extensions to make the partition to but have no idea what they all are. Any help appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been trying to make this subject a sticky for a while.
I posted some tutorials in the Q&A Thread: See my post http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=713643 (bottom of the page)....
Good luck!

does rom manager create the partition as ext 3 as default?

ok, seems I now have a problem. Did partition through manager 512mb/0 swap seemed to work fine but now phone won't boot, stuck at htc white screen. Any ideas?
Edit
Ok booted after 4th time of pulling battery. Doesn't look like it partitioned though. on windows I only have H: with 3.18gb

I used the Android Recovery Menu from Paul's old rooting tutorial which let me partion the memory card easily.

gave up for now, will have a look later on but don't want to mess with it that much as i`m using my stock sd card

I think you already have A2SD installed. I used Rom Manager to do the partition too and it was straightforward. No problems with rebooting though. If you reinstall your apps now, and if you check with a system info apps, you will find that you now have loads of internal memory.

ah, ok got 115mb free after installs(Used to have 10mb). So the defrost rom i`m using will automatically use apps 2sd when a partition is found?
Thought I had to set this up with spare parts?
How come I cant see the partition through windows?

Windows doesn't recognise linux partitions. Check with Quick System Info if A2SD is working correctly.

haha, feel stupid now. Working fine when checked with quick system info. Cheers for all the help guys, much appreciated

memphisuklf said:
ok, seems I now have a problem. Did partition through manager 512mb/0 swap seemed to work fine but now phone won't boot, stuck at htc white screen. Any ideas?
Edit
Ok booted after 4th time of pulling battery. Doesn't look like it partitioned though. on windows I only have H: with 3.18gb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If u have 4Gb card and in windows you see only 3.2Gb partition, then i think you have ext partition there ok. Windows wont see your ext.
Rom Manager will make ext3 partition in the end of your sd card.
With 512Mb ext + 0Mb swap you will get fat32 partition + ext3 in your SD card.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

On a similar topic, if I install a 2.2 ROM with Google APS2SD and legacy APS2SD, do I only need to create a partition for the legacy version of APPS2SD? If I just wanted to use the Google version can I just leave the card as it is?

yep, no formatting is needed for google app2sd

Here's my experience to Partition the SD card.
1) I rooted my Desire with "UnrEVOked"
2) Flashed the phone with a ROM
3) Then I went to "Market" and download "ROM manager", which has an option to "Partition SD card".
4) Reboot

dexter9898 said:
Here's my experience to Partition the SD card.
1) I rooted my Desire with "UnrEVOked"
2) Flashed the phone with a ROM
3) Then I went to "Market" and download "ROM manager", which has an option to "Partition SD card".
4) Reboot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is a related thread here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=731531
I developed the most common methods of partition your SD Card, and answered some questions and asked some additional ones.
I would very much welcome it, if anyone wants to participate in assembling the infos about SD cards....

Not the best guide but does work, you may need to adjust the figures depending on what size card you got.

Desire Virgin

hello all had my desire for a good few months now, totally clean unbranded device. Now after quietly perusing these forums for a while i feel the next best thing i could do is flash it with a custom rom, i am drawn towards leedroid 2.3c, however i would like some advice first from the experts....All You.
is leeddroid a good stable rom with all the feature that i currently have on a stock desire?
what is the simplest way to flash?
do i have to do anything prior to a flash? ie backup anything, or make a backup of my stock system? if so how? i have xp in iphones and nothing needed to be done there just plug in and flash?
i need a simple guide
many thanks

Before you do anything, go to Settings>About phone>Software information and make a note of the 'Software version' number and post it up on here. We'll go from there...

android version 2.2
baseband version 32.49.00.32u_5.11.05.27
software number 2.29.405.5

Right, awesome. You're totally unbranded so that's a good thing!!
First thing, download the RUU for that ROM so you can go back to stock should you need to. Get it from:
http://shipped-roms.com/download.ph...9.00.32U_5.11.05.27_release_159811_signed.exe
If that link fails to download then get it from:
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&so...Y-6AY_5A3EXnBSZIg&sig2=ToMSUjUY0tdbmxGYNI13-w
Or
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&so...cZlrId8Dkc9IAPJsg&sig2=upnnZhtKGWqyen3hhAeVvA
After that you can look at rooting the phone. I just re-rooted my phone on 2.29.405.5 using unrEVOked 3.31 and it work fine. You can get it here:
http://unrevoked.com/recovery/
Once rooted, go look at the different ROMs available and take you're pick!!

There you go about rooting the phone from EddyOS.
Leedroid is a newbie friendly rom, it is stable, fast (faster than the original), has relatively better battery life than the original and everything is working, not to mention, it is also a Sense rom, just like your original rom.
So, yes! Leedroid is a good pick to start.
Note:
---- IMPORTANT----
1. The first thing you might want to do directly right after rooting is to create a nanddroid bckup and copy the bckup into your pc directly after creating it.. Do it before flashing, formatting, creating partition, or anything else.
---------END----------------
2. You might also need a card reader and a software such as partition wizard, gparted, or similar to create an EXT partition in your SD Card since most of the custom roms will need it. Create the EXT partition before flashing.

brilliant thanks for the links and tips, is there any particulat software i need to perform this "create a nanddroid bckup"

Once rooted the custom recovery has the nandroid function in it
Have a read of this, should help explain things:
http://androidforums.com/desire-all-things-root/221212-faq-rooting.html

Hey eddyos many thanks for taking the time to answer.
now i take it i do not need to make a gold card as my phone is unbranded, so my steps to take are :-
a. root...using unrevoked
b. nandroid backup...using clockworkmod recovery supplied with unrevoked
c. flash whatever rom i choose.
now once i have done step b. do i store this backup on my pc? if so whats it gonna be called and where will it be on the desire
in order to flash a rom, where do i put the rom i download to flash to the htc? on the memoery card?
once i have done c i am no longer able to get stock updates.
once i have done c do i need to set up anything so my phone can make calls or access the internet etc, or does it behave like a new phone out the box and you whack in the info it asks for ie google account stuff.
once again many thanks

The Nandroid is stored on your SD card. You can make a backup of this on your PC should you wish.
Once rooted you can no longer get OTA updates so you'd need to update your ROM as (and if) the dev does so
You download the ROM file and stick it anywhere on the SD card as you can browse for the ZIP in recovery.
The phone should go through a setup and automatically set the APN but if not you can manually add it using the operator details on their website

cool many thanks m8 for your time, now its just down to me to select a rom.
m last bit of info i need for now is looking in the android development bit there are various roms etc, some say rom, froyo sense, aosp kernal etc. been a novice/virgin i have no idea what these titles mean, i assume i should just stick to anything that has rom next to it?
is anyone able to reccomend a beginers rom that i can try out
? whats this all about?
create an EXT partition in your SD Card since most of the custom roms will need it. Create the EXT partition before flashing.
how big should the partition be? 512mb

As it has been said before Leedroid is a very good start. The latest version should be the Leedroid 2.3c.
Try that one out and play a little while before trying to flash other ROMs.
EXT partition is needed for A2SD/A2SD+ ROMs (do not play around with D2EXT/D2SD at the moment, you are not ready yet for this).
A2SD means Apps to SD, means more apps can be installed since they don't go to your very limited internal memory.
Make 2 partitions on your SD card but be sure to copy everything inside the SD card to your PC just to be sure before making arrangement for those partitions.
First create a FAT32 partition for your datas ( such as music, videos, etc.) as the first partition, set it as primary and then create a 512-2GB EXT2/3/4 (I recommend1GB EXT 2 or 3 at the moment) as the second partition, set it as primary.
Be sure to have the EXT partition after the FAT32.
Windows can only see the first partition, that is where you are going to put bck all the files you have copied from the SD card before making all of those partitions.

Interesting thread as I am considering doing the same. Main reason for me is the clash between HTC Sense and the bluetooth stack not allowing for a bluetooth keyboard. Any particular rom recommendations for this - Leedroid, Cyanogen?

chili1496 said:
cool many thanks m8 for your time, now its just down to me to select a rom.
m last bit of info i need for now is looking in the android development bit there are various roms etc, some say rom, froyo sense, aosp kernal etc. been a novice/virgin i have no idea what these titles mean, i assume i should just stick to anything that has rom next to it?
is anyone able to reccomend a beginers rom that i can try out
? whats this all about?
create an EXT partition in your SD Card since most of the custom roms will need it. Create the EXT partition before flashing.
how big should the partition be? 512mb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FroYo = Android 2.2 (what you're currently on)
Gingerbread = Android 2.3
AOSP = Android Open Source Project )ROM built from the source code and now ported from another device)
As for EXT, I have a 1GB (1024MB) one and it serves me well

i am using leedroid for sometime now 512 MB EXT3-4 partition is more than enough i have 110 apps installed and still have 351MB free

once again many thanks for the replies.
what is the simplest prog to use to create the partitions? scrap that just used minitool partition magic i have an old 1gig card am gonna try will that be ok?
i have a fat32 partition size 533mb set as primary and a 362mb ext3 partition does it matter if the fat32 primary partition has a name?
looking at leedroid i think i need to install 2.3b before i can install the latest 2.3c

You can either do it in the recovery (I use Amon RA as mine but I think CWM does it too now). Otherwise you're better off downloading a GParted Live CD, boot your PC from that and then partition the card

When you're rooting Desire, have a look at good ol' turkeh's guide. Not only you have an excellent root tutorial, but you also learn how to properly flash ROMs, how to create and restore a system backup, how to backup apps, how to create ext partitions to enable app2sd and how to unroot the phone in case you need your warranty back.
Note: when performing the s-ff process (for data2sd), read carefully what it says and be aware that it can brick your phone if not done properly.

Turkey's guide is OK but is out of date somewhat, could do with updating to include the newer versions on unrEVOked

Application Space

I have the HTC Desire on Telus.
I have Apps2SD installed, as well as Android 2.2. Currently I am unrooted but was rooted before and the same issue.
I can move some applications to the SD card, but not all of them. Also its only part of the application. I am still running out of space all the time.
Am I missing something, how do you install and run an application from the SD card?

Root. Youre using stock a2sd which doesnt fully move the app to the sd so it still uses storage space. Root and a2sd+ is what youre after
Sent from my HTC Desire

As I said in my post, I was Rooted before, still didn't install the full application and cache and everything to sd.

Well if you rooted but didn't partition your SD card for A2SD+, then you did nothing extra.
Root > partition SD card > reinstall ROM

Link to the instructions on how to do it exactly, make sure I do it correct this time around.
Thanks.

So I did that, you can only partition the SD card as 512MB, which is clearly the same as internal memory. Also, the applications still only move some of itself over to the sd card.......

I can't use Gparted for reasons, is there another program that does the same that works with windows?

Anyone....really......come on....

MiniTool Partition Wizard (google it) works under Windows and can create ext3 partition SD Cards. It's the only one i found that actually works, and it's free.
As an alternative, you can instal ROM Manager on your phone and use it to create ext3 partition, although it's limited to 512MB.

Thanks for that application.
So I formatted my SDcard, reinstalled the rom and I still have only 114MB free, and 2GB missing from my SDCard now...WTF

Yeah, but data will be stored on ext3 partition so you will be able to install more apps. I now have 200mb of apps, and still have 40% free in internal memory.

The new Adobe Flash update increases the already ludicrous amount of space this app takes up on your phone. Was 10.96MB, now 11.29MB.
No Froyo move to SD.

Can someone please give me instructions from start to finish on how to do this because clearly I'm doing it wrong, I have 114MB internal free with fresh install.

Just install applications, you'll see they now take way less space in phone memory. You won't see that partition as available space.
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

Would still be nice to have instructions for next time.
And so your telling me there is no point to making a 2GB extra partition, since you can't move the apps fully over, that's what I thought, and this was a waste of time.

Instructions can be found all over the xda forums...seriously its not that hard to find..u need a rooted phone, a ROM that supports A2SD and an ext2 or ext3 partition on ur sd-card.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

Evil_Cid said:
Instructions can be found all over the xda forums...seriously its not that hard to find..u need a rooted phone, a ROM that supports A2SD and an ext2 or ext3 partition on ur sd-card.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea, these forums are bloated with topics and new posts every 5 seconds, its hard to find anything. And I found a tutorial or 2, obviously I did it wrong.
So a direct link, or a new step by step would be great. Everyone is acting like its easy, so shouldnt be hard to write a quick step by step or give a link..lol

bmancell said:
Yea, these forums are bloated with topics and new posts every 5 seconds, its hard to find anything. And I found a tutorial or 2, obviously I did it wrong.
So a direct link, or a new step by step would be great. Everyone is acting like its easy, so shouldnt be hard to write a quick step by step or give a link..lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay....what ROM are you using? Stock 2.2 only supports Google's way of moving Apps (i.e. moving some of it and leaving the rest behind). Even with rooting, the stock ROM WILL NOT move everything to SD. So you need a new ROM which will support the A2SD feature.....so selecting a new ROM (even a modified version of the stock one) would be your first step. Make sure this ROM has support for A2SD or A2SD+....
Edit: If you do decide to make the "full" switch, it is recommended to S-OFF if possible.... I am fairly confident that you are following the right steps but the ROM isn't supporting it.

I am currently running your ROM, the Oxygen v2.0-RC6 Gingerbread ROM. And i dont know what S-OFF is. I am assuming a way to power off.

bmancell said:
I am currently running your ROM, the Oxygen v2.0-RC6 Gingerbread ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you also got a custom recovery? like ClockworkMod (can be found on the Market) or AmonRa (i don't use this).... you will need one of them if you want to enable A2SD with Oxygen ROM. This is because the oxygen ROM, by default, writes app data into the internal memory rather than into any external partitions.
Basically once you create your ext3, you have to boot into the custom recovery and flash this:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2263716/dalv...2SD-signed.zip
and reboot..and that should do the trick.
That's the general summary of the steps. Read the link for more details on partitioning:
Link on SD card partitioning: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=910290
EDIT: Put simply, S-OFF (security off) allows you to install custom HBOOT image (such as the one I have..) which give you more space in you internal memory. Alpharev Oxygen HBOOT for example (HBOOT is the bootloader) gives around 337MB as internal space for your apps....which kinda makes EXT3 partitions unnecessary...
You have to be a bit careful with S-OFFing as newer Desire models have new security feature which makes it unsuitable to flash a new HBOOT. Read more about this here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=853583

leedroid hd 3.3.3 bootloop...

i flashed the new leedroid hd 3.3.3.. got into a boot loop.. waited couple of minutes.. nothing happened.. i dont have an sd ext... tried with and without the addons...

You need an EXT partition to get leedroid working. Follow installation guide posted in leedroid's rom thread.
SwiftKeyed from CyanogenMod with Transparent XDA App

desire
I use a desire.. not desire hd... is 3.3.3 compatible with desire??

backlash4u said:
I use a desire.. not desire hd... is 3.3.3 compatible with desire??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had HD installed on my desire earlier with 1G ext3. It installed and worked properly. Though, I tried to install normal LeeDroid App2SD and i am stuck in bootloop :s
I have 6G Fat32 + 1G Ext3 partition.

backlash4u said:
I use a desire.. not desire hd... is 3.3.3 compatible with desire??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Me too, same problem here. But I've partition my 8GB sd card, with 512MB of EXT4...
warm regards,

You need stock hboot to flash the a2sd version.

rosgani said:
Me too, same problem here. But I've partition my 8GB sd card, with 512MB of EXT4...
warm regards,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did you partition your sd card? Should be done with gparted or 4ext recovery only. I would also recommend 1GB ext4 as I believe some of the ext space is used for the rom.
Read the last few pages of that thread, I linked an faq for that rom, very useful.

Ext3 1GB is recommended and if u use ext4 u have to manually mount it before installing rom or some add ons.

twisted_forever said:
Ext3 1GB is recommended and if u use ext4 u have to manually mount it before installing rom or some add ons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
good point, ext4 is supported and in theory is slightly better/faster, but doubt it will make much difference. manually mounting it is not difficult from recovery though.
@rosgani, up to you whether you choose ext3 or ext4, more important that the partitions are created properly with gparted or 4ext recovery.
if you stick with ext4, try mounting ext partition manually in recovery (in advanced menu i think somewhere) before installing.
also here is the FAQ, i found it very useful when i last use that rom a while back.

eddiehk6 said:
also here is the FAQ, i found it very useful when i last use that rom a while back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats a wonderful FAQ back then but i think some people dont want to read infos rather they take serious actions, even they don't read OP. Otherwise this thread wouldn't been born.
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk 2

[Q] Some questions about Desire and custom ROM's

Hi guys.
Well I managed to get root access to my phone which wasn't really hard. And I managed to s-off and backup my files successfully. Now I'd like to deal with the internal memory issue. The question I want to ask you is this one.
If I create 2 partitions with gparted, one fat32 and second ext4 (around 2 gb's), will the ext4 one be considered as internal memory too ?
Then I'd like to install a custom ROM. So the second question is, can all ROM's the internal memory that way. I mean the custom part from the SD card ?
If something is unclear just ask, cause English is not my primary language.
Thanks in advance.

It should be that every ROM has it's own requirements for doing that.

So not every ROM can use approximately 2 GB for internal memory ?
That's what you're saying ?

Yes, for example I use 3GB on my SuperNova ROM, but recommended is 2GB so now I am trying to repair that. If you get me.
Kapiras? xD

Zealotic said:
Hi guys.
Well I managed to get root access to my phone which wasn't really hard. And I managed to s-off and backup my files successfully. Now I'd like to deal with the internal memory issue. The question I want to ask you is this one.
If I create 2 partitions with gparted, one fat32 and second ext4 (around 2 gb's), will the ext4 one be considered as internal memory too ?
Then I'd like to install a custom ROM. So the second question is, can all ROM's the internal memory that way. I mean the custom part from the SD card ?
If something is unclear just ask, cause English is not my primary language.
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Euh, if you ask me I would say it's part of internal memory (when you remove it the apps on ext4 don't work anymore) but i'm not a dev so not sure though
you can see it as an extension to your internal storage capacity..
next, most of the systems to use your ext4 are already included in roms (A2SD, D2EXT) so you don't have to worry about that, they recognise the partition themselves
the only thing you should be aware of is that you pick the right HBoot (don't flash CM7 HBOOT A2SD on a STOCK HBOOT A2SD)
this is normally explained in most ROM posts but i guess with a 2GB part you should be fine for A LOT of different ROMs
extra: there is a nice pic near the end of THIS post what is shifted to the ext partition when you use a certain method
grtz

So like with an app A2SD when not rooted, you can move apps to SD, but when you remove it, part's of it remain in the memory on the SD card.
The link you gave me is for "AD2SDX Special Edition for Sebastiaan15 RunnyMede Desire ROM", exactly what I want to install.
So first I create partitions with gparted. Fully wipe my sd card.
Flash the rom, then flash that AD2SDX zip file.
And it should work fine ?
Thanks for answering mate.

Zealotic said:
So like with an app A2SD when not rooted, you can move apps to SD, but when you remove it, part's of it remain in the memory on the SD card.
The link you gave me is for "AD2SDX Special Edition for Sebastiaan15 RunnyMede Desire ROM", exactly what I want to install.
So first I create partitions with gparted. Fully wipe my sd card.
Flash the rom, then flash that AD2SDX zip file.
And it should work fine ?
Thanks for answering mate.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well, with the last version of sebastian15 for CM7 there's no need to flash the AD2SDX zip file, now it comes as an option during install (you'll see )
thus, first you make 2 partitions 1 ext4 of min 1024MB (mine is that size but you can do more if you'd like) an the rest of the sdcard is fat32 .. (mine: 7GB)
then download the right rom (check HBOOT, i have CM7R2 so i can install AIO v1), with Hboot its version 5.3 and you still have to flash the AD2SDX zip if you want it (A2SD is good enough for me )
oh right, don't forget a full wipe
grtz

mattnmd said:
the only thing you should be aware of is that you pick the right HBoot (don't flash CM7 HBOOT A2SD on a STOCK HBOOT A2SD)
this is normally explained in most ROM posts but i guess with a 2GB part you should be fine for A LOT of different ROMs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
An external partition has nothing to do with hboot.

The only worse thing than people not helping are people helping wrong. This thread is a failure on so many levels that human vocabulary just can't cut it.

Then why don't you help me, or just point me in a right direction ?
Thanks for the answers.

Because information you seeks are essential to know before you attempt to root.

FYI, I have successfully rooted my phone.
And I have managed to install the desired ROM.

And one more question.
I have managed to make 2 partitions.
Fat32 (5,5 gb) and ext4 (2,2 gb), yet the phone recognizes only 5.5 as the SD memory. And the 2,2 are not usable ATM.
What should I do ?

Reading your last comment I can't imagine how could you possibly root it successfully on your own.

GTFO of my thread.

Zealotic, terepin is right in a way. You show no understanding of the ext partition, or flashing, or ROMs. It will never show up. Because it is a separate partition. You'll only ever see the fat32 partition in your phone under sd storage. You need to do some research before you attempt any of this.
Swyped from my CM7.1 Desire using XDA Premium App

Zealotic said:
What should I do ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Research...

A LOT of research. And don't worry, that "Search" button doesn't bite.
At least not often...

No one said that he's not right. He's just acting like he's a god or something.
I'm just a newbie. And guess what. I managed to get 1.5 gb internal storage too.
Lock the thread please.

So in the end you didn't even need to open the thread?
Swyped from my CM7.1 Desire using XDA Premium App