Would it be possible if any one from the Dev group or other knowledgeable individuals be able to write up an overview of how the partitions work and how to fix some of them. I have searched the Internet and these forums relentlessly for information but nothing that I would consider conclusive for the gtablet.
You see I have been having this issue and I would really like to fix it.
E:can't mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p2
(no such file or directory)
Error mounting SDEXT:!
I realize this would be somewhat of an advanced tutorial or sticky but as people learn they will begin to get to this point in their learning.
I have read alot of tutorials but most of them have nothing to do with the gtab.
I am still trying to mentally put it all together of how what mount is doing what and what my /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 is actually doing[seems it is a cache but guessing based on what I have read]
I understand there is a fat32 partition and the ext is a linux partition.
Any information or a sticky to work from and review for users and Devs to contribute would be a great assistance for me at this point.
I would also like more information on how the bootloader file functions and what I can do with it as VS is changing the bootloader as it updates it builds.
Thanks
makto,
I think you can forget fixing that one. It appears on all G-Tablets.
No one has ever given on this site an authoritative description.
But I think this: Some of the cousins of our 512k G-Tablet that are sold
elsewhere have 1 GB of memory. I think the address being looked for
here is the second half of the memory which is not installed on the G-Tablet.
In other words, no one adapted the firmware to adjust to the smaller memory
size.
That's my story and I'll stand by it until somebody tells me its not!
Rev
P. S. -- Partitioning is an Advanced Option on the ClockWorkMod (CWM) recovery
program. It does not do invidual partitions -- rather the who table memory (and I
think even then it leaves the partitions alone that are necessary to revive itself.
I have been watching for months to learn more about format/delete/erase/etc. and
they do no carry the same meaning as with regular PCs, hard disks, memory, etc.
There is not such thing as "wiping" the G-Tablet in the sense of formatting a hard
disk and writing new stuff on it.
Rev
Why I was asking. I play with my gtablet connected more on my linux laptop. There these things I believe are possible. From what I have learned the partion I am having an issue with or the sd-ext is supposed to be using the linux ext3 partion format but I am still guessing. It also uses the fat32 partition but I am unsure if this is just on the external SD card or if it is also internal memory. Still hoping I can accumulate more information as time passes.
Here is some of the information I have been browsing trying to understand.
http://tegramid.com/wiki/Folio_partitions
http://androidandme.com/2009/08/news/how-to-manually-partition-your-sd-card-for-android-apps2sd/
There is also a link to an xda forum where they are having the same issue but I haven't mentally put it all together. It is also not for a gtablet.. so I continue to contemplate.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=848967
Just keeping myself curious.
Thanks for noticing my post!
Related
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.
Thanks for reading. I have searched and read a bunch of threads but didn't see an answer.
I have two related problems with a new generic android device (a TV box, which is android not Google). I can get by with only fixing one of the two problems.
My data partition is too small but what’s worse; it seems to be formatted in such a way that programs installed on it take too much space... when I move programs to external SD they go from 5-6 mb to 300-400k. So… too little space + the space gets filled too fast.
If it is less work; I could get by if I could fix just problem two (filled too fast). On a PC it would be something about partition type and cluster size. Is there a way to just format the data partition that might be easier than redoing the entire internal storage? If so; can it be with apks that can be downloaded out of the market? I'm also ok with a Linux command line.
If not; can anyone recommend a thread (I looked, really) on how to redo the entire internal storage when using a generic device and out of market software? Everything I’m seeing is tied to a particular device and/or needs a market based app that I can’t see with my unit.
It’s a nice device otherwise… A9, great picture, et cetera…
Thanks again.
Please use the Q&A Forum for questions Thanks
Moving to Q&A
With nvflash it was easy to just modify the partition layout and size with nvflash.cfg, is there anything that a non-developer like me can do with Odin to mimic that ease of use?
IE, I easily pass 2GB of Apps (Games, Programs, work stuff, you name it) hence my question and issue I am currently facing.
I have a 32GB MicroSD card and I would like to at least TRY and get it setup like my Asus Transformer is, IE all of the phones Internal storage dedicated to applications, and the external, my MicroSD to videos/music/extra app-data. (oh and the REAL SDCard is mounted as /sdcard, I hate the way they do it now, when I do to /sdcard I want to be ON MY SDCARD!)
Is this something I can do, or must someone with even a fraction of Developer knowledge (IE not me) have to set this up prior? (If so, it probably means its a bust question I guess)
FTR: My want would eliminate the "USB Storage" seen in the Storage screen when you look in settings, and I am ok with that)
EDIT: I found some threads about the .pit file, but it all seems quite a bit out-dated (for devices prior that didnt split apps/media) and missing bits and pieces that would make it truly useful for a non-dev like me... will keep digging however...
It appears that the only methods that have been used to expand webtop focus on mounting an alternative webtop on an external SD card and using the alternative webtop instead of (or in addition to) the standard webtop (webtopMod, webtop2SD, simpletop, etc. all do this in one form or another).
Has anyone played around with resizing the the sdcard partition (mmcblk0p18) so that it is smaller and then resizing the webtop partition (mmcblk0p13) to a more appropriate size (~4G)?
I see that something similar has been done on the Nook (that is, people have changed the internal memory partition sizes without tragic consequences):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=22157605&postcount=25
As for know (I don't know much) the trouble with the partitions it's that everythings works with that layout, recoverys must be rewritten to accept that partition layout, or something.
Besides, why you want WebTop, when you can have Android ICS/JB? .
Contrary to popular belief (and driven by how it works on computers), the partition table is NOT a part of the internal storage. It is most likely defined within the bootloader which, while can be hacked to allow flashing unsigned content (so called BL unlock), is both entirely closed off and extremely sensitive. Hardbricks can happen almost effortlessly if you try to tamper with it. That's why nobody has managed (yet?) to do any kind of alteration of the partition layout on the Atrix.
I would also like to point out when it comes to such low-level stuff trying to compare two completely different devices is often time dangerous and almost always misleading, so I'd avoid that if I were you. The fact this or that is possible on some other device in some certain way will have almost nothing to do with the Atrix (unless the device is really similar enough, like say the Photon).
Ravilov,
I thought that the bootloader would just need to point to the bootable partition. I thought all of the disks/devices would have their own GPT or MBR record that the system would use when it mounts those devices. It looks like just about most everything is mounted from init.rc (even mmcblk0p13, aka OSH).
I am not saying that this idea is without risk, but I guess I am surprised that someone hasn't been brave (foolish?) enough to try it and report back.
tamuin said:
Ravilov,
I thought that the bootloader would just need to point to the bootable partition. I thought all of the disks/devices would have their own GPT or MBR record that the system would use when it mounts those devices. It looks like just about most everything is mounted from init.rc (even mmcblk0p13, aka OSH).
I am not saying that this idea is without risk, but I guess I am surprised that someone hasn't been brave (foolish?) enough to try it and report back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would be true if we were talking about NORMAL computer harddrives. But we're not. There is no such thing as MBR or GPT or even an "active" partition - this is a much different world.
BTW the bootloader is about 10 MB in size, it contains MUCH MUCH more than just some code to boot a system. For example, the whole fastboot protocol is implemented there, and I believe the offline charging (when the phone is off) complete with its graphics is also in there.
By the time the system reaches ramdisk (ie. init.rc), the partition table has already been set up and the devices nodes created.
Beware however, I have no 100% solid evidence to this, this is just an educated guess (to me this would make the most sense).
> That would be true if we were talking about NORMAL computer harddrives. But we're not.
That is my concern too.
One thing that might work is to repartition mmcblk0p18 into two partitions, the first being a smaller FAT partition and the second being an ext3 partition (mmcblk0p19). We would not need to move/resize anything else (and it looks like CWM does not normally do anything with mmcblk0p18). A full featured webtop could then be put in mmcblk0p19 and it could be mounted as OSH in init.rc.
Of course this doesn't make any better use of the internal storage space, the only thing it does is that it would put the modified webtop in the internal storage which appears to have faster write speed than class 10 micro SD cards.
The benefits are probably not worth the risk and effort.
tamuin said:
One thing that might work is to repartition mmcblk0p18 into two partitions, the first being a smaller FAT partition and the second being an ext3 partition (mmcblk0p19). We would not need to move/resize anything else (and it looks like CWM does not normally do anything with mmcblk0p18). A full featured webtop could then be put in mmcblk0p19 and it could be mounted as OSH in init.rc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can't do that. Despite it not having a "standard" partition table, some rules still apply - for example, you cannot partition a partition. Even if you could, what would the new partitions be called? mmcblk0p18a and mmcblk0p18b? Not going to work. The whole entire system is hardwired to use mmcblk0p18 and only that. Plus, you cannot have a root partition as you suggest (mmcblk0p19) that's contained within another partition, it just doesn't make any sense.
Trust me, the webtop2sd and similar ideas didn't come out of nowhere. If there was a decently safe way to change the internal repartitioning with the knowledge we have, it would have been done by now. The only way to do this that I know of is to either change the bootloader or the kernel. The bootloader is obviously out of the question, and I suppose nobody's ever felt the need to mess with the kernel just for this seemingly insignificant thing, when there's a perfectly good workaround (webtop2sd).
My SD card is broken, so i can not install any apk right now, and i happen to find that my /data is totally about over 1GB, and right now, there are several hundreds MB left for free. then i have a idea, can we make a seperate partition , as internal SD card.
then i google , and get some information about pit ( partition information table), which is used for samsung phones. and also i get the powerful software PIT_MAGIC. till now, i only get into here. do you guys have some more idea and more clear thoughts on this case ?
i will try to learn more information about building Roms and PIT or something else related, since i am not familiar about android ROMs, what i was doing with my I500 is just normal daily usage. Any comments and suggests would be really helpful to me, and i will be appreciated for all your helps.
zhonyong said:
My SD card is broken, so i can not install any apk right now, and i happen to find that my /data is totally about over 1GB, and right now, there are several hundreds MB left for free. then i have a idea, can we make a seperate partition , as internal SD card.
then i google , and get some information about pit ( partition information table), which is used for samsung phones. and also i get the powerful software PIT_MAGIC. till now, i only get into here. do you guys have some more idea and more clear thoughts on this case ?
i will try to learn more information about building Roms and PIT or something else related, since i am not familiar about android ROMs, what i was doing with my I500 is just normal daily usage. Any comments and suggests would be really helpful to me, and i will be appreciated for all your helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the only thing I can tell you is to look at the LVM partition that jt, previous dev for the fassy, brought to us for 4.1+.