Hi everyone,
I just updated my Aria to FR007 and really want to have a 'brand new' phone look + feel.
I would like to delete ALL unnecessary files in the SD card & phone memory cos at the moment, I feel like something is not amiss.
I only have 574mb left out of the stock 2gb SD card. And my internal phone storage have only 132mb available space left.
I would like to save only my nandroid backup in the SDcard and nothing else. So deleting all other datas like saved apps, games, contacts, images, music and others are fine.
Please advice what procedure I need to follow as I am not familiar with what files are safe to delete. Is it safe to just do this:
Settings > SD & Phone Storage >Factory Data Reset ?
Thank you for your advice!
I would like to know this as well because out of a 8GB SD card (7.59GB) i only have 549MB remaining and i only have 1 nandroid back up and 3 GB of music on the phone.
That's a loaded question dependant upon what apps are installed. Many apps create folders and populate the sd card in some form.
Best I can tell you, mount the storage and copy the sd content to your computer. Erase the sdcard content and see what happens after reboot. Should only potentially bother 3rd party apps.
Sent from my Liberty using XDA App
Thanks for the advice BelacNongaw.
I thought about that too but I was thinking maybe there are some system files or essential files that MUST be in the SD card. And also, wouldn't deleting everything in the SD card also delete my nandroid backup? And Clockwork? <-They do reside in the SD card, yes?
Let me reiterate please: I want a 'brand new' phone while keeping only my last nandroid backup Will a factory reset do?
Thanks again everyone!
I had the same problem and the only thing I noticed was nandroid backups take a lot of space and also apps that have been deleted keep their folders in the sd card
Sent from my HTC Liberty using XDA App
Okay this is what I did:
1. Back up my SDcard to the computer (plug it in, mount as disk drive, copy all contents to a folder on the desktop).
2. Restart the Aria in Recovery mode (Vol. down while Power up)
3. Go to Recovery > Partitions > Format SD Card
Now I have 1.84gb of SD storage with these folders (viewed in Astro):
1. .footprints / thumbnails / voices
2. LOST.DIR
3. tmp / .astro / astro
Haven't tested everything yet but eBuddy and Market are doing well, downloading and app installation are running fine too.
Now I'm quite concerned about the following:
1. Does this mean that I do not have clockwork anymore? Because there was a 'clockworkmod' folder in the SDcard before I formatted it.
2. Am I screwed?
Thank you for any suggestions/advice. I hope this thread can offer some helpful tips to those who need it in the future.
You are fine. The clockworkmod folder is where rom manager downloads and your nandroid backups are stored. You can just copy it back or rom manager will generate it again next time you nandroid backup.
Sent from my Liberty using XDA App
Thanks for reminding me BelacNongaw.
I just made a nandroid backup of my bare minimum Aria, and it automaticall created a clockworkmod folder in the SDcard with the md5 file.
Anyways, it's great to have all these space now
Great post guys I was wondering this myself. I recently rooted my inspire 4g to factory restore but all 3rd party apps are still on the sd card and i have no intention of re-installing any of them so i am looking for a safe way to delete unnessesary folders without deleting the vital ones, ill give your suggestions a try.
Technically you can safely delete everything that's on the sd card. Android will automatically create whatever folders it needs. Of course you'll lose any data saved to the sd, but you wont mess up your phone at all.
Sent from my cm7 Aria.
i have a g2 but i have the same thoughts i want the space back from sd card not worried about loosing any thing just dont want to mess the phone up
Don't worry. SD card is totally an external of the phone. Delete everything, it doesn't matter. And backup your needed files to any place you like. You can move them back to your reformatted SD card whenever you like.
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%)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
I am using Safestrap to install the CM10.1 nightly. I had to update from 2.11 to 3.11 to get it to work with the latest nightly. The Rom is working, but I'm confused about why I have so many partitions. I would like to consolidate as much as possible so I don't get confused about where things are. When running Disk Usage app, I have
1) App Storage 280/1007 free,
2) Storage Card 1280/8196 free
3)/storage/sdcard0 1280/8196 free
4)/storage/sdcard1 6078/15189 free (i think this one is my actual sdcard, it has my music on it)
2 and 3 look like they are the same thing. But they also have Titanium Backup information in it. So when I am backing up to sdcard, which SDcard am I backing up to? The actual sdcard, or the one created by Safestrap? Both have TB information in it, and a Camera folder. I'd like to be able to set it so that everything goes to the actual SDcard instead of the one created by Safestrap.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks a lot.
thefamousmoe said:
I am using Safestrap to install the CM10.1 nightly. I had to update from 2.11 to 3.11 to get it to work with the latest nightly. The Rom is working, but I'm confused about why I have so many partitions. I would like to consolidate as much as possible so I don't get confused about where things are. When running Disk Usage app, I have
1) App Storage 280/1007 free,
2) Storage Card 1280/8196 free
3)/storage/sdcard0 1280/8196 free
4)/storage/sdcard1 6078/15189 free (i think this one is my actual sdcard, it has my music on it)
2 and 3 look like they are the same thing. But they also have Titanium Backup information in it. So when I am backing up to sdcard, which SDcard am I backing up to? The actual sdcard, or the one created by Safestrap? Both have TB information in it, and a Camera folder. I'd like to be able to set it so that everything goes to the actual SDcard instead of the one created by Safestrap.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks a lot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) Is app storage shared between all of your ROMs (this can't be changed)
2) Is your internal storage (aka leftover space from the internal SD card from the above partition)
3) Internal SD card, same as above
4) External SD card, this is where your Titanium Backups are stored by default
Backup would 99% of the time go to external storage, if not then 2/3 aka internal storage. 1 isn't accessible to the user (normally)
Hey guys, I don't know how much available storage I had prior, however it was easily a GB free at LEAST as I put most of my media on my external sd-card.
I went to make a cwm backup before I flashed the latest CM nightly but stupidly forgot to tell it to backup to external storage.
Lo and behold, the backup failed and when I rebooted the phone I got notifications telling me that my storage is very low.
http://imgur.com/zjMiyGc - this screenshot shows that despite there being around 1/4 memory free (or otherwise uncategorised), I only have 229MB available.
I've looked in the clockworkmod folder and there's nothing there, but I can't figure out where all this memory has been taken up from?!
Is there any way I can locate the files/folder taking up the most storage on my device or has anyone encountered this issue before and know a fix?
I can't even download any new apps atm as they won't be installed due to low memory
Disk usage from play store
slaphead20 said:
Disk usage from play store
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what is in /data root folder. it looks like a lot of duplicates files, is it safe to clear that folder?
1st issue is wheni look at sd card while connected to my desktop or from a file explorer, it says my total space is only 10 gb. 2nd issue is im deleting things to free space, but i dont seem to be gaining any space. i deleted a bunch of pictures. i used sd maid to clean up some things, but im not gaining space. why is this?
viper31573 said:
1st issue is wheni look at sd card while connected to my desktop or from a file explorer, it says my total space is only 10 gb. 2nd issue is im deleting things to free space, but i dont seem to be gaining any space. i deleted a bunch of pictures. i used sd maid to clean up some things, but im not gaining space. why is this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Take out your ext-sdcard. reboot phone and in esfile explorer set root permissions for r/w to w. Click the menu button (hard button) and select sd card analyst. This will let file explorer go all the way thru root and find out what file is causing the size issue and tell you where it is. Voila. Hope this helps.
It was twrp using over 4gb. I deleted it. I keep my backups on ext SD anyways. At least now I do.
viper31573 said:
It was twrp using over 4gb. I deleted it. I keep my backups on ext SD anyways. At least now I do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Crap. P.S. If you make backups , they are usually 3.8gb. (sorry, forgot to mention that.) Guess i should add that to the FAQ's.
It was a stock ROM backup from when I first rooted. I have a newer backup of it on ext SD