[TUT]How to Create Partition in SDcard/MicroSD for Windows user

hello guys,
i wanna share to you guys how to make a partition in external sdcard/MicroSD for Windows user. Dunno if this already post in XDA, didn't do a research
just to remind, do this with your own risk!

now, what we need :
1. PC/Laptop
2. microsd/sdcard with capacity 2gb/4gb/8gb/16gb/32gb
3. microsd adapter or card reader.
4. Minitool Partition Wizard http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html
there's another tool called gparted but this tut only use Minitool Partition
5. a ciggy and a cup of coffee

before we go through, don't do this while you're drunk, so sleepy or in hurry..

now, i assume that the minitool partition already installed on your pc/laptop and the sdcard is empty.
let's begin....
1. put your sdcard into adapter or card reader
2. open the minitool partition wizard software.(pic 1)
3. right click in sdcard (pic 2--i use 8Gb) and click delete. after that your sdcard will look like pic 2-1 as "unallocated" (becareful to choose the drive!!)
4. right click and click create (pic 3)
5. in create new partition choose "primary" (dont use logical) and change the "file system" to "Fat32".(pic 4 & pic 4-1)
6. in partition size you change to what you need. if you want to swap 1gb then change the "partition size" make your "unallocated space after" to 1024mb(pic 4-2).
(i dunno exactly the space that fit with but i use 1gb, if you dont know either you can ask to our dev or mr. pep) after that click ok
7. now you can see the 1gb seen as unallocated(pic 4-3)
8. right click and click create again at the unallocated(1gb) will be a warning that "the new created partition cannot b used in windows" click "yes" (pic 5)
9. now change the "logical" to "primary" (if you choose logical then your phone will probably got a black screen or black screen with battery icon+lock icon after you flash a new cusrom) (pic 6)
10. Change the NTFS to ext2/ext3/ext4 (if you want to install link2sd/s2e from market you can choose ext2 and/or ext4, for me i choose ext4 because i use s2e) and click ok. (pic 6-1)
now there are 3 operations pending in the left side (pic 6-2)
11. click "apply" and "yes". (pic 6-3)
12. now take your ciggy and drink your coffee and wait 1-2 minute untill the successfull pop up then click ok(pic 6-4). close minitool program.

- this ext* will not shown on windows, only on linux base OS.(you can see it on Windows by using some software, i.e : linux reader or raise data recovery, etc)
- use sdcard adapter/card reader
- if you wanna move your app just use link2sd or s2e free on market.
- in this tut i use ext4 just for example to you guys if you choose s2e, but it is not a must for you to choose ext4,.for faster read/write sd choose ext2(see post 2 by pep)


this is just a tutorial for those who dont know and dont understand how to make partition/swap and for those who dont want to swap the phone's internal<-->external. do this before go to Pristine Method
swap thing is too risky for class4 microsd,


credits to :
- minitool partition wizard (useful tools)
- mr. pep (this guide related to Pristine Method ) http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2044861
- all Wonders
- XDA


if this help just click the Thanks button if there's something i forgot to write or i'm wrong please correct me..

Great tutorial!

If I may, I'd like to add some tips:

• When making the very first partition (from an empty-card condition), make sure:
  • It's Aligned to MB instead of Cylinder
  • There's a 1 MB 'gap' in front of the partition
• Also, make sure that all partitions' sizes (in sectors) are divisible by 256 (or, in other words, the partition size is a multiple of 128 KiB).
  .
  The reason for this is that some SD cards allocate their storage capacity in 'blocks', and the largest known block size is 128 KiB (128 * 1024 bytes). 256 sectors = 128 KiB. By ensuring that all partitions' sizes are divisible by 256, you are ensuring that no block is split between two partitions, thus keeping performance high (as the SD card no longer need to read a block and perform a seek just to find the beginning of a partition), and help lengthening the life of your SD card.
  .
  (Other SD cards might have smaller block sizes, but all a binary fraction of 128 KiB, i.e., 64 KiB or 32 KiB or 16 KiB or 8 KiB or 4 KiB. Thus, if partitions are multiples of 128 KiB, they are certainly multiples of the smaller block sizes.)

To ensure that partitions are divisible by 256, just before you click on the "Apply" button, do the following for each partition created:

1. Right-click on the partition
2. Choose Properties (the bottom option)
3. Click on "Partition Info" tab
4. The size of partition (in sectors) is "Last Physical Sector" - "First Physical Sector" + 1

For example, in my case (see the attached image), the "Last Physical Sector" is 29003775, while the "First Physical Sector" is 2048. Thus, the size of the partition is 29003775 - 2048 + 1 = 29001728. Divide 29001728 by 256 and you have the nice integer value of 113288, meaning that the partition is an exact multiple of 128 KiB.

As for the filesystem type for the second partition, I myself prefer ext2 because I reasoned:

• This is an SD Card; employing journaling (implemented by ext3 / ext4) will result in too much writing -- shortening SD Card life
• Writes are (nearly) instantaneous anyways; journaling are helpful if writes take some time to finish (e.g., writing to a spinning disk, which needs the track-seek and sector-seek plus track-shift plus ECC generation)
• The only way a write to SD Card can get interrupted is if power was removed immediately. Aside from dropping your phone and inadvertently ejecting the battery (in which case, SD Card corruption should be the least of your concern), smartphones can't suddenly lose power. When power gets too low, Android performs an orderly shutdown ensuring that all buffers are flushed
• ext2 code in the kernel is simple, making reads & writes faster, and less intrusive to foreground apps (no need to generate/manipulate a checksummed journal)

--- Posted from Opera on Lenovo T420 ---

Dani6757 said:

Hi stpdkid! (Somehow, that just seems "wrong" to call you that...when you're CLEARLY not!)

I'm still confused. When do I change it? Are you saying that in Step 3, I should limit the very 1st (primary) partition to 1 MB (in trying to follow pepoluan's tips to do so)? If so, what about the last field that relates to something about, "leave X MB" [I]AFTER[/I]..... Sorry, I don't have the other computer turned-on with the mini-partition program running, so I can't confirm the exact wording of that last field on the Create page.

I guess I don't understand why (or where else to make this happen) I need a "1MB "gap"before..." (pepoluan wrote: "make sure you leave a 1MB "gap" BEFORE...." Perhaps I'm confusing "gap" with "partition size"??? Woe is me...being a noob totally sucks!

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

When you create a partition with MiniTool, you can specify a space "Before" the partition (in fact there are three fields: Before, Size, and After).

But for some reasons, one can't change the Before number if the Size is set too large (by default, it is set to the size of the MicroSD); one has to reduce the Size by 1 MB *then* set the Before number to 1 MB.

It is not possible to create a 1 MB partition.

As to "why": Flash memory writes in units of "sectors" (512 bytes), but erases in units of "blocks" (N sectors). The FAT32 filesystem addresses a storage in units of "clusters", usually 8 or 16 sectors per cluster.

It might happen that a cluster "straddles" a block, e.g., it's first four sectors are stored in block 23, but the last four sectors are stored in block 24. If this happens, write- access to that cluster will be *extremely* slow, because the flash memory will have to perform two "read-modify-write" cycles, one for each block.

The "gap" is used to "align" the partition so that clusters won't straddle block boundaries.

According to my research, the largest block size is 1 MB (2048 sectors).

If we specify a gap in front of the very first partition created in MiniTool, MiniTool is smart enough to understand that we want to align the partition, so it will invisibly try to ensure the beginning of the partition to be block-aligned. Plus, it will wisely 'hide' the gap in its drive map.


-- sent from Samsung GT-I8150 running CM10 --

thank you bro for rhe additional tips..i forget bout that.. that'very useful for us.

yes, ext2 is better to choose..
i use ext4 because i install s2e not link2sd..and sometimes ext2 cannot be read by s2e but it's not a must for everbody to use ext4..


Sent from my GT-I8150 using Tapatalk 2

procter said:

Hi, you seem to be very knowledgeable regarding the flash storage, can you help me with this one pls? I've seen a lot of posts regarding SD-ext partition and they all advised that this ext partition better not go beyond 1024 Mb for SD cards 4GB or larger. Why is that? Most of the posts were back in 2012 though, is it still the same? Say if I have a 32Gb card to put into a more recent phone such as GS3 (so the apps takes a lot more space with better graphics etc compared to earlier android version), is the 1gb ext partition gonna be enough? Thanks.

And also, when doing it in my GS3, looks like the ext2 is not supported or recognized by either link2SD or mount2SD, changed it to ext4 worked fine.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Hey,

i used this method last summer too and setup a ext2 partition on my class 10, 32GB ext sdcard. The ext2 i still working within link2sd on CM11 (but not updated to last release yet). I created it with a size of 1,94 GB and actually linked 32 apps with a total amount of 791MB, so there are still 1,16GB left.

Remember that link2sd i only able to link the apk, dex & lib files of an app (i guess this is right), so in addition i recommend to use foldermount too (as i did) to push the obb and data files to the extsd too. For some games these files are using the most space, for example the data folder from real racing 3 is bigger than 1 GB!

I don't know why ext2 does not work for you, maybe something went wrong?

About the size recommendations, i've read them too and as far as i remember it was just because you likely will never need some more? But im not sure.

One tip: Be careful with or just do not link system or root or apps with a widget on your home screen, which has to be loaded on boot.

cheers