I know this is technically a question, but I was hoping to spark some discussion on filesystems in android.
I just got a 64GB microSDXC card and I know that the LGOG is compatible with it. I just checked and noticed that:
a. it comes preformated with exfat and
b. my ubuntu install is not cool with that.
I'm all linux over here, so I'd actually prefer something like ext4, or something more flash-storage specific (forget, but there were several flash-friendly FS's in the works way back) and I'm just fine with the 'other OS's' not being able to mount my microsd card.
The primary concern, of course, is what the LGOG is gonna require. At first I thought this would have to be exFAT, but seeing as FAT32 supports up to 2TiB, maybe FAT32 is still the only option? I tried ext4 in my xperia ION, and it wouldn't mount unless it was FAT32.
If you want mount it in CWM , I'm pretty sure it has to be FAT32.
Sent from my LG-E970 using Tapatalk 2
JasonJoel said:
If you want mount it in CWM , I'm pretty sure it has to be FAT32.
Sent from my LG-E970 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
good point, though at this point I'm unlikely to use CWM on this device, though, that could change. I've just read that many people are opting for NTFS on their sdcards in android to avoid the 4GB file-size limit of FAT32. I had no idea android supported NTFS, though linux support is quite good at this point apparently, so that makes sense....
I formatted NTFS (in linux, tho) and the stock LGOG firmware refused to mount it, so I guess I'm stuck with FAT32....
razholio said:
I formatted NTFS (in linux, tho) and the stock LGOG firmware refused to mount it, so I guess I'm stuck with FAT32....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can format the SD cart to ext4 using Gparted and it should be usable and much faster than FAT32. I've formatted my SanDisk 64 SDXC to two separate partitions so that I can utilize the primary partition for storage and the secondary partition for apps synced with Link2SD. Works quite nicely formatted into two 29GB partitions.
Fracto said:
You can format the SD cart to ext4 using Gparted and it should be usable and much faster than FAT32. I've formatted my SanDisk 64 SDXC to two separate partitions so that I can utilize the primary partition for storage and the secondary partition for apps synced with Link2SD. Works quite nicely formatted into two 29GB partitions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
does this work with stock firmware? I tried ext4 on my ion and it would not mount the external SD card formatted with ext4.
Fracto said:
You can format the SD cart to ext4 using Gparted and it should be usable and much faster than FAT32. I've formatted my SanDisk 64 SDXC to two separate partitions so that I can utilize the primary partition for storage and the secondary partition for apps synced with Link2SD. Works quite nicely formatted into two 29GB partitions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll have to download a live CD and try that out.
I'm also primarily a linux user. I have been using fat32 on my 64gb class 10 card and recommend it for convenience.
I did try exfat and although I did not run benchmarks, I think exfat is slightly faster (and I'm sure ext4 would be faster that fat32). However, you cannot beat the convenience of downloading a zip file straight to your card and installing via CWM all in just a few minutes.
It's no ext4 and so I lose a tiny bit of peace of mind, but it's worth it.
razholio said:
I know this is technically a question, but I was hoping to spark some discussion on filesystems in android.
I just got a 64GB microSDXC card and I know that the LGOG is compatible with it. I just checked and noticed that:
a. it comes preformated with exfat and
b. my ubuntu install is not cool with that.
I'm all linux over here, so I'd actually prefer something like ext4, or something more flash-storage specific (forget, but there were several flash-friendly FS's in the works way back) and I'm just fine with the 'other OS's' not being able to mount my microsd card.
The primary concern, of course, is what the LGOG is gonna require. At first I thought this would have to be exFAT, but seeing as FAT32 supports up to 2TiB, maybe FAT32 is still the only option? I tried ext4 in my xperia ION, and it wouldn't mount unless it was FAT32.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fracto said:
You can format the SD cart to ext4 using Gparted and it should be usable and much faster than FAT32. I've formatted my SanDisk 64 SDXC to two separate partitions so that I can utilize the primary partition for storage and the secondary partition for apps synced with Link2SD. Works quite nicely formatted into two 29GB partitions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Has anyone else tried this?
Sent from my LG-E970 using xda premium
DeathmonkeyGTX said:
Has anyone else tried this?
Sent from my LG-E970 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I formatted mine into one 50 Gb partition (User) and another 9 GB partition (apps) and Link2SD works great. However, for apps that download additional data into the obb folder it doesn't move that over. Another thing to note is the highest app that I linked only saved about 50 MBs. Not really saving that much space but after I linked several 50 MB and under apps, I recovered about 1 GB of space on the Internal. It's worth it and not that complicated.
I you want to try: Backup your SD, format it to Fat32, use MiniTool to resize the first partition, then create a second partition (FAT 32 and make sure it is Primary, Don't use ext4 it didn't work for me) using the remaining space.
EDIT: Even 9 GBs is too large. Anyone who is gonna try this, you would only need about 3 to 6 GBs for Link2SD. I also tried using GL to SD in combination with Link2SD and had some issues.
Okay, in the morning I'll make a 50gb the exfat partition for use in android and a 9gb FAT32 for recovery.
Sent from my LG-E970 using xda premium
DeathmonkeyGTX said:
Okay, in the morning I'll make a 50gb the exfat partition for use in android and a 9gb FAT32 for recovery.
Sent from my LG-E970 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you misunderstood. The first partition will be used for files and recovery in android and must be FAT32. You can use another format but I haven't tested any others. I also know the recovery won't recognize any other format besides FAT32. The second partition can only be used for link2sd and the only one I got to work was FAT32.
Sent from my LG-E970 using xda premium
I don't use Link2SD. Just exfat for music, videos, and map data and FAT32 for Android crap and recovery.
Sent from my LG-E970 using xda premium
Related
So I figure some people have purchased SDCards other than what HTC provided with our phones...
My question is: What format (based on card size) should we be using?
I had my SDCard (16GB Patriot Class 10) from my Incredible formatted as Ext4 which was causing me a major headache when I wanted to do a Nand Backup. My AmonRa and Clockwork could NOT mount the sdcard. Took me forever to remember that I had formatted it differently. I put in my old 8GB card that was FAT32 and all of a sudden, I could successfully do a Backup.
The catch is that since I am using a 16GB card, when you format (NO Quick Formatting I know) you have multiple options for Allocation Unit sizes. What size should be used?
Reason being is that I formatted the 16GB to FAT32 and default was 32kilobytes as the Allocation size and still I cannot mount the card in AmonRa.
Please help. Thanks.
I have the identical card I believe and I was using Fat32 Default allocation (which ends up being 4k I believe).
Also why were you using ext4? You do know you can partition your card so that you have both right? I can't think of a reason why you would need a 16gb ext4 partition.
What about a 64gb card? I read that someone put one in and had the phone format it and it works fine. No idea how they formatted it, they didn't mention it, so I didn't know there were options until seeing this thread. Got a 64gb card for xmas and would like to pop it in and load it up! Thanks.
feralicious said:
What about a 64gb card? I read that someone put one in and had the phone format it and it works fine. No idea how they formatted it, they didn't mention it, so I didn't know there were options until seeing this thread. Got a 64gb card for xmas and would like to pop it in and load it up! Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I read elsewhere in the Rezound Accessories forum that if you format a 64g card FAT32 the phone should be able to handle it.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda premium
Hi all, I am new to android but have tried to do a CM7 boot by writing the CM7 Final image to my sd card using WinDisk. It states that it will corrupt the physical device but I proceed with the writing of image. After doing so, I boot my NT and it works perfectly in CM7. However, when I remove the SD card from my NT and wanted to transfer files over to my SD card, I realised the storage size is reduced to 190MB.
Is there a way to free up the storage size but my NT can still boot CM7 off the SD card?
I am using a 16gb class 4 microsd card and will like to see if there's any ways to solve the problem.
Thank you.
Bumping this I have the same problem. I know you can partion it with a main active partion, but is there away to do it without formatting the SD card? Mine also has 190mb
Sent from my Nook Tablet using xda premium
I'm not sure what CM7's capable of using but you *can* use GParted to expand existing partitions or create partitions in the unallocated part of the card without affecting the system partition. I'm not sure that expanding the system partition would be of much use as I don't think you'll find many apps that can access it so creating another volume/partition is the best bet. Can't help with how to mount it so it's usable by all of your apps...
hhhshadydave said:
Bumping this I have the same problem. I know you can partion it with a main active partion, but is there away to do it without formatting the SD card? Mine also has 190mb
Sent from my Nook Tablet using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bumped as well, can't find the answer anywhere else.
Use this tool here to repartition your SD card:
http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html
It's very easy to use. You can just delete the partitions of space that aren't being used so that they become unallocated space. Then you're free to merge with another partition or create another.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Just a note to anyone who needs Ext* or exFAT support, Partition Wizard only supports FAT(like FAT16, FAT32) and NTFS filesystems.
I wanted to create a new partition on the unallocated space in partition wizard but it requires me to change one partition to logical first.
I am kinda lost as I wasn't sure which method is best to obtain.
I will be generally pleased if anyone can provide me with instruction/screenshot in doing so.
Your help is largely appreciated.
Thanks
ivantohxm89 said:
I wanted to create a new partition on the unallocated space in partition wizard but it requires me to change one partition to logical first.
I am kinda lost as I wasn't sure which method is best to obtain.
I will be generally pleased if anyone can provide me with instruction/screenshot in doing so.
Your help is largely appreciated.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do believe you can only have 4 primary partitions on a hard disk.
Bumping this.
I only get 1.3Gb of storage with CNMod on a 32Gb card (original B&N stuff intact). Tried using ROM Manager to repartition the card and load a previously backed up CNMod image with clockwork recovery -- same result. Pretty frustrating...
nedomacho said:
Bumping this.
I only get 1.3Gb of storage with CNMod on a 32Gb card (original B&N stuff intact). Tried using ROM Manager to repartition the card and load a previously backed up CNMod image with clockwork recovery -- same result. Pretty frustrating...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use EaseUS.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=23924959&postcount=455
The problem is windows...
I don't think this is addressing the main issue. You have to understand how Windows is reading the sd card, and how the CM7 boot disk is setup. There are 4 partitions on the CM7 boot disk. The first is the actual boot information. This is a vfat formatted partition that is <200MB. The next 2 partitions are system related for the OS. The 4th and last partition is the one that is used as the actual SDCARD in CM7.
The problem is that Windows can ONLY mount the first partition on a removable device. I have not been able to find a method to mount the 4th partition (in windows), which is the resized data partition for the bootable disk.
I would suggest installing a Virtual Box version of Ubuntu and mounting the SD card from there and transferring files through Ubuntu.
Yes, you can mount the SD card when attaching the Nook via USB, but the difference in transfer speed is a joke. I get 2.5MB usb, vs 10MB with a card reader.
I hope this helps.
Bump... I am hoping to get the rest of the storage space on my SD card.
On another note, assuming running CM7 on SD card, there a thread that walk us thru to free the NT's internal memory from the 1gb limit from the B&N?
Thanks
rvr350 said:
Bump... I am hoping to get the rest of the storage space on my SD card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All you have to do is merge the unallocated space that was left on your SD with the last partition the CM7 image created.
rvr350 said:
On another note, assuming running CM7 on SD card, there a thread that walk us thru to free the NT's internal memory from the 1gb limit from the B&N?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is the thread walking you through repartitioning the internal memory:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1531120
Solar.Plexus said:
All you have to do is merge the unallocated space that was left on your SD with the last partition the CM7 image created.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As i'm using windows, it only can see the first partition on SD card, someone mentions virtual box with ubuntu? Is there other method out there? Right now, there are actually 5 partitions on your SD card:
1st partition) capacity 190mb, FAT 32, primary, active
2nd partition) capacity 763 mb, Ext3, primary, none
3rd partition) capacity 1.4 gb, ext 3, primary, none
4th partition) capacity 1.3 gb, fat32, primary, none
5th partition) capacity 11.1 gb, unallocated, logical, none
As you can see, it is from a 16gb SD card, I'm sure the last 2 partitions are what I need to merge and make it visible to windows. Any suggestions?
Use easeus partition manager.
Sent from my BNTV250A using XDA
rvr350 said:
As i'm using windows, it only can see the first partition on SD card, someone mentions virtual box with ubuntu? Is there other method out there? Right now, there are actually 5 partitions on your SD card:
1st partition) capacity 190mb, FAT 32, primary, active
2nd partition) capacity 763 mb, Ext3, primary, none
3rd partition) capacity 1.4 gb, ext 3, primary, none
4th partition) capacity 1.3 gb, fat32, primary, none
5th partition) capacity 11.1 gb, unallocated, logical, none
As you can see, it is from a 16gb SD card, I'm sure the last 2 partitions are what I need to merge and make it visible to windows. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just to confirm, drymer is correct. You can use either software EASEUS or Partition Wizard on your Windows operating system to combine your 4th and 5th partition.
Can I use the partition tools if im on alberts abd rom w stock 1.4.0? or i have to be on cm7?
Solar.Plexus said:
Just to confirm, drymer is correct. You can use either software EASEUS or Partition Wizard on your Windows operating system to combine your 4th and 5th partition.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, let me keep trying. Easeus won't let me combine logical and primary partition, i.e. the 5th and the 4th partition. Is there another method out there?
rvr350 said:
Hmm, let me keep trying. Easeus won't let me combine logical and primary partition, i.e. the 5th and the 4th partition. Is there another method out there?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm, it should just let you extend the 4th partition with all of the unallocated space directly after it. Just by choosing the 4th partition, select resize, and choose how much you want to extend it by.
I got the sd card to read up to 12 gb now (out of 16 gb) in root explorer, but is there a way for it to show up under windows?
I wondered if its normal that none Windows 7's
own tools (GUI format, dos box FORMAT.exe and
diskpart.exe) are able to format it as FAT32, (only
as NTFS and exFAT).
I was able to use Easyus 9.1.1 and it formatted fine
there. After restoring the data from the hard drive,
the card is seen fine with its correct size.
I wish hboot and the OS understood sdcard as ext2/3/4
file system, because FAT32 on 64gb is really wasteful.
fuzzynco said:
I wondered if its normal that none Windows 7's
own tools (GUI format, dos box FORMAT.exe and
diskpart.exe) are able to format it as FAT32, (only
as NTFS and exFAT).
I was able to use Easyus 9.1.1 and it formatted fine
there. After restoring the data from the hard drive,
the card is seen fine with its correct size.
I wish hboot and the OS understood sdcard as ext2/3/4
file system, because FAT32 on 64gb is really wasteful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Welcome to windows. There is a reason why but honestly I forget what it was. Windows has a size limit of 32Gb...hence it being called fat 32
Ironically the format tool built into Mac osx will format fat 32 to any size drive. I had a 250GB hard drive completely formatted fat 32 at one point. Long story.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using XDA
nosympathy said:
Welcome to windows. There is a reason why but honestly I forget what it was. Windows has a size limit of 32Gb...hence it being called fat 32
Ironically the format tool built into Mac osx will format fat 32 to any size drive. I had a 250GB hard drive completely formatted fat 32 at one point. Long story.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe it's the way that an sd card is set to reach those high levels of memory. The blocks are different. Personally, NTFS works better and causes no lags.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda premium
Haha... That is so not why it's called fat32
32bits in the table identifier...
I'd go into more detail, wikipedia should cover the rest. Not sure why you're having trouble with windows formatting it? I don't have a 64gb card to test with... Could be the card readers fault too.
-.|.- Rezound, ics
Not sure I understand the issue. If for some reason your computer has trouble formatting it, just put it in your phone and it does it for you.
As another user said, windows will not format any disk space larger than 40ish GB in any FAT (12,16,32) format. FAT is pretty much useless nowadays anyway. I format even my smallest flash drives 1-2gb in ntfs. Much less problems. Fat just can't handle larger partitions. It was designed when whole programs fit on a 5in floppy and hdd were less than 5gb to take up very little space. Ntfs is faster and more efficient now.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk 2
Yes but the Android OS and bootloader
dumbly insist that the external card
be Fat32 instead of a Linux style EXTx
filesystem without those limitations.
Especially now that the phone can fake
out windows into treating any
filesystem as if it was a windows compatible file system.
I just don't understand why that is still
so?
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda premium
MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition
I was also able to format my 64 gb sd card using MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition. Works great in my android tablet now. That exfat thing was driving me crazy.
fuzzynco said:
I wondered if its normal that none Windows 7's
own tools (GUI format, dos box FORMAT.exe and
diskpart.exe) are able to format it as FAT32, (only
as NTFS and exFAT).
I was able to use Easyus 9.1.1 and it formatted fine
there. After restoring the data from the hard drive,
the card is seen fine with its correct size.
I wish hboot and the OS understood sdcard as ext2/3/4
file system, because FAT32 on 64gb is really wasteful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry for the stupid question, but do we have to have It formatted in fat32? I think my phone formatted mine in exfat. Btw, I hate windows now. It destroyed all my stuff from my 32gb sd card when I tried to copy everything to my new 64gb.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
1454 said:
Sorry for the stupid question, but do we have to have It formatted in fat32? I think my phone formatted mine in exfat. Btw, I hate windows now. It destroyed all my stuff from my 32gb sd card when I tried to copy everything to my new 64gb.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did it destroy your stuff? Are you having trouble using a 64gb card connected to Win7 even after it is formatted fat32?
feralicious said:
How did it destroy your stuff? Are you having trouble using a 64gb card connected to Win7 even after it is formatted fat32?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On my 32gb card when I put it in my card reader it said it was corrupt and windows tried to fix it. I do recall giving it permission to do so, and it was fine when i took it out of the phone. So now everything is in .chk
I have recovered a few items from the chk format, but none of it is labeled anymore. So it might as well be lost, as it's not worth me going back though and trying to rename all 30gb of information. I have the 64gb card in the phone right now and it seems fine.... Just empty. Haha.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
1454 said:
On my 32gb card when I put it in my card reader it said it was corrupt and windows tried to fix it. I do recall giving it permission to do so, and it was fine when i took it out of the phone. So now everything is in .chk
I have recovered a few items from the chk format, but none of it is labeled anymore. So it might as well be lost, as it's not worth me going back though and trying to rename all 30gb of information. I have the 64gb card in the phone right now and it seems fine.... Just empty. Haha.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you haven't done anything to the 32gb card, try using testdisk. It's a free utility that can recover files. I had that happen to my 64gb sd card on a Vista laptop and was able to recover what I needed off it, my nandroids, backups, pics, etc... Also recovered everything off a 500gb drive that all of a sudden Windows was telling me wasn't formatted.
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step
I just got my new Win7 laptop so I was wondering if I should hold onto my pos Vista one to read the 64gb card.
Hey guys ,
I have a 64gb SD card formatted to Fat 32 as exfat does not work properly. Unfortunately downloading large files will not work due to the fat32 limits. So my question is can android address NTFS correctly ?
I run CM10 with Siyah Kernel 1.8.
Thanks !
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
panzerscope said:
Hey guys ,
I have a 64gb SD card formatted to Fat 32 as exfat does not work properly. Unfortunately downloading large files will not work due to the fat32 limits. So my question is can android address NTFS correctly ?
I run CM10 with Siyah Kernel 1.8.
Thanks !
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried using the phone itself to format the sd card? I would suspect it would put ext3/ext4 on it which does not have the fat32 limitations.
The phone would use fat32 aswell as it's made default for the external sd. Also ext3/4 can only be used if you mount the card after every reboot by hand in the terminal/with a startup script => you can't use mtp to move files between pc and phone. I still wait that the cm team apploes the patchs that ext4 will be possible format to be used as on the internal sdcard
L
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
9Lukas5 said:
The phone would use fat32 aswell as it's made default for the external sd. Also ext3/4 can only be used if you mount the card after every reboot by hand in the terminal/with a startup script => you can't use mtp to move files between pc and phone. I still wait that the cm team apploes the patchs that ext4 will be possible format to be used as on the internal sdcard
L
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm that is a pity as I was hoping to be able to transfer larger files. I was looking into NTFS and using a mount app, but realised I would not be able to use the Backup features in recovery as it may not see the SD card . What a pain.
Actually is there a way to possibly format the SD card 1 partition FAT32 and the other NTFS ? Could the phone (S3) address two separate partitions ?
I've been having this problem and its really ****ing me off. Tried allsorts. Currently using cm10 and tried NTFS mounted with paragon but the fs keeps corrupting and so I have to run chkdsk on it to repair it. Also it doesn't stay mounted. Tried 2 partitions under windows using acronis disk director, the second wouldn't mount under windows or be assigned a drive letter, so I'm guessing that's an SD limitation.
I'm just on fat32 at the minute via guiformat but if I play music from the SDcard it locks up and just stops playing and I have to reboot. Even did this in stock Sammy ROM as exfat. Also tried sd speed increase and tested my read and write speeds. These improved and I got decent speeds so I can't understand why this is happening. Its such a ****ty stupid issue that you just can't play music from a memory card on such a phone with all of these different combinations, its ridiculous.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
Does S4 support 64Gb SD card formatted as ext4?
It is currently formatted as vfat and, I think, I have just ran into its limitation: one of my directories contain over 18,000 files and no more can be added. I do not have an option of reducing the number of files in that directory or splitting it since it is controlled by an app (Anki).
I guess, one of the options is to use internal storage that is ext4 and would not have such limitations. But I would much rather keep those files on SD card if it is possible format it as ext4.
igory_1999 said:
Does S4 support 64Gb SD card formatted as ext4?
It is currently formatted as vfat and, I think, I have just ran into its limitation: one of my directories contain over 18,000 files and no more can be added. I do not have an option of reducing the number of files in that directory or splitting it since it is controlled by an app (Anki).
I guess, one of the options is to use internal storage that is ext4 and would not have such limitations. But I would much rather keep those files on SD card if it is possible format it as ext4.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ext4 is a native Linux/Unix format which is what the Android OS is based on. ext4 will work fine on an SD card. If you connect your phone to a Windows machine depending on your version of the OS and drivers you have loaded it may not recognize it.
Your card is probably actually formatted as Fat32. VFAT isn't a real format type. It is just a notation for a FAT partition with long file names.
The one issue is that there have been a lot of people having issue with 64Gb SD cards on custom ROMS and kernels. If you are running a custom ROM or kernel and your card is currently working, I would check the support thread before making the changes.
One other thing to point out. It may be obvious, but I've been doing IT support and programming for about 30 years and have learned its best to point out the obvious before data is possibly lost. Unless you have a specialized utility to convert the SD card partition to ext4 from it current FAT state, it will erase the data in the process leaving you with a blank SD card. So make sure you back the data up somewhere before you make the conversion.
Hopefully this helps.
ext4 is a native Linux/Unix format which is what the Android OS is based on. ext4 will work fine on an SD card. If you connect your phone to a Windows machine depending on your version of the OS and drivers you have loaded it may not recognize it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do not touch Windows, only Linux. So this is not a problem. However, I remember back a year or so ago I tried to use ext4-formatted SD card in my old Droid Incredible and it did not work and I had to switch back to fat32. But maybe older version of Android supported only older versions of extX file system?
Your card is probably actually formatted as Fat32. VFAT isn't a real format type. It is just a notation for a FAT partition with long file names.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I vaguely remember reading somewhere that for S4 to recognize 64Gb card, it should be formatted only as exFat. I do not remember if I had to format the card myself or it worked out of the box. I think it did but I did not so far had any problem using the card in S4 (maybe there will be a problem once I use more than 50% of storage?). What tool is aware of exFat and can say for sure if I have fat32 or exFat? The tools I tried so far just say vfat.
The one issue is that there have been a lot of people having issue with 64Gb SD cards on custom ROMS and kernels.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My phone is rooted but otherwise I am running stock kernel.
I'm a Windows programmer who is an average Linux/old time Unix user. VFAT is how Linux sees any FAT partition with long file names. I have plenty of tools that will specify the difference on the Windows side, but I'm not real sure on of any free tools the Linux side. I have a couple of paid tools for doing computer security forensics that are Linux based that can tell you the exact format type so I know it can be done.
I'm running Hyperdrive with the stock ME7 kernel. I just searched through the thread and the only ones who got the 64GB cards working were using custom kernels. They were also the only ones who appeared to get the ext4 working consistently on the S4.
I just did a quick experiment. I had an extra SD card around (not a 64GB) and formatted it as ext4. My S4 would not mount the card. It would see it and tell me that there was a blank SD card there or one that has unsupported files.
Sorry I couldn't be more help.
psu90 said:
I have plenty of tools that will specify the difference on the Windows side, but I'm not real sure on of any free tools the Linux side. I have a couple of paid tools for doing computer security forensics that are Linux based that can tell you the exact format type so I know it can be done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was actually hoping that Android itself might have some tools to recognize such things since it seems to depend on it so much.
Since I put my S4 into an Otter shell, I no longer take SD card out unless absolutely necessary since it is such a pain to dress/undress the phone. So far Android System Info and DiskInfo seem to give the most detailed info about the file systems but even they just say vfat for external SD card.
igory_1999 said:
So far Android System Info and DiskInfo seem to give the most detailed info about the file systems but even they just say vfat for external SD card.
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The /system/bin/mount command executed from inside Droid Command Pro gives a lot of details but still says 'vfat'. Can one deduce from the rest of the output if it is fat32 or exFat? See the attachment.
Try this app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sylkat.AParted
I know my SD card is FAT32 formatted. I formatted it as FAT32 on a Windows machine when I got it. This is the only app I tried that shows my SD card as FAT32. The rest all reported VFAT. Once it's loaded look under the tools tab. It should display all the partitions on your SD card.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 4 using Taptalk 4.
psu90 said:
Try this app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sylkat.AParted
I know my SD card is FAT32 formatted. I formatted it as FAT32 on a Windows machine when I got it. This is the only app I tried that shows my SD card as FAT32. The rest all reported VFAT.
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Yes: it shows fat32 for my card as well. The question is: would it show exFat if it sees it or also classifies it as fat32?
igory_1999 said:
Yes: it shows fat32 for my card as well. The question is: would it show exFat if it sees it or also classifies it as fat32?
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They would show up differently if the aParted supported ExFAT (sorry didn't know).
FAT32 and ExFAT are 2 different formatting structures for partitions, with 2 different boot sectors and different file allocation table (FAT) sizes and structures. With FAT32 in the boot sector of the drive starting in byte 3 it will show either "MSWIN4.1" or "MSDOS5.0" then starting in byte 82 (size 8 bytes) it will have "FAT32 ". With ExFAT starting in byte 3 (size 8 bytes) it will have "ExFAT ".
I just format my test card as ExFAT and aParted gave me an error saying extended partitions detected, that they weren't supported, and the display information may be incorrect. The information for the partitions was blank. So it did recognize the difference between FAT32 and ExFAT, but couldn't display the ExFAT information.
I did find this application yesterday ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.kuder.diskinfo&hl=en ). I display a FAT32 partitioned card as vFAT, which it technically correct. That is a FAT16 or FAT32 partition with the long file names. I just checked and it will display ExFAT as ExFAT.
Hopefully this will help.