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...
Related
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
I have just recently (5 hours ago) purchased a 16GB Tablet, that I had them repartition at the store, which has version 1.4.2.
I've spent the last few hours reading this forum and watching videos and now know WAY more than I ever intended to know about this tablet.
Rooting, dual OP, CM7, CM9, ROM, R3, Restore, etc. etc.
Due to so many warnings I've read about, I'm a little afraid to mess things up.
All I really want to do is install games I already have on my computer to the NT.
There were a couple of threads talking about this, but they were dealing with version 1.4.1. Not 1.4.2. I don't know how much of a difference there is.
Can someone suggest the best way to install these games?
Thanks for all the info you guys provide. It was hours of very informative reading.
i'm pretty sure games need memory ( storage ) and lots of it. tell us how much of the microhcsd you have available. did they leave you with one or six and a half gig ?
Unless you have an android computer/tablet with games from the play store or some other android market, the "games" you are referring to are not as easily transferable to an android tablet like the nook. The games have to be rewritten/redesigned for the android OS.
As for many of the warnings you've read, they are mostly to protect the person writing the guide. I.e. if you somehow manage to not follow directions and screw something up horribly, they want not responsibility for your mistakes. Honestly, 90% of them time in my experience with Android tinkering, Occam's razor holds true: the simplest answer is usually the right answer. And in terms of Android tinkering, that answer is user error.
So if you can read and follow directions and do a bit of troubleshooting here and there, you will be just fine.
My advice? Start with a bootable CM7 sd card. Go from there.
My apologies for lack of info.
After repartition, I was left with 5.91GB for B&N, and 8.00GB Other storage, plus 16GB SD Card.
Regarding games. All the games I want to use are all apk android games that I had from another android product.
Cubanluke88
The Bootable CM7 SD Card will boot from the card and leave the Tablet's OS alone? Is that correct? I guess this is where I'm confused. I think I read too much.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Rooting your device is like removing the old OS and replacing it with a new one?
Booting from CM7 SD Card will boot from the cards OS leaving the original OS on the device?
On one of the video's I watched, it was said "DO NOT FLASH ON THE 16GB Nook". I don't even know what that means, but I'll look it up and see if I can find out.
Thanks so much for helping a newbie who still doesn't know the terminology. I'll concentrate on reading about booting from CM7 SD Card.
Alright I'll try to address most of your confusion.
The bootable SD card essentially means you will not touch the current internal OS. You basically burn an image of CM7 to the card and when that card is inserted, the Nook will boot into CM7 instead of the B&N Android OS.
Rooting does not necessarily mean changing the internal OS. Because the B&N OS is Android based, and because Android is linux based, "root" is sort of the equivalent of administrative access on a Windows machine. It simply means you have full control of the device. Rooting the nook means the OS stays intact, but you can install the play store (Android market) and do all sorts of other things you are otherwise locked out of.
"Flash" is simply a techy way of saying install. When someone says "flash CM7 over the internal OS" they mean that you are installing CM7 (the custom version of Android that has been built) over the internal OS.
The safest thing for you is to create the bootable SD card of CM7 as it does not touch the internal OS. However, you can also create a bootable sd card for the custom recovery. From this custom recovery, you could then "flash" (install) CM7, CM9, or one of the other roms (custom OS) for the Nook tablet. It is also in this custom recovery that you can make a "nandroid backup" which is basically images of how your nook exists in its present form.
I know thats a lot of info. But honestly, before diving into this stuff, people should try to understand as much of that as possible. There are tons of resources out there that explain this stuff. Again, I suggest the bootable CM7 sd card as its the least likely to screw up. However, remember that should you go after the internal stuff, this thing is incredibly difficult to brick. Any mistake you make has likely already been made before and recovered from. So if something goes awry, don't panic.
Thats a lot of words. Damn.
It may have been a lot of words, but you've answered all of my questions and then some. I thank you very much for taking the time. This information helps tremendously and also makes so much more sense of what I read already.
Thanks Again.
That post deserved a thank. Really good description.
Sent from my R800x
We have started a very good community here, keep up people.
I should add one more thing.
Should you ever decide to go internal, i.e. flashing over the B&N OS, which IMO is the better way, its incredibly easy to return the device back to stock conditions should you ever need to (i.e. for warranty purposes or something).
I've done it myself just to make sure that its possible. And it is. Very easily.
I just wanted to come back and say Thank you!!
I was able to created the Bootable CM7 sd card and it went flawlessly.
I still have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm having fun looking around.
Thanks to this group of wonderful people, especially Cubanluke88m who still take the time to help even the virginal newbies who don't even know the lingo.
My hats off to this forum.
In the future I may in fact do this all internally, but I guess I needed to do it this way first just to see if I could. Now I feel much more comfortable with the files, burning images, etc. then before.
Congrats, enjoy.
The next thing I would recommend doing: make a clockwork mod recovery bootable card and make a nandroid backup of the internal OS.
ok, will do. I will search for those now.
I do have a couple questions that I have searched for but I think I'm using the wrong search terms and not the correct lingo.
When I partitioned the sd card there was a tutorial for opening the card so you could use the rest of the memory, but it was for Linux? I've tried to search how to do this on PC, but again the lingo problem.
Also I have books and apps that I'd like to copy over, but do I have to put them in a certain directory on the SD Card, or do I still have access to the units directory.
I know these are stupid questions, I just don't know the right words to search for. Sorry about that. I know I can search for the two things you told me to do and they will probably come up. lol
Thanks again for all your help.
Netti2nite said:
ok, will do. I will search for those now.
I do have a couple questions that I have searched for but I think I'm using the wrong search terms and not the correct lingo.
When I partitioned the sd card there was a tutorial for opening the card so you could use the rest of the memory, but it was for Linux? I've tried to search how to do this on PC, but again the lingo problem.
Also I have books and apps that I'd like to copy over, but do I have to put them in a certain directory on the SD Card, or do I still have access to the units directory.
I know these are stupid questions, I just don't know the right words to search for. Sorry about that. I know I can search for the two things you told me to do and they will probably come up. lol
Thanks again for all your help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's fine, it's always better to ask first. Could save you a lot of trouble in the long run. Unlike lots of other users, you seem like you are willing to search and learn things which is always good!
You can regain the remainder of the storage after writing the CM7 .img to your SD card. To do this in Windows, you'll need to download and install either MiniTool Partition Wizard or EASEUS Partition Master. I usually use Partition Wizard.
Unfortunately, while using the CM7 SD ROM, you won't have access to your apps and books from the stock ROM, so you'll want to transfer them to your storage inside the SD ROM. So I recommend copying the files to your computer, then connect your NT running the SD ROM. From there just copy the files to your SD card.
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).
Hello,
I already posted this in device specific forum but there i got no answer and i think it's a problem common to many devices.
So what's the problem: I really like my G2 but i have one annoying issue:
When using one of those great custom roms i end up with pretty much free space on internal storage (system partition).
Since i'm having the 16GB-version i have ~10GB of usable space and currently ~3-5GB wasted space.
When using OSM-Maps 10GB is not much so i hope there is a way to utilize the free space on internal storage.
I have some ideas but i'm no dev and i hardly know about linux and even less about android.
So thats what i thought of:
Idea 1: Change partition size.
Well i think not a good idea but on my old HTC HD2 i could choose how the storage is partitioned. Don't know if this is possible on G2 and if changes there are not to risky.
Idea 2: Create a virtual SD-Card.
I know that this is possible somehow because i can do that with androidx86 on my tablet. So why dont write an app or zip-File-Patch that creates a custom-size virtual sd-card on internal storage/system partition. Problem is that i can't do that. Help of a dev would be needed.
Idea 3: Redirect folders.
On Linux and Windows it's possible to create "virtual folders" that are just links to the real folder that is stored somewhere else. Pretty handy on windows to move music-library to sd-card with full functions for example.
I think i've seen such things on android too when browsing my device. So why don't move for example the DCIM-Folder and others to internal storage this way?
But again a dev would be needed.
Idea 4: Copy some stuff with root and file explorer.
Thats maybe the simpliest way but i don't know how and where i can copy things. For example i've around 4GB of music on my device and if i can still access it i would have no problem to move it to internal storage somewhere. Maybe to ringtones folder or something like this.
But i'm not sure where i should put it to be on internal storage and access being still possible.
It would be great to further discuss this ideas with you and find some kind of solution
Hello!
I have a somewhat unusual challenge on my hand and am hoping there is a solution, however after days of searching I am unable to come up with a clear or consistent answer. I got a shiny new SM-T580 around the holidays, and immediately set to work on installing twrp, rooting the device, etc. to be able to use it for my needs. My device is OEM unlocked, rooted, has Xposed installed, and has a ton of hard to come by apps installed, as well as a substantial amount of important personal files on it. On Saturday, I went to flash a zip file to install a tool pertaining to ROM modification and the install unexpectedly failed because TWRP couldn't mount my /data partition; I realized I had completely forgotten to format /data after disabling encryption back when I first did everything, and my /data partition was still encrypted.
That being said, I really do need to remove the encryption, but I really need to preserve my data also. To make matters more complicated, I have enabled adoptable storage, and am using a 64gb card formatted as internal storage, with about ~30gb data on it. I have backed up my personal files to the cloud, but now am trying to figure out how to move my apps and app data. Ideally I would like to preserve my entire existing directory structure, as well as home screen configurations, etc. I am left with a few questions that are preventing me from proceeding:
How do I determine which data is stored on the actual external SD card? From my own poking around, it looks as though the external SD is /mnt/expand/aa11a11a-blah-blah-blah/ but I am not positive. If that is my SD card, can I simply move it to a new install? I assume the SD card is also encrypted, as I am guessing the string following /mnt/expand/ is an encrypted serial number or something of the sort. If that is the case, can I simply copy the files from the above directory, and then copy them back in after formatting the card? Beyond this, as far as what is actually stored on my phone, is there a means of backing up and restoring the files and directory structure and having it all still work and point to the right places? I don't know how the system links the adopted storage and just feel like I'm in over my head when it comes to understanding the nitty-gritty of Android file system internals. I would simply backup the whole partition and then restore it but then I would be back to square one with the encryption. I am competent with TWRP, ADB, ODIN, etc and would be very, very happy if anyone could point me in the right direction on this, even if the solution is complex. If I am unable to figure this out before the weekend I am going to have to manually back up all apps and click through 300+ apk files. I do also have titanium backup but I am kind of in a bind with storage space vs backup size. Anyhow, if you made it this far thank you so much for reading and I am looking forward to your replies! :highfive
Edit: This was intended for the Galaxy Tab A forum. Mods, please move this thread to Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Questions & Answers if possible, though the question should pertain to both device series on 6.0+. Thank you!