[Q] Mistakenly Created 4gb internal mem partition, now missing space! (CWM)

So, my latest adventure into rooting/flashing.

Wasn't happy with the stock 4.3 update, so decided to go back to CM (CM11 this time).

Everything went well. Root, CWM6, CM11, et viola.

However.

CM11 stopped recognizing my 64gb micro SD card. I've had this happen before so I was poking around in CWM trying to figure out how I fixed it last time.

I mistakenly told CWM to create a 4gb partition. That was stupid, because CWM couldn't even mount my external SD at the time. Complete oversight on my behalf. Anyway, it said it "succeeded" but I still couldn't see my external SD in any way. Long story short, I figured out the ext sd card and reformatted to fat32, making it totally visible in CM11 and CWM.

However, once looking at storage in Settings, I noticed my internal storage was smaller; about 11gb. It would appear I DID create a 4gb partition from CWM, but on the internal memory. The big kicker is that I can't find that partition anywhere! The phone works fine, but I'm missing precious internal space. I can't see the partition from CWM or any partition managers I download in the app store. Also can't see it if I plug the phone into my PC (win7).

I have some big MC2 reset tool I use whenever I want to go back to stock. I can never make up my mind between stock and custom, so I sometimes go back and forth. It's like a 1gb single flash that I install from recovery: it resets my flash counter and goes back to full unrooted stock. Would this fix my issue, causing me to have to re-root et al to get back to CM11? Or, would the fact that my internal memory is no longer the stock size/partition table cause a brick situation if I try to go back to stock?

jlmancuso said:

Your internal storage is fine. You did not create any partition. Your phone has 16 gigs but you only get access to approximately 11 since your phone uses the rest for system, modem, etc..

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Curious, since before I did this, I could see 16gb total storage in CWM (of course, with various parts of it being utilized for OS, apps, misc, etc). Also, I pull up my wife's stock GS3 and it also sees a total of 16gb available storage. Does stock ROM view internal storage completely differently? Does CM11 view it differently than other ROMs? If so, you'd think it'd be something widely known, or at least mentioned in the android community.

Edit:

Also, before this I could connect phone to PC, and PC would see 16gb total storage for phone. Now, it only sees 11.0 exactly. Awfully huge coincidence that there's now a difference in visible storage space that's close to the same size as the supposed partition CWM said it created for me.

jlmancuso said:

Not sure about cwm display but here is a screen of my storage in slimkat. Has looked like this since day one before root and custom rom

Sent from my SPH-L900 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

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Fascinating. It would appear CM and stock definitely show the available storage space differently. I'm officially ready for bed!

'preciate the help, friend!