[New bie or noob question]
I search some thread from X10 section regarding the file format on SD card, most of the discussion is relate only to FAT or FAT32.
A simple noob question, if I convert my sd card to the NTFS, are android still recognize my sd card and still function on it?
I asking this because NTFS theoretically less fragment and faster overall compare to the FAT32, i really hate defrag my sd card to increase system performances, it take tons of my time.
*pardon my grammar and my knowledge on android.
I don't think NTFS support is available in the current X10 kernel, although I might be wrong. ext4 would be the more logical choice though, but then you wouldn't be able to access it on your windows computer.
thx for reply, just check with wiki, looks good.
however, back to the fundamental question, even sony stock 2.1 can recognize ext4, can window7 32bit home recognize and operate as well? I check with the several thread it "seem" that window had failed to recognize the ext4 file system and make them format their sd card.
Even X10 is a super phone, and it still rely on computer, too bad.
Windows 7 cannot access ext4 natively, but there might be some software that can take care of that. For example, when I had my hackintosh leopard, I used Mac Drive to access the HFS OSX drives from within windows
Be careful though, I'm sure there would be some repercussions to converting the SDcard to ext4, research some more on that before you decide on anything.
Good luck!
Related
just wondering if any smart devs have any thoughts on this:
When the Atrix (or i suppose any android device) is in usb storage mode it runs as a simple mass storage device.
So is it possible to boot a PC from the atrix like you would boot a portable OS (Ubuntu, WinPE, ect) from a USB flash drive?
The SD card or the Internal storage has the room for it, but i don't know how you'd go about making either a bootable device.
It'd be a good diagnostic tool when fixing PCs, and along with webtop would make it a awesome tool to use as a tech.
cglowstick said:
just wondering if any smart devs have any thoughts on this:
When the Atrix (or i suppose any android device) is in usb storage mode it runs as a simple mass storage device.
So is it possible to boot a PC from the atrix like you would boot a portable OS (Ubuntu, WinPE, ect) from a USB flash drive?
The SD card or the Internal storage has the room for it, but i don't know how you'd go about making either a bootable device.
It'd be a good diagnostic tool when fixing PCs, and along with webtop would make it a awesome tool to use as a tech.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was thinking about this actually.
I think we have to first partion the SD card and install the portable OS on one of those partions.
I don't have an atrix yet but I'm going to try something with my older phone I think I can make this work just give me sometime.
Any luck with this?
I plan on trying GParted (free GUI disk partition editor)... http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
It offers quite an array of filesystem options including, but not limited to:
ext2 / ext3 / ext4
fat16 / fat32
linux-swap
ntfs
ufs
xfs
I'm not sure if my rooted AT&T Atrix will reject my attempts to create an ntfs partition, or if GParted will even recognize it. But it's still worth a try
Bob
I wanted to buy a 32GB Class 10 card for my GS2, so I can watch movies at my friends houses. That is one of the main reasons I bought this phone. Mostly all of my movies are .MKV files around 8-10GB, but I read somewhere that you can only have videos under 4GB. I understand that is true for Fat32, is that how the SD card will function in the GS2? Is their no way to get it to take larger files? If not I'll just get a 16GB and save some money.
Their is no other format or something that can be done so it will take larger movies?
It might be possible to hack it up to support ext4, but then you'll only be able to read/write the SD card from the phone or a Linux box.
Okay I guess I'll just buy a 16gb since the movies can only be under 4gb
Convert it to ext4 and use this on the windows box. http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-read-ext3ext4-linux-partition-from-windows-7.html
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using xda premium
Okay I'm a noob, so I don't fully understand all of this.
ext4, is a newer format that allows large files?
So android phones can read Fat32 and ext4?
The phone can format in ext4 or you have to use windows for that?
is their any problems with ext4, slow speed problems righting too, not to stable?
Also if I format it to ext4, and I hook it up to my PC, can windows read that? or every PC i'm gonna need some special software to view the SD?
dfxda said:
Okay I'm a noob, so I don't fully understand all of this.
ext4, is a newer format that allows large files?
So android phones can read Fat32 and ext4?
The phone can format in ext4 or you have to use windows for that?
is their any problems with ext4, slow speed problems righting too, not to stable?
Also if I format it to ext4, and I hook it up to my PC, can windows read that? or every PC i'm gonna need some special software to view the SD?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ext4 is a filesystem that allows large files, just like NTFS on Windows. Ext4 is the standard filesystem on newer Linux distributions. (Just like its predecessors ext2 and ext3 were). Even ext2 supports large files.
Unfortunately, the situation is that NTFS support on Linux is so-so, and ext4 support on Windows is even poorer. I'm not sure if the solution in the link above will allow write access to ext4 safely - I know as of 2-3 years ago it could read ext3 but not write, it could only write ext2.
Ext4 is vastly superior to FAT - that's why our phone uses it for all of its "non-USB-mountable" filesystems, and why Honeycomb devices use it for "unified" storage. To avoid the issue of ext4 support in Windows, they use MTP instead of USB Mass Storage mode, as MTP is file-oriented (hides the underlying filesystem from the host machine), while USB Mass Storage is block-oriented (the host machine must understand the filesystem format).
I think our phones support MTP, but I'm not sure how well this would play with an "ext4" hack since that wasn't designed into our phone.
Anyway - We have an 800x480 screen, anything above 1GB/hour is going to just be a waste of storage. (Unless you're using an MHL adapter to connect to an HDMI TV.)
My main goal was to be able to copy my 1080p .KMV movies to the SD and play them out at peoples houses using MHL adapter to TV.
So then I can't use NTFS? that's what I use on all my other drives. Is android not able to read that?
dfxda said:
My main goal was to be able to copy my 1080p .KMV movies to the SD and play them out at peoples houses using MHL adapter to TV.
So then I can't use NTFS? that's what I use on all my other drives. Is android not able to read that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not directly. It's possible to compile it into the kernel but I'm not sure how well it'll work.
There's also FUSE and ntfs-3g, but again - not sure how well those will work on an Android device, I've only used ntfs-3g on desktop machines.
Both would require kernel tweaks and probably also initramfs tweaks unless you want to do a lot of manual mounting, I'll try to look at it when I have the time.
Hey thanks for all the help.
I guess then I'll just get the 16gb, and use the fat32 that's made for the phone.
kinda stinks though
The only way that I've found to allow Windows to recognize more than just the first listed SD partition is to install drivers to make the card a Local Disk instead of a Removable Disk.
This would be extremely useful for users who run the SD version of CM7, where the image creates a four partitions with the 4th being all of your user data.
Here is the tutorial on how to modify and install the Local Disk drivers:
http://www.getusb.info/usb-hack-turn-a-usb-stick-into-a-hard-drive-or-local-disk/
In theory, if you use a USB to SD adapter, this should work, but it's not working for me. I thought all XP drivers were compatible with Windows 7, but maybe that isn't correct.
Anyone else want to give it a shot?
Ahh, the old hitachi drivers. I posted a guide about them some weeks ago. They will work on Windows 7, just not the 64bit version of it. Where exactly are you having problems with it?
Sent from my 8086 using xda retrograde.
I have problems exactly where you say. It seems that the drivers aren't compatible with my 64bit operating system.
Any chance I could modify the driver to make it work?
Solar.Plexus said:
The only way that I've found to allow Windows to recognize more than just the first listed SD partition is to install drivers to make the card a Local Disk instead of a Removable Disk.
This would be extremely useful for users who run the SD version of CM7, where the image creates a four partitions with the 4th being all of your user data.
Here is the tutorial on how to modify and install the Local Disk drivers:
http://www.getusb.info/usb-hack-turn-a-usb-stick-into-a-hard-drive-or-local-disk/
In theory, if you use a USB to SD adapter, this should work, but it's not working for me. I thought all XP drivers were compatible with Windows 7, but maybe that isn't correct.
Anyone else want to give it a shot?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What happens if you install a 32-bit Windows XP virtual machine on you 64-bit system. Would that allow you to use XP the drivers?
I don't have an XP .iso handy at the moment to run in VirtualBox, but I'm going to test this on an XP OS and a Windows 7 x86 OS within a day or two.
Solar.Plexus said:
I don't have an XP .iso handy at the moment to run in VirtualBox, but I'm going to test this on an XP OS and a Windows 7 x86 OS within a day or two.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can download the XP Virtual Machine from the Microsoft web site -- it's free.
PJLLB said:
You can download the XP Virtual Machine from the Microsoft web site -- it's free.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Except I didn't pay Micro$oft the big bucks for Professional or Ultimate. I'm running Home Premium on my desktop which doesn't allow XP Mode. Stupid Windows...
I will check it using another OS shortly.
If you're going to use a virtual machine, then why don't you just use Ubuntu? It will mount everything just fine.
slgooding said:
If you're going to use a virtual machine, then why don't you just use Ubuntu? It will mount everything just fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because they want a solution which doesn't require dual booting and is immediately available. Unfortunately the crap support for other file systems will continue to be a big problem for them. (EDIT: Or did you mean to run Ubuntu in a virtual machine?)
Running Ubuntu or PC-BSD or any other more FS robust OS in Oracle's VirtualBox (which is free and relatively easy to use) is probably the best solution for many here.
I know all partitions and all file systems mount in Ubuntu, but the point of this is to get multiple partitions to be readable/writable in Windows, since the majority of users run this as their main OS. The idea of running XP in a virtual machine was simply to check and see if the drivers were compatible; the idea was not meant to be a permanent solution.
As for Windows mounting Linux file systems (Ext2 and Ext3 specifically), this would be my next step. I believe the solution does exist. Check out the freeware Ext2IFS and ExtFsd if you're interested. I haven't gotten the chance to try them because I'd like to get multiple Microsoft partitions readable first.
Anyway, after trying a USB drive and a SD card in an MMC reader on both a 32bit Windows 7 Home and XP Home this morning, I have not been successful.
I can confirm that the USB Local Disk drivers are in fact compatible with both of these operating systems, but Windows is still recognizing the drives at Removable Disks instead of Local Disks. I will try to work on it a bit more in a little while.
Total Commander has support for ext bases file systems.
So, can cm7 use an ext sd file system just like fat 32?
slgooding said:
Total Commander has support for ext bases file systems.
So, can cm7 use an ext sd file system just like fat 32?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe so. In fact, the SD card version of CM7 final uses two ext4 file systems, one of them being the partition used for the "internal storage."
Solar.Plexus said:
I believe so. In fact, the SD card version of CM7 final uses two ext4 file systems, one of them being the partition used for the "internal storage."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm able to manually mount the sdcard as ext4, however CM7 doesn't recognize the sdcard, and won't mount it for me.
Does anyone know what we need to change to get CM7 to recognize an ext4 sdcard?
Thanks!
Little bit of a thread hijack going on, but that's okay.
Is your vold.fstab mounting the correct partition?
Okay, so I got all the different partitions of my SD card to mount this morning, even an Ext3 file system. I might do my own How-To later for the CM7 users on here and so that it appears using more tags in someone's Google search.
Solar.Plexus said:
Okay, so I got all the different partitions of my SD card to mount this morning, even an Ext3 file system. I might do my own How-To later for the CM7 users on here and so that it appears using more tags in someone's Google search.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry for resurrecting an old thread but I need to know: Did you ever document somewhere how you got this working under Windows 7 64-bit?
I'm in the same boat as you, needing to be able to mount and read an ext2 partition on my Windows 7 64-bit. I've got the necessary drivers that'll let me read ext2 and above but having access to that 2nd partition while the card is in my Windows laptop is where I'm stumbling.
Any pointers would be much appreciated.
In fact, I actually did manage to find the drivers for x64 Win7. Check out post #7 of this thread right here to see the details.
Any good way to get NTFS support? I was using NtfsSd for a while https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oyaxai.ntfssd but it hasn't been updated for 4.2. Just wondering if anyone has a better solution.
Anybody?
lordazoroth said:
Any good way to get NTFS support? I was using NtfsSd for a while https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oyaxai.ntfssd but it hasn't been updated for 4.2. Just wondering if anyone has a better solution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why would you want this? Have you tried ext4 or exFat?
BLuFeNiX said:
Why would you want this? Have you tried ext4 or exFat?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ext4 isn't supported natively by windows, therefore leading to compatibility issues with most of the worlds computers unless you install additional software (effectively defeating the purpose). exFAT on the other hand is more prone to corruption than NTFS. NTFS utilizes a redundant MFT record number (useful for recovering damaged MFT files). Since SD cards are essentially removable media, it is wise to build and maintain your foundation upon the format with the lowest chance of data loss.
Any suggestions?
lordazoroth said:
Ext4 isn't supported natively by windows, therefore leading to compatibility issues with most of the worlds computers unless you install additional software (effectively defeating the purpose). exFAT on the other hand is more prone to corruption than NTFS. NTFS utilizes a redundant MFT record number (useful for recovering damaged MFT files). Since SD cards are essentially removable media, it is wise to build and maintain your foundation upon the format with the lowest chance of data loss.
Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My concern is that NTFS might not play well with android. Yes, it usually works fine with Linux, but NTFS is not an open source filesystem and any 3rd party driver written for it has the potential to cause problems and data loss.
Do you expect to frequently remove the SD card from your device? If not, ext4 would work fine (mounted via usb on your drive), and also provides superior journaling to NTFS.
BLuFeNiX said:
My concern is that NTFS might not play well with android. Yes, it usually works fine with Linux, but NTFS is not an open source filesystem and any 3rd party driver written for it has the potential to cause problems and data loss.
Do you expect to frequently remove the SD card from your device? If not, ext4 would work fine (mounted via usb on your drive), and also provides superior journaling to NTFS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately yes I plan on removing it occasionally. When transferring a file from my PC to the SD card through my phone, any files larger than 4gb are immediately rejected, even when using exFAT or NTFS. I suspect this is because the PC cannot detect the format of the SD card while it is in the Phone and assumes it is FAT32. I've experienced no data issues using with NTFS and Android and have been using this system for 2 years now. I've even recovered from data corruption on a few occasions due to improper removal of cards and crashes and such. However, I've not been so fortunate with exFAT. While I could download files larger than 4gb from the PC instead of using the PC to push them to the phone, it would require each file be accessible by granting access to entire directories solely for the purpose of a temporary transfer session. This is obviously unacceptable for too many reasons to list here. If there was any other way I would gladly take it, but NTFS appears to be my best option and I would prefer not to settle for exFAT. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Ty for your replies so far by the way
You're gonna have to wait for a custom kernel for NTFS support.
Hi there.
I think that all android devices support fat32 filesystem, the problems its the storage limitation of 4gb max per file in the sdcard.
I been trying to avoid the limitation of 4gb in all my android devices with this results, giving using different filesystems on my sdcard (ext2, ext3, exfat, ntfs...).
Galaxy s3: supports fat32 and exfat
Chinese tablet aoson m7: Suppots fat32 and ntfs
Chinese phone Lenono A760: Suppots only fat32.
Andoid its based on linux, but none of my devices recognice the sdcard with ext2 or ext3 formats.
Also I don't understand why only the chinese tablet supports NTFS. It's because they paid to microsoft so they can use that filesystem?
How it's possible that any device supports a free filesystem like ext3???
I think that I will get rid of the lenovo a760...I need to use files larger than 4gb.
thank you
Looks like you could root it and enable USB OTG support for a little pen drive or something of that sort. How often are you really going to need that many files bigger than 4 GB on your phone?
http://android-sensor.com/Lenovo_A760/programs/system_software/78-usb-otg-helper-root.html (use Google Translate if you can't read Czech - I know I can't lol)
that link leads to:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.shajul.usbotg
To mount ext partitions automatically, I think you also have to be rooted and run an auto-mount script (or manually via terminal commands). This is not for your phone, but provided as an example and info:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2076327
es0tericcha0s said:
Looks like you could root it and enable USB OTG support for a little pen drive or something of that sort. How often are you really going to need that many files bigger than 4 GB on your phone?
http://android-sensor.com/Lenovo_A760/programs/system_software/78-usb-otg-helper-root.html (use Google Translate if you can't read Czech - I know I can't lol)
that link leads to:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.shajul.usbotg
To mount ext partitions automatically, I think you also have to be rooted and run an auto-mount script (or manually via terminal commands). This is not for your phone, but provided as an example and info:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2076327
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I want to use my phone as bittorrent client, that why i need to use big files often. I'm root.
I don't have a USB OTG cable...
I have the sd card with ext4 format as primary partition and it's not working.
I think that it's not an easy way to use files biger that 4 gb in this chinese phone.
I also tried to NTFS format and this tool https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.paragon.mounter&hl=es and the phone freezes often...it's not a solution at all.
It's frustating that a chinese tablet supports perfectly ntfs and the s3 exfat, but with this phone, ther¡s no way...i been trying all day long! I gave up.
thank you anyway.