[GUIDE] Increase your Nexus 4's system partition for more space!

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Gibson295

Member
Apr 25, 2019
14
0
will this work with Clockword recover mod v6.0 cause thats what i have ;o

I keep receiving an error when trying to do the step
./parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 p

it just gives me ./parted: line 1: syntax error: unexpected "("
~ #

no clue what to do here next.
Nexus 4
 
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S

soor-si

New member
Jul 4, 2017
1
0
I couldn't find an answer on the forum, so I hope someone can help me with something...

I have increased the system partition on my Nexus 4 16Gb, but now I would like to flash an Ubuntu Touch ROM, but I can't.
The problem is that the partition size has to be like it was. How to make the reverse procedure, to get old partition sizes back?
 
S

simodepa97

New member
Sep 27, 2014
1
0
24
I used this guide to recreate system and data partition after they were accidentally canceled by a script. Only thing that doesn't work is mounting the new partitions, because there are no such /system nor /data directories. So I tried to create them but there's a conflict with /system and /data files that are already in place. What to do? Thanks.
 
D

derern

Member
Nov 8, 2014
13
4
52
www.facebook.com
Hi all,

tried to breathe some new life into my N4 which required the repartition. N4 sports TWRP 3.4.0-0. Managed to work along the script just fine and also can see that the GPT seems to be fine afterwards indicating the intended sizes and names for /system and /cache.

Trouble now is that I can't mount /system anymore - neither in shell nor in TWRP (after a restart as well).

Any ideas what could be the culprit here?

Edit: Okay, this is rather embarassing. Turns out I didn't restart TWRP properly after the process. Classic "Did you try to switch it off and on again did it"

Maybe for anybody else to avoid the culprit: If you click on Reboot --> Recovery in TWRP and are instantly greeted with the TWRP homescreen, it didn't restart. Forcing a shutdown via Power and then going to TWRP helped for me.
 
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L

Luihart

New member
Jan 19, 2020
1
0
derern said:
Hi all,

tried to breathe some new life into my N4 which required the repartition. N4 sports TWRP 3.4.0-0. Managed to work along the script just fine and also can see that the GPT seems to be fine afterwards indicating the intended sizes and names for /system and /cache.

Trouble now is that I can't mount /system anymore - neither in shell nor in TWRP (after a restart as well).

Any ideas what could be the culprit here?

Edit: Okay, this is rather embarassing. Turns out I didn't restart TWRP properly after the process. Classic "Did you try to switch it off and on again did it"

Maybe for anybody else to avoid the culprit: If you click on Reboot --> Recovery in TWRP and are instantly greeted with the TWRP homescreen, it didn't restart. Forcing a shutdown via Power and then going to TWRP helped for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same Problem. It cant mount system. I cant wipe anything, even restore failed. Need Help. How can I Reset it now? In ADB Shell it still Shows ext4 21 System with 880mb
 
T

Tractor555

New member
Jan 26, 2021
1
0
@Luihart and @derern I had a similar problem with my N4 (I increased the partition size as per the instructions on the first page, and was able to install Lineage OS17.1 and Gapps OK. However the phone was really unstable and the System UI kept crashing) so I reverted the N4 to how it was. I basically revered the key resizing steps on the first page restoring the size and format of partitions 21 and 22. That seemed OK (with plenty of cache & data wipes and reboots). However, I was still having problems with running the stock OS or UBPorts. I then stumbled on a post which mentioned that the reformat to ext2 of the parted tool used on this instructionisn't very good so the N4 needs to have this redone using fastboot format system .Note that this also initially failed (connected on Linux computer) until I replaced the android-developer-tools form Ubuntu repository with the ones downloaded from https://developer.android.com/studio/releases/platform-tools. There is hope to restore Nexus 4 to how it was and my phone is now happily running UBPorts Touch again.
 
Malk4ever

Malk4ever

Senior Member
Oct 18, 2012
237
48
Trantor
bmg1001 said:
I got tired of installing amazing ROMs created by the talented folks here on XDA, but being held back on things like Google Apps because of the tiny /system partition we have on the Nexus 4. I looked around and found guides to increase the system space in the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 2013, so I basically just adapted them to work on our beloved Nexus 4.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Thank you very much!
This is exactly what I was looking for, and it worked like a charm. Still I need to use nano GAPPS on Lineage 17.1, but without change i wasnt able to install it at all (not even when excluding most things).
 
Makxie

Makxie

Senior Member
Jul 2, 2015
69
8
Hi, everything worked fine but after flashing Lineage 17.1 and rebooting to system it takes me back to recovery. Even when selecting reboot to system it just restarts TRWP. Any ideas why?

update: nvm, switch it off with the power button and booted up instantly.

thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you you're a Nexus god
 
Last edited:
Zelych

Zelych

Senior Member
Nov 28, 2009
328
64
Trutnov
Redmi K20 Pro
Hi, i have problem, lost internal storage on position 23

Code: 
~ # ←[6nchmod +x parted
chmod +x parted
~ # ←[6n./parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 p
./parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 p
Model: MMC 016G92 (sd/mmc)
Disk /dev/block/mmcblk0: 15.8GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name      Flags
1      524kB   67.6MB  67.1MB  fat16        modem
2      67.6MB  68.2MB  524kB                sbl1
3      68.2MB  68.7MB  524kB                sbl2
4      68.7MB  70.8MB  2097kB               sbl3
5      70.8MB  71.3MB  524kB                tz
6      71.3MB  94.4MB  23.1MB               boot
7      94.4MB  117MB   23.1MB               recovery
8      117MB   118MB   799kB                m9kefs1
9      118MB   119MB   799kB                m9kefs2
10      119MB   120MB   799kB                m9kefs3
11      120MB   121MB   524kB                rpm
12      121MB   121MB   524kB                aboot
13      121MB   122MB   524kB                sbl2b
14      122MB   124MB   2097kB               sbl3b
15      124MB   124MB   524kB                abootb
16      124MB   125MB   524kB                rpmb
17      125MB   125MB   524kB                tzb
18      125MB   126MB   524kB                metadata
19      126MB   143MB   16.8MB               misc
20      143MB   159MB   16.8MB  ext4         persist
21      159MB   1040MB  881MB   ext4         system
22      1040MB  1627MB  587MB   ext4         cache
27      2099MB  15.8GB  13.7GB
24      15.8GB  15.8GB  524kB                DDR
25      15.8GB  15.8GB  507kB                grow

~ # ←[6n

EDIT:
After trying to solve the problem, I came to the conclusion that I was missing section 23 completely! :-(
Can someone please advise me how to recover partitions?

Code: 
~ # ←[6nchmod +x parted
chmod +x parted
~ # ←[6n./parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 p
./parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 p
Model: MMC 016G92 (sd/mmc)
Disk /dev/block/mmcblk0: 15.8GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name      Flags
 1      524kB   67.6MB  67.1MB  fat16        modem
 2      67.6MB  68.2MB  524kB                sbl1
 3      68.2MB  68.7MB  524kB                sbl2
 4      68.7MB  70.8MB  2097kB               sbl3
 5      70.8MB  71.3MB  524kB                tz
 6      71.3MB  94.4MB  23.1MB               boot
 7      94.4MB  117MB   23.1MB               recovery
 8      117MB   118MB   799kB                m9kefs1
 9      118MB   119MB   799kB                m9kefs2
10      119MB   120MB   799kB                m9kefs3
11      120MB   121MB   524kB                rpm
12      121MB   121MB   524kB                aboot
13      121MB   122MB   524kB                sbl2b
14      122MB   124MB   2097kB               sbl3b
15      124MB   124MB   524kB                abootb
16      124MB   125MB   524kB                rpmb
17      125MB   125MB   524kB                tzb
18      125MB   126MB   524kB                metadata
19      126MB   143MB   16.8MB               misc
20      143MB   159MB   16.8MB  ext4         persist
21      159MB   1040MB  881MB   ext4         system
22      1040MB  1627MB  587MB   ext4         cache
24      15.8GB  15.8GB  524kB                DDR
25      15.8GB  15.8GB  507kB                grow

~ # ←[6n
 
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M

myxal

Senior Member
Sep 5, 2011
115
16
Has anyone managed to get/make an addon.d script (for growing the system partition) that would work for updating?

I'm on TWRP 3.5.2_9-0 and at first glance, the simple script by @franz.s should work (ext filesystems are online-growable), but trying to resize a mounted /system in TWRP fails with "device busy".

In my old script, unmounting doesn't work, probably because the ROM installation process runs the addon scripts from the system partition.

EDIT: After testing with my own scripts it seems both assumptions are wrong - I got it working with a very verbose script, and it seems that when installing CarbonROM:
  • the script is actually called from /tmp/
  • the system partition is unmounted when it starts
No idea why the scripts weren't working before, then. 🤷‍♂️
 
Last edited:
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  • 32
    bmg1001
    bmg1001
    I got tired of installing amazing ROMs created by the talented folks here on XDA, but being held back on things like Google Apps because of the tiny /system partition we have on the Nexus 4. I looked around and found guides to increase the system space in the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 2013, so I basically just adapted them to work on our beloved Nexus 4.

    As always, do this at your OWN risk. I am not responsible for bricking your Nexus 4. I will simply list the process which I used to increase my Nexus 4's system partition (by taking a big ol' chunk from the cache partition). Remember, any sort of modification to your device of this caliber WILL void any warranty you might still have.


    REQUIREMENTS:
    parted (Uploaded to my Google Drive. If it downloads as a .txt, rename it to remove the extension and make it a plain file)
    adb and fastboot, and preferably knowledge on how they work

    Step 1: Install TWRP onto your Nexus 4 and reboot into it.

    Step 2: Open up command prompt / terminal and check to see if your Nexus 4 is connected properly with "adb devices".

    Step 3: Once you've confirmed that adb is fully working and your Nexus 4 is properly connected to your PC, download parted and use adb to push it to your Nexus 4 using the command:

    Code: 
    adb push parted /

    Step 4: Now enter the following command:
    Code: 
    adb shell
    and then the command:
    Code: 
    chmod +x parted
    This will enter adb shell and make the "parted" binary you pushed to your device earlier executable.

    Step 5:
    Now run the command
    Code: 
    ./parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 p
    You should see a long list with a bunch of numbers and names in your terminal. These are the partitions on your device. parted will give you the partition number, the "start" and "end" of the partition, the size, and the name.
    This is the partition layout on my device. It will probably be the same on your device, though the size of userdata may vary depending on whether you have the 8gb or 16gb Nexus 4.
    Code: 
    ~ # ./parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 p
Model: MMC 016G92 (sd/mmc)
Disk /dev/block/mmcblk0: 15.8GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name      Flags
 1      524kB   67.6MB  67.1MB  fat16        modem
 2      67.6MB  68.2MB  524kB                sbl1
 3      68.2MB  68.7MB  524kB                sbl2
 4      68.7MB  70.8MB  2097kB               sbl3
 5      70.8MB  71.3MB  524kB                tz
 6      71.3MB  94.4MB  23.1MB               boot
 7      94.4MB  117MB   23.1MB               recovery
 8      117MB   118MB   799kB                m9kefs1
 9      118MB   119MB   799kB                m9kefs2
10      119MB   120MB   799kB                m9kefs3
11      120MB   121MB   524kB                rpm
12      121MB   121MB   524kB                aboot
13      121MB   122MB   524kB                sbl2b
14      122MB   124MB   2097kB               sbl3b
15      124MB   124MB   524kB                abootb
16      124MB   125MB   524kB                rpmb
17      125MB   125MB   524kB                tzb
18      125MB   126MB   524kB                metadata
19      126MB   143MB   16.8MB               misc
20      143MB   159MB   16.8MB  ext4         persist
21      159MB   1040MB  881MB   ext2         system
22      1040MB  1627MB  587MB   ext4         cache
23      1627MB  15.8GB  14.1GB  ext4         userdata
24      15.8GB  15.8GB  524kB                DDR
25      15.8GB  15.8GB  507kB                grow

    Step 6:
    Now run the following three commands:
    Code: 
    umount /data
umount /sdcard
umount /cache

    Step 7: So, on my Nexus 4, the system partition is number 21, and cache is 22. We're kinda lucky in the fact that system and cache are right next to each other, meaning we don't have to touch any other partition.

    You'll want to run these two next commands. These commands will essentially "remove" the two partitions.

    Code: 
    ./parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 rm 21
./parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 rm 22

    Step 8: Now it is time to recreate these two partitions, however, when recreating them, we will make system bigger and the cache smaller. From the partitions list we got in Step 5, we can see that system starts at 159 and ends at 1040, while cache starts at 1040 and ends at 1627. The following two commands will rebuild /system starting at 159, but ending at 1590, while rebuilding cache at 1590, and ending at 1627. We are essentially stealing a large chunk from cache, since we don't really need that anymore on newer ROMs.

    Code: 
    ./parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 mkpart primary 159 1590
./parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 mkpart primary 1590 1627

    Step 9: Now run this command:
    Code: 
    ./parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 p

    This will bring up the partitions list, or table, again. This time, however, we'll see the new partitions where system and cache were, however, they have no names! The following two commands will name the two partitions again.

    Code: 
    ./parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 name 21 system
./parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 name 22 cache

    Step 10: Great! Now the partitions should be named again! Now, we still have to format the partitions as ext4 so that we can actually use them. The following two commands will do that for you.

    Code: 
    mke2fs -b 4096 -T ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p21
mke2fs -b 4096 -T ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p22

    Step 11: At this point, feel free to run the command from Step 5 to take one more look at the partition table and make sure everything looks good. Now run the command
    Code: 
    mount -a
    and then type in
    Code: 
    exit
    .

    Step 12: Now we are pretty much done. We've extended the system partition from approx. 881mb to 1431mb, which is a nice large chunk of memory. In the future, we could always mess with the partitions more to add even more space by stealing from userdata, but until we reach that point, I think we are pretty well set for now!

    Now...
    You'll want to reboot TWRP, and flash a new ROM. You can now use a much bigger Google Apps package, without any worries.
    Do note, however, that flashing a ROM will "resize" system to be smaller, but this isn't a huge deal. After flashing a ROM, while still in TWRP, you'll want to go to Wipe > Advanced Wipe > check "system" then head to "Repair or Change File System", > then tap on "Resize File System." If you encounter any errors while trying to resize, try remounting system or rebooting TWRP. Afterwards, you should be able to flash your Google Apps package. I'm not sure if you need to repeat these steps after flashing things other than ROMs, but repeating this process within TWRP should work just as well.

    I hope I helped y'all out and feel free to post if this guide worked for you or if you have any other comments!
    CREDITS:
    @surfrock66 for his Nexus 5 guide here.
    @rkhat for his Nexus 7 2013 guide here.
    View
    3
    caliban2
    caliban2
    If it doesn't work for you

    Thanks for this great guide!

    Decided to breath some new life into an old N4 in my family and now it's going (very) strong again with LineageOS 15.1. Still had to clear a bit over 100 MB with .gapps-config from Stock-OpenGapps, but that's no biggie. I always liked to start with the big package and then remove everything that I don't need from it.

    Second issue gave me some headaches at first.

    "Resize File System" in TWRP apparently worked and Gapps-Install went through (~100 MB free at the end), but boot would fail and crash back to recovery.
    (I'm using the daily LOS-nightlies by Milaq and Stock-Package from OpenGapps, maybe it's no problem with other ROMs and/or Gapps-Packages.)

    Turns out the fix in TWRP wasn't really working, nevermind what partition size it shows for /system afterwards. It's somehow corrupted and still has the original size -> most of the gapps stuff get's written to nirvana, thus the failing boot.

    I found the solution over in the Nexus5-Thread:

    JekaPinsk said:
    Hello guys!
    Try this:
    1) Install ROM
    2) Backup ROM
    3) Enable "Use 'rm -rf' instead of formatting" in TWRP settings
    4) Format /system
    4.1) Unmount /system and use 'resize2fs -f /dev/block/mmcblk0p21' in terminal (TWRP)
    5) Reboot TWRP
    5.1) Uncheck "Use 'rm -rf' instead of formatting" in TWRP settings
    6) Restore backup
    7) Install Stock OpenGapps
    8) Done!

    The idea behind it is that ROM installation somehow corrupt /system partition thus any write operations above normal data region silently fail.
    Click to expand...
    Click to collapse

    at step 4.1 I already changed the partition number to 21 for Nexus4. In the original post it says mmcblk0p25, because on the Nexus 5 that's /system.

    Now it works.
    In theory this procedure should also work for updating the ROM without losing data, but haven't tested it yet. (Maybe throw in a wipe of /system as step 0...?)

    To be clear: This isn't the fault of the guide to resize system-partition.
    Problem is (at least certain) ROMs resetting size of file system to original and then TWRP failing to fix that doing it the easy way as described in OP (-> bug in TWRP?).

    EDIT:
    Above procedure also works for an update without data loss. Only difference was I did a normal wipe of /system first, "step 0" so to say.

    No idea if all this is still necessary with TWRP 3.2.3-0, I'm not willing to risk a full wipe at this point. ^^
    View
    2
    SnapShot86
    SnapShot86
    Worked Thanx
    View
    2
    M
    myxal
    This should work:
    View attachment 00-grow_system.sh.zip - this is NOT an installable zip - if anyone's more versed with making those, they're welcome to make one.

    1. Boot into recovery
    2. In TWRP: Mount -> system
    3. Extract the script attached above
    4. Push it to appropriate location
      Code: 
      adb push 00-grow_system.sh /system/addon.d

    Relevant part:

    Code: 
    {
      grep -q "/system" /proc/mounts
    } && {
      umount /system || {
        echo "grow_system: error unmounting - cannot continue"
        exit 1
      }
    } || {
      echo "grow_system: /system wasn't mounted, proceeding"
    }
    { e2fsck -fy "$syspart" || [ "$?" -le "1" ]; } || {
      echo "grow_system: unrecoverable error found on /system, refusing to resize" >&2
      exit 1
    }
    resize2fs "$syspart"
    { e2fsck -fy "$syspart" || [ "$?" -le "1" ]; } || {
      echo "grow_system: unrecoverable error found after resize, /system is damaged" >&2
      exit 1
    }
    mount "$syspart" /system

    EDIT: Whoops, no idea how that managed to work yesterday. Updated script should work now.
    View
    2
    M
    myxal
    Hi all. I only discovered this thread after independently figuring out the partitioning scheme (plain GPT) and process.

    Sadly, even after this effort, it seems L-OS upgrades won't work unless L-OS devs modify their upgrade script to make use of resize2fs. Here's what happens as of package 2018-09-11:
    1. L-OS runs backup procedure for all addons found in the existing /system/addon.d/
    2. The above creates files (I guess) in /tmp
    3. The /system is unmounted
    4. The partition is overwritten with the image in the upgrade package
    5. The script in addon.d/ are then run to restore the addons from /tmp

    The problem is, the partition image in the upgrade package is for the old partition size, and therefore step 5 fails when the free space runs out. It seems the install or restore scripts don't detect this failure, and just exit without reporting an error, with 0B free space on /system.

    I'm guessing the problem can be "solved" by formatting the system partition and installing LOS and all addons from scratch, but that's ridiculous. :eek: has anyone tried to raise this issue with devs? I'm about to report this in L-OS's JIRA, as I haven't seen any relevant report there.

    EDIT: If anyone wants to track: https://jira.lineageos.org/browse/BUGBASH-2306
    View

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