Is it possible to repartition my SD card to use EXT4 instead of FAT32, with the Fascinate? I'm currently running an EB01 kernel and a custom EB01 build. I'm just not sure how to do this part, as I've never done it before. I've seen it done for other devices, but I don't think it has come up here yet. This isn't really a debate on if I should or should not make it EXT4, just on how to do it.
That's what a voodoo kernel does.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk
JoeDat said:
That's what a voodoo kernel does.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm running the EB01 voodoo kernel, and yes it obviously has support for EXT4 since that is the FS it uses.
My question though is how can I mount my SD card to be recognized when I format it to EXT4 too?
Ah crap. I should have read your post more than once. Mundane detail. Just call me Michael Bolton.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk
If you don't have anything on your SDcard you mind deleting (or could just back it up), you could always try repartitioning it, and then seeing if Android is able to mount it.
If it doesn't automatically work, it shouldn't be too hard to modify the system to work (either by switching it from using 'vfat' to 'auto' or 'ext4')... it's just a matter of finding out where to change it.
There's no reason why it wouldn't, I guess... worst case you use command line mount tool to mount it manually every boot
That's what I thought too, that it would work inherently, but I partitioned/formatted the entire thing to EXT3 and it was not able to be recognized. I think either A) there is no built-in module for EXT3 support, or B) I'm just not doing it right.
Could be that I used a Windows tools to do the job to get EXT3, and I'm having trouble finding one to do EXT4, and I can't find any tools/scripts to convert EXT3 to EXT4 for Android.
If you format the sdcard to anything other than FAT32, Windows will not be able to read it when you try to mount it on your PC. I'm not sure if there are any utilities available that allows Windows to directly mount EXT filesystems or not, but I would be very afraid of data loss with a configuration like that.
What is the reason you want to convert it? Is it the file size limit of FAT32, or something else?
Posted from my EB01 SuperClean Fascinate with Voodoo
ivorycruncher said:
If you format the sdcard to anything other than FAT32, Windows will not be able to read it when you try to mount it on your PC. I'm not sure if there are any utilities available that allows Windows to directly mount EXT filesystems or not, but I would be very afraid of data loss with a configuration like that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's been an ext2 (possibly 3/4, but all are backwards compatible long as you don't use extents on 4) driver for Windows for a number of years. There's also a number of tools that can allow you to open ext2/3/4 file systems and modify them, without actually having to mount them.
ADB would also still work, so would an app that provides access to the sdcard via webdav/ftp/sftp/etc.
What is the reason you want to convert it? Is it the file size limit of FAT32, or something else?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Speed should improve by quite a bit, as well as greatly increased reliability (although the windows. Ext2/3/4 also support far larger files than fat32, of course, so if you like your raw-DVD rips or 1080p ultra-high-quality bollywood movies, there would be an obvious benefit by removing that restriction. I don't believe the ext family of file systems support it (but I could be wrong about ext4), but tail packing would greatly improve efficiency if you have a massive number of small files (reiserfs has it, btrfs might also- not sure).
Personally, it doesn't seem like there's enough of a benefit to really do it, especially if you're not using Linux... other than the desire to do it for the sake of doing it... which, considering where we are, that's pretty much enough of a reason to do anything.
Until I can find a good way to automount the FS every boot I wil probably stay with FAT32. I played around with different methods last night quite a bit and it turned into much more of a hassle than I liked. I really regret not having it however, because of the loss of speed.
Related
Can someone tell me the difference between these to partition formats on my SD card?
I have EXT3 at the moment - using Amon_Ra recovery 1.3.2. I have the option to change it to EXT4, but want to find out a bit more before I do.
Why do it - what beifits?
Any dangers in doing it?
Can you change back to EXT3 if you want?
cheers all.
J-Zeus said:
Can someone tell me the difference between these to partition formats on my SD card?
I have EXT3 at the moment - using Amon_Ra recovery 1.3.2. I have the option to change it to EXT4, but want to find out a bit more before I do.
Why do it - what beifits
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext4
Cheers, but hoping for a real world explanation that doesn't leave me more confused then when I first started reading
J-Zeus said:
Cheers, but hoping for a real world explanation that doesn't leave me more confused then when I first started reading
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ditto ...i wanted to ask this same question ..hoping someone can help us
ext4 is is the improved and newest linux file system version and might be a little faster in case of accessing programs than the previous versions.
Greetz
J-Zeus said:
Cheers, but hoping for a real world explanation that doesn't leave me more confused then when I first started reading
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if it only were that simple...
EXT4 v. EXT3
An ext4 partition can be mounted as an ext3 partition. Ext4 has significant performance improvements over ext3, though.
If your kernel supports it, use ext4. Currently, I am working on adding support for ext partitions to my device. Getting sick of lost and corrupt files using vfat (not to mention the poor performance of vfat).
Both ext3 and ext4 are journaled filesystems, and are virtually impervious to file corruption due to not cleanly umounting.
I should point that ext3 and ext4 (specially the last), have better performance but also wear out the SD card faster, because more read/write operations are made...
Not that an SD Card is expensive nowadays, but I advise to backup frequently.
What do you base this assertion on?
I have never heard any claims before that ext4 wears out drives faster. Not even traditional drives.
I suspect that ext4 is faster because it is more efficient, not because it issues more I/o per second.
Do you have a source that you can cite?
Sent from my Zio using XDA App
Ext4, and ext3 wear out drives quicker because they are journaling, constantly writing an index file on the SD card. SD cards only have limited write cycles, so constantly writing to it wears it out quicker.
To the OP. As far as I can tell, there isn't a vast scope of improvements in ext4 over ext3. I never bothered upgrading my desktop system. Basically it just means it can handle processing a single 16Tb file (or whatever the limit is), but as our Heroes aren't ever going to have that kind of file on them, there is no real advantage to changing to ext4.
s23bog said:
What do you base this assertion on?
I have never heard any claims before that ext4 wears out drives faster. Not even traditional drives.
I suspect that ext4 is faster because it is more efficient, not because it issues more I/o per second.
Do you have a source that you can cite?
Sent from my Zio using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Read it on a thread, when I was searching for ways to get A2SD script to work on VR13. I eventually quit and flashed another rom.
From what I understand, the internal sd uses a proprietary fs that is slow and writes more often than needed.
Thus, the various lagfixes work by partitioning the internal sd and formatting the partition to ext2 which is used like swap.
Well, could the entire disk be formatted in ext2 to solve the problem permanently (you WILL encounter a niche problem, at least, with any lagfix)? Could ext3 work?
How would I go about doing this? I've got exams this week, any one got a quick an easy answer?
No one has any clue or interest in the matter? I'm sure an intimate knowledge of the bootloader is needed.
There is a fix that formats the file system into ext4. Check out threads about Voodoo Lagfix or Project Voodoo in the Vibrant Development section.
will the voovoo kernel let me run the ext4 file system on my sd card?
In a word...maybe. Please search the forum, as there have been previous posts on this topic. Even if the kernel allowed for it, you'd have to do a lot of modifying of mount points and other fiddly stuff to do it. Oh, and you'd lose the ability to directly mount it as a disk drive in Windows, at least without some special tools that allow Windows to read ext4. All in all, I would not recommend trying.
Sent from XDA Premium on my Super Clean Fascinate
ivorycruncher said:
In a word...maybe. Please search the forum, as there have been previous posts on this topic. Even if the kernel allowed for it, you'd have to do a lot of modifying of mount points and other fiddly stuff to do it. Oh, and you'd lose the ability to directly mount it as a disk drive in Windows, at least without some special tools that allow Windows to read ext4. All in all, I would not recommend trying.
Sent from XDA Premium on my Super Clean Fascinate
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't care about windows. my main computer is ubuntu, this is why I am wanting to make it ext4, or even ext3 (actually, from what I've read, ext3 is the better one for this application). I want a pure linux experience, like it should be, IMO. it's so much faster and more efficient. I'll do some searching, and ask if I have any more questions.
Unless you have a need to store files >4GB, there really isn't any need to change the formatting of the SD card.
fragmentation and access speed.
Congrats to all who figured out the rooting process on NT. The NT has a measly 1gb media partition and over generous 11gb data partition. Can more experienced developers look into gparted-live-0.10.0-3.iso and e2fsprogs-1.41.14.tar.gz to use as tools to repartition the NT? I do not have a NT yet. I have a rooted emmc CM7.1 NC oc'd to 1.225gHz. I appreciate and respect all the effort that goes into this project. I used the develop financial apps for a big US bank.
hwong96 said:
Congrats to all who figured out the rooting process on NT. The NT has a measly 1gb media partition and over generous 11gb data partition. Can more experienced developers look into gparted-live-0.10.0-3.iso and e2fsprogs-1.41.14.tar.gz to use as tools to repartition the NT? I do not have a NT yet. I have a rooted emmc CM7.1 NC oc'd to 1.225gHz. I appreciate and respect all the effort that goes into this project. I used the develop financial apps for a big US bank.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks like it won't be necessary...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1355969
Necessary no, but definitely desired.
Sent from XDA Premium app CM7.1
Not even desired if storage is really not partitioned, as it now appears.
unsivil_audio said:
Necessary no, but definitely desired.
Sent from XDA Premium app CM7.1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At best, repartitioning will give you an additional 1GB of space, and probably break the ability to ever do a factory restore or load additional updates when they are released by B&N.
I think we need to wait for an unlocked bootloader or at least an accessible CWM with bootable workaround (like on the Droids) before we start messing with the filesystem.
Current configuration allows 11gb for purchased apps, movies, books, music from Amazon app store, BN app store or Google market. Only 1gb is allowed for end user loaded music, books, movies etc. If you have over one thousand song music collection (5gb) you want loaded to NT you will need to use a microSD card. You cannot load an HD movie in the 1gb media partition. The old NC partition scheme had 5gb media and 1gb data. The newer NC partition scheme (blue dot) has 1gb media and 5gb data. Most users will not utilize the 11gb for purchased apps.
Thank you hwong for my case in point.
Sent from XDA Premium app CM7.1
hwong96 said:
Current configuration allows 11gb for purchased apps, movies, books, music from Amazon app store, BN app store or Google market. Only 1gb is allowed for end user loaded music, books, movies etc. If you have over one thousand song music collection (5gb) you want loaded to NT you will need to use a microSD card. You cannot load an HD movie in the 1gb media partition. The old NC partition scheme had 5gb media and 1gb data. The newer NC partition scheme (blue dot) has 1gb media and 5gb data. Most users will not utilize the 11gb for purchased apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can add custom search paths to some media players to scan /data/media (or whatever you want to call it). You might even be able to setup a symlink. You can also open the files (large movies, etc) directly from a file manager like Root Explorer.
I do see your point, though, how the layout is different from the NC. I'm using a 32gb memory card so I guess this isn't an issue for me.
The data partition is ext4 formatted whereas the media partition is vfat formatted. When the NT is connected to a computer via USB, the vfat system is what the user sees for loading his own content. I do not think the ext4 partition shows up as a drive on the computer.
thread moved..
Thread moved to general section ..
So, ext4 cant be used ? Can't have books and videos, etc stored in it ?
hwong96 said:
The data partition is ext4 formatted whereas the media partition is vfat formatted. When the NT is connected to a computer via USB, the vfat system is what the user sees for loading his own content. I do not think the ext4 partition shows up as a drive on the computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What about in a linux distribution like ubuntu? I know that windows doesn't read ext4 (unless 3rd party drivers are installed) nor the first partition (if the nook tablet is really partitioned, that is).
You can store files on the EXT4 partition and access them through a file manager, but it won't appear as a drive on your computer when you connect it. You would have to copy files to an SD card, then from the SD card (plugged into the Nook) to the /data partition.
I'm working on a way to create a "virtual" FAT filesystem within /data that would be mounted to /media instead. This would allow you to use around 10GB for media (while leaving 1GB for /data). The best part is that it doesn't require any repartitioning or reformatting and can be easily undone.
If you can't wait for that virtual mount to work (which sounds super cool, by the way; would a different approach be to look at the smb.conf in the Samba server for Android and share /data via Samba over the network? I've read the 'stock' samba server can't share linux filesystems, but I can't help but wonder if that can't be overridden in .conf) you can do some fugly hacking like I did on the NST:
On the NC and NST, /data is an android-only vanilla filesystem
/mnt/media is the filesystem that is swapped out of Android for copying in from Windows.
On a rooted device where /data is not full, you can use fdisk (or busybox fdisk in case you have not symlinked busybox to the commands it supports) to shrink /data. I would do this over a wireless connection, so that you don't get involved in both partition editing and unmount/remount at power on.
If the /data partition is the LAST partition listed by /mount, you can delete it and resize it hot very easily.
delete it.
hit n
create the 'new' partition as a smaller size.
w to write your changes.
You get an error about the kernel still using the old partitioning. You don't care. Reboot, and your /data partition has shrunk. Now might be a good time to run fsck on that new, smaller paritition. You'll get a warning about running fsck on a mounted disk. On a device with a resized partition and no actual filesystem damage, this has not been an issue for me. YMMV.
Then you would need to delete and recreate /mnt/media to the desired size, toggle the partition label to make it a fat filesystem, reboot, confirm that those boundaries worked also, and then run mkfs.vfat (if I'm remembering correctly) on your new partition.
The tricky bit is getting the partition order correct in a complicated filesystem like this one.
On the NST, you don't actually have to get everything just right.
I found that out by happy accident - I wanted to resize /data and /media there, and they are partition 6 and 8 respectively.
The first time I did it, I was confused about which set of notes described what. When the device failed to start 8 times, it looked at the world and realized a reimage was needed, and formatted the available ext fileystems as /data and /cache, and the fat filesystem as /media.
I did not realize this until quite recently, when I needed to reimage my NST to apply update 1.1, and lo and behold: the partition table after reimaging from stock was not in the order I'd ultimately imposed on it the first time.
I do not know how robust the recovery on the NT is.
Seems to me this is a great time to find out - but I would only muck around with the /data and /media and not touch anything below those, and I don't have one of the NTs so my money's not at risk.
mmcblk0p10 is media vfat partition
Mmcblk0p11 is data ext4 partition
Here is how you repartition /data and /media partitions using Gparted and e2fsprogs as done by a Kindle Fire owner. Methodology is same for Nook Tablet.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1388996
hwong96 said:
Here is how you repartition /data and /media partitions using Gparted and e2fsprogs as done by a Kindle Fire owner. Methodology is same for Nook Tablet.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1388996
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Partitioning seems different as that Extremely Well done set of instructions for a fire only seems to use GParted which I don't believe understands the partitions on th NT???
I could very easily be wrong and if you tried and were successful doing this on an NT then I apologize and want to buy you a case of beer for your efforts to help us all on the NT.... just I'm skeptical as NT doesn't use traditional FS layout or format as far as I believe...
If this worked for you PM me with some proof and your paypal and I'll pay up with thanxs added... else I just felt obliged to question and put my money where my mouth is to save others from at a min. soft bricking their NT...
I still haven't picked up an NT yet so I did not try this yet.
For discussion only.
I would think the repartitioning process is simpler than the Kindle Fire since the /media(vfat) and /data(ext4) partitions are at the end of the SD. Gparted does not create ext4 partitions. Gparted can create ext2 partitions and e2fsprogs changes ext2 to ext4 if I follow the logic correctly. My first step would be to make a backup of the /data partition. Then I would delete /data partition. Then I would increase the /media partition using GParted. Then I would create the /data partition as ext2 using GParted. Then using commands in e2fsprogs to convert format to ext4. Then restore the /data backup from the first step.
Here is the NT partitions from NookDevs
http://www.nookdevs.com/Dump_NookTablet_Partitions
hwong96 said:
Gparted does not create ext4 partitions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not yet! An update to it today actually has gparted displaying the partition correctly (it wasn't before? I thought it had ok support for ext4 partitions before, or since 2009ish), so pretty sure they're working on it. I'd be inclined to wait for official support over making ext2 partitions tbh
hwong96 said:
Here is how you repartition /data and /media partitions using Gparted and e2fsprogs as done by a Kindle Fire owner. Methodology is same for Nook Tablet.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1388996
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Has anyone tried it? I wish to try, but don't understand how to make those binaries work, coz KF used CWM, which we don't have yet! Can anyone direct me?
Weird,
Android says my SD card is corrupt and only offers to format it.
Windows says the same.
CWM doesn't, as far as I can see, see it either, EXCEPT when I ask it to install a zip from it... it can see everything on the SD card and installs successfully from it!
Problem is, I need to copy stuff from the card before reformatting it.
Any ideas on how I might do that?
P.S. Yes, it is definitely the SD card and not the internal one
P.P.S. Windows doesn't see the phone when connecting under CWM...should do though shouldn't it. Perhaps that's my problem..?
Thanks.
Are you rooted? If yes, maybe running e2fsck on the command-line will sufficiently recover it to be mounted.
Alternatively you can use Recuva under Windows to find and rescue the files you need, or chkdsk to attempt a repair.
Is it a Fat32 or exFat (Fat64) filesystem and is there any reason such as removing it without ejecting, that could have caused this?
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
d4fseeker said:
Are you rooted? If yes, maybe running e2fsck on the command-line will sufficiently recover it to be mounted.
Alternatively you can use Recuva under Windows to find and rescue the files you need, or chkdsk to attempt a repair.
Is it a Fat32 or exFat (Fat64) filesystem and is there any reason such as removing it without ejecting, that could have caused this?
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the prompt reply.
It is rooted, although I tried to install this e2fsck through CWM and it gave me generic errors. Not being a Linux man I wouldn't feel that comfy with stuff like that anyway though.
The card is exFAT so I think Chkdsk (Win7) won't fix anything IFAIK. Oh, Windows says the card isn't formatted though, so won't do anything.
Recuva is unable to determine the file system.
:-(
I installed CM9 from the card, which then couldn't read it (I didn't know CM9 didn't support exFAT), so I restored my previous backup from the Sammy rom so it would be back to normal. But when it booted up the first time post-restore, it said the card was corrupted.
The kernel is what defines whether a filesystem can be or can't be mounted since it includes the filesystem logic. So replacing the kernel always helps if a ROM cannot mount the filesystem.
(Except for special userland filesystem based on Fuse)
It sounds like the partition table got badly corrupted, either by software or hardware.
I'm sure it didn't give you the output "generic errors". We're here to help guide you through the process if you have not enough knowledge but you'll at least have to try. However I don't know how I managed to type e2fsck, since that one is for Ext2 filesystems which has nothing in common with Fat64. You'll have to use a computer to repair it...
After having plugged in the card, could you please go to the Start menu and type 'diskmgmt.msc', then hit ENTER.
Check if the removable disk is initialized and contains a partition (aswell as what the type of the partition is)
It probably shows an unitialized disk, a disk with a RAW partition or a disk without any partitions.
If that is the case, try http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
You'll find a reference to a lot of other (free and paid) tools on this page: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd in the Section "Recovery Tools"
Depending of what your data is worth to you, you'll want to get a bitwise backup of the content first so if you screw up during recovery nothing is really lost.
I wasn't being lazy, just keeping in mind how important the data is and how much effort it's worth expending.
The answer was 'not that important' and I ended up formatting it using the very brilliant fat32format.exe (after trying with Windows Pish 7).
It must have been pretty screwed as TestDisk found nothing of any value there at all. (It was RAW in Windows).
But the upshot is I now have a FAT32 formatted 64GB (hopefully, unless it's a dodgy one) SD card that will work on Sammy and AOSP roms.
Thanks for your time, d4f.