Hi there,
I've dabbled in using custom ROMs on a few android devices and I'd like to try to clear up a few hazy concepts. I'm mostly interested in tinkering with my Nook Tablet lately, which is why I'm posting here. At the moment I've got CyanogenMod-7-20120703-TEAM-B-acclaim installed, with what I think is the original partitioning of 1GB for /media and 12GB for /data (which leads to one of my questions below). My intent is to repartition and upgrade the ROM when CM10 beta is released, but I wouldn't mind knowing a bit more about what certain steps are doing in the background:
Q1. When you go in to Settings, Storage, Erase SD card, my understanding is that this only erases certain parts of internal storage. Does it just delete all files and subdirectories of certain partitions? Which ones? Does this vary depending on the OS version?
Q2. Do some custom ROMs do repartitioning automatically, or is this always a separate step?
Q3. Do most custom ROMs simply leave the partitions at the sizes they were?
Q4. I've seen repartitioning instructions referencing the resizing of /media and /userdata. I have /media, but not /userdata. Is this abnormal, or is it due to the specific ROM I have? As mentioned above I do have /data.
Thanks in advance for your time!
~In Your Kitchen (drinkin' your wine)
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Hey everyone!
Is there a way to method yet for the S2 to rewrite the partitions? My S2 will be arriving today, replacing my Desire Z, and so the only reason I ask is because I like a simple partition where there is one for the phone and one for the sdcard (especially when it comes to using CWM and such).
Like on a harddrive, rather than having two partitions, like this case where there is the "internal memory" of 1gb or whatever it is, and then the remainder 16gig (not including the sdcard) is read AS an external. Could it be simply rewritten for the internal to be ~17gb? I do remember rewriting partition size on the G1 to get Cyanogenmod 6 to fit on it.
Just curious, please don't flame me if this is not feasible (or has been already done, again I don't have the phone yet and I haven't come across anything in my research, and yes I did search for it, even used "partition" to find anything).
mrmartin86 said:
Hey everyone!
Is there a way to method yet for the S2 to rewrite the partitions? My S2 will be arriving today, replacing my Desire Z, and so the only reason I ask is because I like a simple partition where there is one for the phone and one for the sdcard (especially when it comes to using CWM and such).
Like on a harddrive, rather than having two partitions, like this case where there is the "internal memory" of 1gb or whatever it is, and then the remainder 16gig (not including the sdcard) is read AS an external. Could it be simply rewritten for the internal to be ~17gb? I do remember rewriting partition size on the G1 to get Cyanogenmod 6 to fit on it.
Just curious, please don't flame me if this is not feasible (or has been already done, again I don't have the phone yet and I haven't come across anything in my research, and yes I did search for it, even used "partition" to find anything).
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Hmm... Why would you want that? Explanation makes no sense.
You get about 500 MB system, 2 GB data, can't remember cache, then 11 GB as sdcard, with external sd optional.
You could modify the pit in theory but that's risky, and what you are trying seems confused or outdated for this phone
pulser_g2 said:
Hmm... Why would you want that? Explanation makes no sense.
You get about 500 MB system, 2 GB data, can't remember cache, then 11 GB as sdcard, with external sd optional.
You could modify the pit in theory but that's risky, and what you are trying seems confused or outdated for this phone
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Click to collapse
Well I am just thinking from my experience with the Captivate that it poses some "oddness" when dealing with the sdcard and things like CWM, since when you put an sdcard it, it then has 3 partitions (internal, "internal extention," and the sdcard). Is there a reason the extra space is partitioned out instead of having it as part of the internal?
I recently moved from the HTC EVO 4G to a Samsung Galaxy S4. I had CM 7 (Android 2.3.3) installed on the EVO and I now have CM 10.1 (Android 4.2.2) installed on the S4. I also spent a few days with stock on the S4.
The EVO was straightforward and my physical SD card was simply mounted at /sdcard.
On the S4, there are several links to the virtual/internal “sdcard” contents, but I can’t tell which are symlinks and which is the actual directory or mountpoint. (I see /sdcard, /mnt/sdcard, /storage/sdcard0, /storage/emulated/legacy, and /storage/emulated/0)
I also see /external_sd, /extSdCard, /storage/sdcard1, /mnt/extSdCard that all link to the physical SD card.
So I have several questions below. Ultimately, the last question is the one I want to accomplish unless there's a reason not to do so. The others are largely just academic curiosity:
Which of these are the actual locations of the storage and which are symlinks?
Is this an element of Android introduced sometime between 2.3 and 4.2 and would I expect to see the same on any device with 4.2? Or is this something that Samsung has done?
If this is not standard to 4.2.2, how broadly is this found? All Samsung..., all Galaxies..., just the S4...?
Because it's internal to the device, I reasoned that the contents of /sdcard would be backed up with a Nandroid backup and obliterated when I flashed a new ROM. That doesn’t appear to be the case. Flashing CM10 left /sdcard intact with all its symlinks. Does that mean that the content of the internal /sdcard area is actually a separate partition?
Is there a way to allocate all of the internal storage back to the system as I'm accustomed to with CM7? For my purposes, it’s needlessly and excessively complex to have two separate SD card areas -- one of which is just pretending.
Thanks a bunch for any help you can provide! I really appreciate the feedback!
That is the standard 4.2.2 partition structure.Emulations and all.
Hello.
My Father has a Galaxy S II , and he is always complaining that his phone is low on space.
The phone is 16GB and has another 16GB MicroSD card.
Most of his on-board integrated 16GB is free, and his MicroSD card is almost completely empty, the problem is that this phone has a very small Android OS 2GB partition, and every time he installs an app it always leaves something on the OS partition (even after manually moving every possible app to SD using the built in Move To SD, and placing all photos and videos on MicroSD). So even with very few Apps installed his phone is always begging for space since essentially he can only make use of 2GB of his 32GB of storage.
So I have considered maybe the best way to fix this his issue, is to install a Custom ROM on his phone, which only contains 1 Single Partition for the integrated 16GB of storage space, and another partition for the 16GB of MicroSD storage.
Thus eliminating the limited 2GB OS partition. (basically make it like every new Android phone since the galaxy S2)
I have never used a custom Android ROM so this is new to me ( i am more familiar with PC's).
So my primary question before I start looking for info and procedures on rooting and custom roms for this phone is as follows:
IS it possible to even install a new android OS on this phone which will have only one primary partition, or is this phone forever destined to only work as it is now with a small 2GB OS partition? In other words is there a hardware limitation which prevents this phone from addressing more than 2GB for its OS partition?
Thanks for any help you can provide.
mr_interested said:
IS it possible to even install a new android OS on this phone which will have only one primary partition, or is this phone forever destined to only work as it is now with a small 2GB OS partition? In other words is there a hardware limitation which prevents this phone from addressing more than 2GB for its OS partition?
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You can repartition the phone using a modified PIT file. You will be able to increase the Data partition to avoid the "out of space" when installing or updating apps. The tradeoff is to have a smaller internal SD partition.
I have done it to my S 2.
There is a thread with clear instructions on how to do it. You will have to learn to use Odin, but that will be very useful as long as you have Samsung phones.
Here is the link: [MOD][GUIDE]Partition your internal memory for better App management (Pit Files)
svbarbosa said:
You can repartition the phone using a modified PIT file. You will be able to increase the Data partition to avoid the "out of space" when installing or updating apps. The tradeoff is to have a smaller internal SD partition.
I have done it to my S 2.
There is a thread with clear instructions on how to do it. You will have to learn to use Odin, but that will be very useful as long as you have Samsung phones.
Here is the link: [MOD][GUIDE]Partition your internal memory for better App management (Pit Files)
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Thanks for the info.
Would it not be easier to just format the phone and start from scratch by installing a new custom Android OS ?
Will starting from scratch with a new OS allow me to set my partitions (just like on a PC) ?
Thanks again.
mr_interested said:
Thanks for the info.
Would it not be easier to just format the phone and start from scratch by installing a new custom Android OS ?
Will starting from scratch with a new OS allow me to set my partitions (just like on a PC) ?
Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. You must use the Odin / Pit file to modify partition sizes.
And yes, that assumes you will flash a new rom.
svbarbosa said:
No. You must use the Odin / Pit file to modify partition sizes.
And yes, that assumes you will flash a new rom.
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Don't forget to mention that re-partitioning your phone will delete all data so do a backup!!!!!
gsstudios said:
Don't forget to mention that re-partitioning your phone will delete all data so do a backup!!!!!
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Well said.
I did not mention it because it is the first step in the instructions.
But it is never too much to repeat. Backup! Backup! Backup!
I've been rooted and using 3rd party ROMs for a long time, with no intention of ever going back to stock 4.0. I'm currently using the unofficial AOKP 4.4.2 build.
In general, do custom ROMs require the 2GB/10GB partitioning that this phone comes with as stock, or can they work properly with one big data partition and storage on the physical SD card?
Reason being is I'm running out of space on \data and if I'm going to go through the steps of resizing, I'm just wondering if it's necessary to keep two partitions.
I'm not an expert on the subject by any means but I don't think messing with the partitions as it's laid out for current roms for our device would be a good idea'r. The way I understand it, and I'm most likely wrong so please educate me as well, one partition is basically for the brains of your device's OS, one is for playing ... all the other fun stuff that gets read and written to willy nilly. I replied to this post hoping to learn stuff as well!
Get a larger sdcard. The partitions are built into the recovery.
Hi all / @linusdan,
I wondered if any kind soul could just briefly offer their knowledge please... I've been happily flashing roms to the i9100/i9100P, N7000 for some time now, and all has been great... :good:
However my dads phone went a little screwy the other day, and so I said I would re-do it. Upon looking at it, he had a couple of storage areas of 0MB (zero) MB's and nothing could download or write to the internal storage.
I've since STOCK rom'd it, returning to the original PIT files, and tried to reset it up again. (Storage is back to normal, all fully accessible again) I've been looking at the newer roms. However in TWRP, I notice I have a SDCard0 and SDCard1 (and that's without removal storage added yet).
So I think I may a Frankenstein build of storage at moment, so re-read Linusdan's instructions, and going to totally annihilate the filesystems and start again, following the instructions.
My question is this....
Once I have done this, and moved over to fully Emulated Storage. Will this work for older roms, say KitKat / Lollipop era, or do I have to prep for stock / physical storage again? Failure to do so, would I end up with double confused storage again??
Or would simply flashing an old rom, make use of the emulated storage??
Thanks, Lister
@listerofsmeg
These days I was wondering how to do this and looking for a way to reverse the conversion.
Maybe so, but so far I have not found how.
For now, the only way to use the old ROMs is to install the stock and TWRP without emulated storage.