Tired of that small 5gb usb storage? Here is my hack to swap your external SD card with the USB storage!
This is usefull especially if you use GPS apps that download maps or games that download big data files! I got the idea and studied several hacks for the galaxy 1900 so partial credit goes to whoever made those hacks.
DISCLAIMER : I have only tested this on the 4.0 U.S version running 2.3.5 and am not responsible for a brick (although it seems impossible to brick your phone while messing with this file).
So basically start by going to /system/etc using root explorer or similar (yes, you need root). Once there backup the vold.fstab file to somewhere ON ROOT (I put it in /data/app/)! This is important so you can access it if you need to restore it (also make sure root explorer is installed on device memory, not SD card). Now take my modified vold.fstab and replace the original in /system/etc, then change the permissions to rw-r--r-- (long click the file, then select permissions) . If all goes right after you reboot your device, USB storage should now be your SD card and vise versa! Be aware any apps on your USB storage will now have to be transfered using a PC, move the .android_secure folder to your SD card. Hope it works!
EDIT: here is a modified version for the yp-g70, all credit goes to rjsmith2007 for making and testing this!
Won't Maps pull data from the Ext SD anyway? All my music is on ext SD and players have no problem finding it; I would think maps would be the same. It's really like a 5gb and 16 gb (in my case) partition (isn't it?).
I'm looking for a reason to root, SD card/space is not one of them. My battery only charging to 90% is though, need to recalibrate (since it's never hit 100%)
tcat007 said:
Won't Maps pull data from the Ext SD anyway? All my music is on ext SD and players have no problem finding it; I would think maps would be the same. It's really like a 5gb and 16 gb (in my case) partition (isn't it?).
I'm looking for a reason to root, SD card/space is not one of them. My battery only charging to 90% is though, need to recalibrate (since it's never hit 100%)
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I am referring to when you download maps with an app like sygic;
it saves it to the /sdcard/ directory instead of the /sdcard/external_ed/. Also gameloft games do the same and can use up your room pretty fast. I find this pretty useful myself, since I have a 32gb sd card, but just wanted to post it so if anyone does ever need it, it's here for them.
iJimaniac said:
DISCLAIMER : I have only tested this on the 4.0 U.S version running 2.3.5 and am not responsible for a brick (although it seems impossible to brick your phone while messing with this file).
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I just tried it with my Galaxy S Wifi 5.0. The mapping of the internal sd to the external_sd folder fails, but it works for mapping my external sd to the sdcard folder.
Edit: I took a look at the original and made a modification to yours to work with the YP-G70 model (the 5 inch one). Just copy the file from within the zip folder to your /system/etc folder.
rjsmith2007 said:
I just tried it with my Galaxy S Wifi 5.0. The mapping of the internal sd to the external_sd folder fails, but it works for mapping my external sd to the sdcard folder.
Edit: I took a look at the original and made a modification to yours to work with the YP-G70 model (the 5 inch one). Just copy the file from within the zip folder to your /system/etc folder.
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Thank you! I appreciate it! I post it on the original post and give you the credit.
Thanks man. I appreciate it. I was trying to do this myself before, but ended up having to format my SDcard and gave up. Thanks for the help!
rjsmith2007 said:
Thanks man. I appreciate it. I was trying to do this myself before, but ended up having to format my SDcard and gave up. Thanks for the help!
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glad I could help!
Can't I just copy all of the data from my internal sd card onto my computer, remove the internal sd card, copy those files onto a larger sd card and put the larger sd card back into the galaxy player? Im sorry if this Queston has been asked before, or if it sounds stupid, but I can't find the answer to this Queston anywhere! Thanks in advance!
(P.S) This post was made with a Samsung Galaxy Player 5.0! No joke!
freshpintreez said:
Can't I just copy all of the data from my internal sd card onto my computer, remove the internal sd card, copy those files onto a larger sd card and put the larger sd card back into the galaxy player? Im sorry if this Queston has been asked before, or if it sounds stupid, but I can't find the answer to this Queston anywhere! Thanks in advance!
(P.S) This post was made with a Samsung Galaxy Player 5.0! No joke!
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Hi,
There's still a bit of confusion with respect to terminology, I think (including myself).
I *think* that when the SGP5 displays "internal sd card", it's only part of the "internal 8GB memory". That "internal 8GB memory" is probably, I guess, something like an SDCARD or flash memory module that's soldered to the mainboard, and with Android, I think that it's split into a couple of areas.
Here's my "guess" of how things are arranged, using the terminology from Settings==>SD card and device storage:
"System storage": Part of the 8gb internal memory, e.g., includes /system, etc.
[1.65GB, in my SGP5]
"USB Storage" = "internal sd card" = /sdcard: The rest of the 8gb internal memory.
[5.01GB, in my SGP5]
"SD Card": The external microSD card, if you have one plugged in. Appears at /sdcard/external_sd.
[29.81GB, in my SGP5, where I have a 32GB microSD card plugged in.]
That System storage + USB Storage totals 1.65+5.01 GB, or 6.66GB. I guess the remainder of the 8GB is for bootloader, etc.?
Jim
Looks about right. Task Manger has them labeled like you list them, except there is a "Personal data" partition. It's 133mb on my 5.0. Maybe email and contacts?
I'm guess apps get installed on "System Storage", plenty of room there without having to move stuff to USB or Ext. I pretty much just use my ext card for media and pictures.
For some reason this caused issues with my Market connecting to the internet, any idea why? Anyone else experience issues with this modification?
Hmm, no no one has mentioned that problem, and I have been using this for months - no problem. Sorry if it did that, have you tried restoring the original? Also, an update to the instructions is to change the permissions to rw-r-r. I didn't notice anything wrong without changing the permissions, but you never know.
jimcpl said:
Hi,
There's still a bit of confusion with respect to terminology, I think (including myself).
I *think* that when the SGP5 displays "internal sd card", it's only part of the "internal 8GB memory". That "internal 8GB memory" is probably, I guess, something like an SDCARD or flash memory module that's soldered to the mainboard, and with Android, I think that it's split into a couple of areas.
Here's my "guess" of how things are arranged, using the terminology from Settings==>SD card and device storage:
"System storage": Part of the 8gb internal memory, e.g., includes /system, etc.
[1.65GB, in my SGP5]
"USB Storage" = "internal sd card" = /sdcard: The rest of the 8gb internal memory.
[5.01GB, in my SGP5]
"SD Card": The external microSD card, if you have one plugged in. Appears at /sdcard/external_sd.
[29.81GB, in my SGP5, where I have a 32GB microSD card plugged in.]
That System storage + USB Storage totals 1.65+5.01 GB, or 6.66GB. I guess the remainder of the 8GB is for bootloader, etc.?
Jim
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Pretty close.
https://github.com/Entropy512/initramfs_yp-g70/blob/master/misc/recovery.fstab is the Player 5.0 partition table.
As you can see, nearly everything is on partitions of mmcblk0 - on the Player 5.0, this is eMMC (embedded MMC) storage. The total size of mmcblk0 is 8GB
The partitions here include (but are not limited to):
p10 - EFS - this contains device-specific config data, on phones that includes IMEI, on our device it's probably Bluetooth and WiFi MAC addresses
p11 - Kernel
p12 - Recovery (on some devices, recovery is a separate kernel partition - Samsungs have this partition set aside even though most of their devices don't actually use it. You can put anything you want on p12 and it won't do anything usually. For us, recovery is part of the kernel initramfs on p11)
p13 - /system - This is where the system firmware, often called the "ROM" sits. A number of people are trying to fight the "ROM" terminology, since it's not really true - flash isn't read-only, thus it isn't the "ROM" any more
p14 - In the linked file it's /datadata, but the device actually mounts it as /dbdata - various SQL databases for apps live here
p15 - /cache - a cache partition separate from data. Files stored here are intended to be safely wipable/deletable
p16 - /data - Various user data. Your apps live here unless you've moved them to SD. Most system settings are here too. ICS merges this partition with the internal SD so they are one and the same
p17 - /emmc in recovery and, if someone ever has the time to port it, CM7, /sdcard in Samsung factory firmwares. This is the "internal SD card".
There are a few other partitions that are not touched by recovery that exist, such as the LFS partition and the bootloader partitions. These are all small.
mmcblk1 is the external SD. Usually only one partition, which is /sdcard in recovery/CM7 and /sdcard/external_sd in Samsung factory firmwares
On the 4.0, I believe it uses Samsung's older NAND flash technology and not eMMC, so the partitions on internal storage appear as stlN/bmlN
i think i did something disaster...
i am using Samsung Galaxy W. I did follow your above instruction. The problem is after restarting my phone, I go to setting>storage and it shows total space and available space for SD card and USB storage is UNAVAILABLE. What is available is only Device Memorry which is 1.03GB.
Thinking that your vold.fstab is not compatible with my Samsung Galaxy W, I replace it with the original vold.fstab that I backed up earlier. However this does not solve the problem.
Then what I did is I tried to reset the phone to its original factory setting (Setting>Privacy>Factory Data Reset..),. Unfortunately the same problem still persist. And i think this is silly and catastrophic step since i loss my original vold.fstab which is stored in the internal memory.
Any of you can help me?
Many thanks to all of you
Well, did you change the permissions on your backup back to rw-r--r--? And yes, this mod should only be used for the device intended for. Are you sure that you replaced the modified vold.fstab with the original one? Did it give you an warning about overriding (it should have)? Are you sure you used your backup and not accidentally mine? What program did you use to copy?
Hmm stupid question, but how do you replace the existing file? I am using root explorer an it says it is read-only when I try to paste it in there.
Edit... Never mind... I didn't have it mounted correctly.
I have tried this multiple times, but every time I reboot it says "USB storage damaged, may need reformatting." So I press reformat, and it's done in like 1 sec and the problem still persists.
Any ideas?
Hmm, odd. I know you have the same version player as me, are you running 2.3.5 or 2.3.6, maybe that could affect it? Did you try before you did a lot of modifications to your device? What type of SD card you got, I use a 32gb class sandisk. I don't think that would matter, but you never know. I recall getting that error when I was working on the mod, but I got it fixed before I released it. Weird.
Oh yeah, what do you have your sd card formatted as? I use FAT32, not sure if that could affect it. May want to try reformatting the card on a PC, then try.
I have a 8gb kingston micro sd card, and I'm running 2.3.5. I had this problem a long time ago too when I was still on stock. Maybe it's my sd card. I will reformat it and try again, and if it doesn't work I will try a different sd card.
So I put Carbon on my wife's tablet after not touching it for over a year. Amazing that I can come here and get exactly what I need. What a great community!
I do have a question. I have a 16gb model and a 16gb card. I can see and use the card, no problem.
Using astro or other file manager, the directories seem weird. That's not a problem. The problem is, I can only use 1gb of internal storage - is there a way to get at the balance of that? Or is it lost forever?
Sounds like your NT has the BN's old 1GB allocation for the user-media partition instead of the new 8GB.
To get a 8GB allocation, you can restore the NT to stock ROM and take it to a B&N store to have the repartition done; or you can (Google) search for a repart.img SD-based tool which also does the repartition (and in the process restore the NT to stock ROM). Either way, you can use CWM recovery to back up your current Carbon ROM before the operation and then restore it afterward.
Ah, I completely forgot about this little point. Thank you for the reminder and the options!
One more question from me about this, does it make sense in CM to have two internal storages anyway? Couldn't I just reformat it to have only one partition?
I know how to use parted, so this isn't why I am asking. I just wanted to ask here about potential other side effects.
I already reformatted that my internal memory is about 4GB and my sdcard0 storage is 10GB, but now I installed a huge app in internal memory which can't be moved to SD for some reason, and I want to at least reformat it the other way around or the default 12GB sdcard0 + 1GB internal
All apps are installed in the first internal memory anyway I have figured, so I don't know why this first sdcard0 does make sense at all? I first thought that would be used for apps, but currently there are 10 unused Gigabytes....
I am using a real sdcard in the device ( which is per default mounted as sdcard1 ), maybe that is the reason nothing is put on the internal sdcard0 ??
Any comments on this?
I'd also like to know if this can be done. I've read the posts that explain how to resize partition 10 (media) and 11 (user data), but I would like to know if it is possible to combine partition 10 and 11 into a single partition so that all available space that isn't used by the system can be used for apps and other data. Is this not possible because of different file systems or is there a way to do it?
I've also noticed that even though the Nook Tablet 16 GB physically has 1 GB RAM only 672 MB is recognized and the other 332 MB or so seems to be used as some type of virtual SD Card (this can be seen in Settings -> Apps -> On SD Card). Is there a way to make the entire 1 GB recognized and utilized? I have not been able to find any information on this anywhere.
I am running CM 10.1 on Nook Tablet 16 GB.
bluesock said:
One more question from me about this, does it make sense in CM to have two internal storages anyway? Couldn't I just reformat it to have only one partition?
I know how to use parted, so this isn't why I am asking. I just wanted to ask here about potential other side effects.
...
Any comments on this?
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Combining the two partitions without tweaking the ROM will likely result in errors when the system at boot time attempts to mount the partition you eliminate, and when some apps reference the file-system that supposedly resides on that eliminated partition. To avoid these errors, the eliminated partition would have be removed from boot-time auto-mount list, and its file-system root would have to be mapped (e.g., symbolically linked) to the mount point of the remaining partition.
skelnik said:
I
I've also noticed that even though the Nook Tablet 16 GB physically has 1 GB RAM only 672 MB is recognized and the other 332 MB or so seems to be used as some type of virtual SD Card (this can be seen in Settings -> Apps -> On SD Card). Is there a way to make the entire 1 GB recognized and utilized? I have not been able to find any information on this anywhere.
.
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The 'missing' RAM is what the OS needs to keep the device going. 672 MB RAM free sounds very reasonable. What you see in the list as apps on sd card is the virtual sd card in storage, not RAM.
Sent from my BNTV600 using Tapatalk 4
The "missing" RAM is actually shared memory for the GPU (the SGX540). Video cards need RAM to load textures and whatnot.
You might have noticed that desktops without a dedicated GPU have much lower system RAM than advertised. Ex: my laptop with 3GB of system RAM actually shows something like 2970MB RAM (instead of 3096MB). The 100 odd MB of RAM is shared by the GPU (Intel GMA). If I had a dedicated GPU in my laptop, something like the GTX M GPUs with its own RAM, I would see and be able to use the full 3096MB of system RAM. It's the same thing with mobile devices, they share system RAM with the GPU.
That makes sense about the shared resources for the system and graphics. Thank you for the explanation!
Okay, if that is all, probably changing /system/etc/vold.fstab after repartitioning/removing the emmc-sdcard-partition and symlinking the other of the partitions should do it already? Or how does the storage settings things finds the storage memories? Or is there even something a bit more deeply buried, e.g. inside the kernels initrd or something like that? Does someone know those details?
@skelnik as written in the other thread something more here ...
It probably isn't completely beginner friendly to do all this just by this information here, but I might attempt to do this too, and then will share the information as step-wise as possible. But might take some weeks until I have a bit time left...
And be aware! There probably will be some downsides when not using a physical/external sdcard at all: You will not have the internal storage accessible as a usb storage device anymore (not sure about mtp or ptp mode, but these don't access everything anyway) - so if you screw up something it might become harder to recover. You should then probably have at least some 2gb sdcard you can use, just in case. But my opinion is that you should just pay those $5 for a physical sdcard (should even give you 4 or 8GB already...) and then there won't be these problems.
Use Ineternal Storage as sdcard on Nook Tablet
bluesock said:
@skelnik And be aware! There probably will be some downsides when not using a physical/external sdcard at all: You will not have the internal storage accessible as a usb storage device anymore (not sure about mtp or ptp mode, but these don't access everything anyway)
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Actually you will still have access from the PC (Windows OS at least) to this partition after using the internal storage as an sdcard. You need to go into the USB Connection Settings under Storage and change it to "USB Mass Storage" mode. Also USB Debugging needs to be unchecked in order for you to get prompted to enable USB Connection to PC. After that you will be able to transfer data to and from your PC to the internal partition being used like an sdcard on your Nook Tablet. That partition is set to 10GB for me so that is a huge benefit and allows me to swap out multiple external sdcards any time without disabling any apps.
skelnik said:
Actually you will still have access from the PC (Windows OS at least) to this partition after using the internal storage as an sdcard. You need to go into the USB Connection Settings under Storage and change it to "USB Mass Storage" mode. Also USB Debugging needs to be unchecked in order for you to get prompted to enable USB Connection to PC. After that you will be able to transfer data to and from your PC to the internal partition being used like an sdcard on your Nook Tablet. That partition is set to 10GB for me so that is a huge benefit and allows me to swap out multiple external sdcards any time without disabling any apps.
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Are you sure you mean the same thing as me? I am talking about removing one of the partitions and just making one large partition where both /data and a link from /sdcard into that will be. As far as I understood, Android does not do a virtualization of a path but really makes one of it's partitions accessible as usb storage? Or can you also format in ext4 and still read it in Windows?
If that works I am probably not right, otherwise read on:
All your configuration data and everything is on /data and would be removed from being accessible by the system as long as it is connected as usb storage (also all installed apps, ...), and besides that you would need to use the FAT filesystem for Windows compatibility, which is also probably not the best idea, security-wise (any app being able to read sdcard would for example be able to read your wifi configuration, maybe google account login data, etc. etc.).
Hi, this is probably a noob question but anyway. So i installed a custom rom in my phone when i noticed that the storage space was low, i searched through many forums and couldn't find anithyng related, only an app that shows the complete space of all of the partitions called DiskInfo, it shows an unmounted partition called fat and the only way to access to it is connecting the device to a pc in usb mass storage mode in TWRP. is there any way to mount it or make it usable for the phone?.
When i access to settings and storage only shows the internal storage and nothing else. Can't attach images because new user sorry.
Thanks in advance and sorry for the bad english.
CamilorozoCADC said:
Hi, this is probably a noob question but anyway. So i installed a custom rom in my phone when i noticed that the storage space was low, i searched through many forums and couldn't find anithyng related, only an app that shows the complete space of all of the partitions called DiskInfo, it shows an unmounted partition called fat and the only way to access to it is connecting the device to a pc in usb mass storage mode in TWRP. is there any way to mount it or make it usable for the phone?.
When i access to settings and storage only shows the internal storage and nothing else. Can't attach images because new user sorry.
Thanks in advance and sorry for the bad english.
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INCREASE YOUR ANDROID INTERNAL MEMORY || BY MOUNTS2SD (BEST WAY) in androcustomroms. Google it. It worked for my ZTE Blade L3 4.4.2 stock rom. Try it. Link2sd did't work for me.
EDIT: if you still can't, use Apps2sd. It works better for me.