[GUIDE] SD card partitioning for rooted phones

[osamahindi]

guys please help me! after done all the steps my phone still shows me 104MB free!!!
i tried to enable data2ext on adb shell through "data2ext --enable" it gives me: Data2EXT is already enabled but not active...
i tried to disable data2ext then re-enable it but with no luck i get the same result Data2EXT is already enabled but not active...
i'm on Blay0-07

 

[BlaY0]

Logcat or it didn't happen.

Sent from my HTC Legend

 

[ikdegek]

BlaYo,

Maybe you can help. I am using your 0.7 and CM7 on my legend (not at the same time of course..), and used partitioning with Rom manager, 512MB on a 8GB Sandisk.
Now 2 SD cards are corrupt, damaged and cannot be used again.
On the second I did NOT use a2sd and NOT data2sd,, but still damaged.
Could that be caused by the Rom manager method or something else?? I am stuck.

Thanks, Ik.

 

[dangal]

Hello i have a question,i wanna make a sd card partition to install data2ext to send /data to the sdcard,i dont understand what is the sense in make a ex3 or ex4,with one ext only is not enough?
ext3 and ext4 for what?
Thanks a lot and sorry with me English!!!!

 

[BlaY0]

Could that be caused by the Rom manager method or something else?? I am stuck.

No. RomManager also uses parted underneath so principle is the same.

Hello i have a question,i wanna make a sd card partition to install data2ext to send /data to the sdcard,i dont understand what is the sense in make a ex3 or ex4,with one ext only is not enough?
ext3 and ext4 for what?

If you don't understand, don't bother trying anything from this guide.

 

[andrekua]

guys please help me! after done all the steps my phone still shows me 104MB free!!!
i tried to enable data2ext on adb shell through "data2ext --enable" it gives me: Data2EXT is already enabled but not active...
i tried to disable data2ext then re-enable it but with no luck i get the same result Data2EXT is already enabled but not active...
i'm on Blay0-07

I also had this problem before. Partition the card and data2ext dont work. It did start to work after I got into CWM and did something. Cant remember whether it was to clear SD Ext or re-format it.

 

[dangal]

No. RomManager also uses parted underneath so principle is the same.


If you don't understand, don't bother trying anything from this guide.

just i make a question to understand and know what i do and for what,make a partition is no the problem,and install a app less,if you can explain me thanks,if no thanks again

 

[BlaY0]

Sorry m8. It's too much to explain here... you first need to figure out what is the difference between ext2, ext3 and ext4, why do we use and what are pros/cons of using either of them. Consult Google and Wikipedia to master this knowledge. Sorry again.

I also had this problem before. Partition the card and data2ext dont work. It did start to work after I got into CWM and did something. Cant remember whether it was to clear SD Ext or re-format it.

You obviously forgot something. Partitioning using CWM is no different than following this guide except it lacks partition alignment... other than that it's the same.

 

[andrekua]

You obviously forgot something. Partitioning using CWM is no different than following this guide except it lacks partition alignment... other than that it's the same.

No, I did not redo partitioning under CWM. Im still following your method to get the better speed. If I remembered correctly, I reformat the EXT partition and on the next reboot, data2ext is working all of a sudden. Maybe I had a bad format on the EXT partition.

 

[ijama]

Sorry for asking help..i have a problem in 2nd step..parted not found..so i cant continue to make partition..and the point is how to set parted in my dell..

Htc Legend/CyanogenMod7 S ON

 

[BlaY0]

You have to find it on the internetz, copy it to your phone and make it executable. ClockworkMod should have it I guess.

Sent from my HTC Legend

 

[ijama]

You have to find it on the internetz, copy it to your phone and make it executable. ClockworkMod should have it I guess.

Can u give me the link ad direction to copy on sdcard..to put in folder..lol

Sent from my HTC Legend

Htc Legend/CyanogenMod7 S ON

 

[BlaY0]

As I said, find CWM fake-flash here in dev sub-forum, download it and extract parted from downloaded zip...

Sent from my HTC Legend

 

[marginean.m]

may I use GParted??

Hi.
Thanks for the great tutorial. Just have a quick question: do you think that instead of some CLI commands I may use GParted? (for those that are not familiar with this app: it'a a partitioning tool for Linux but also has a liveCD so you don't really need a Linux box)

Later edit: Never mind....figured it out myself...GParted not very good for this job

 

[vortex-]

Hi.
Thanks for the great tutorial. Just have a quick question: do you think that instead of some CLI commands I may use GParted? (for those that are not familiar with this app: it'a a partitioning tool for Linux but also has a liveCD so you don't really need a Linux box)

Later edit: Never mind....figured it out myself...GParted not very good for this job

Why shouldn't gparted be good for the job? It has the option to align partitions at MB boundaries.

 

[nicksoph]

Is there a right EXT file system to use on phones sd card?

I can remember something about EXT3 and up being "logging" file systems and EXT2 not being so but Im sure there are lots of other factors too.

 

[Reza_Sadeghi]

but.....
"mkfs.vfat" is not availabe in my Busybox in CWM.
so i think i can't format "mmcblk0p1"
i dont know what exactly to do.
for now i just can format "mmcblk0p2" using "mkfs.ext2" because "mkfs.ext2" was available.
but as mentioned "mkfs.vfat" is not and i missed up.
please help me what should i do in this step ?
---------------------
of course please help if "mmcblk0p1" not be formatted by "mkfs.vfat", can we install clean ROM anyways?

 

[Reza_Sadeghi]

Unknown value(s) for: cylinders (settable in the extra functions menu)

about the post #57 above...
until now nobody answers...
anyway i found the solution for "mkfs.vfat" applet in busybox.
i installed another kernel including busybox+mkfs.vfat+mkfs.ext2 applet inside.
-------------------------------
but for now this is new problem : (please help me to solve it)

"Unknown value(s) for: cylinders (settable in the extra functions menu)"

Cylinders = 0

~ # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/block/mmcblk0 bs=131072 count=16
16+0 records in
16+0 records out
2097152 bytes (2.0MB) copied, 0.009936 seconds, 201.3MB/s

~ # fdisk /dev/block/mmcblk0
fdisk /dev/block/mmcblk0
Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI, OSF
Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
until you decide to write them. After that the previous content
won't be recoverable.

Unknown value(s) for: cylinders (settable in the extra functions menu)

Command (m for help): u
u
Changing display/entry units to sectors

Command (m for help): p
p

Disk /dev/block/mmcblk0: 2 MB, 2097152 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 0 cylinders, total 4096 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

              Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks  Id System

Command (m for help): n
n
Unknown value(s) for: cylinders (settable in the extra functions menu)

what should i do now?

 

[cobraplayer]

what should i do now?

Skip all this lengthy and difficult process, and partition your sd card via customized cwm 3.0.1.3 available in this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=969076

Blay0 initially wrote this guide, but later he provided the customized cwm which includes automatic block alignment. so you do not need to do manual work

 

[Reza_Sadeghi]

Skip all this lengthy and difficult process, and partition your sd card via customized cwm 3.0.1.3 available in this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=969076

Blay0 initially wrote this guide, but later he provided the customized cwm which includes automatic block alignment. so you do not need to do manual work

I love all this lengthy and difficult process because we know what exactly we're doing step by step and i prefer to know what things are happening.

thanks for link but sorry, i'm using Samsung Galaxy that must Re-Partition it.
this solution can help us too and i think it is a general partitioning for any android devices based on Linux.
and i tried it without any problem on my External SD card re-partitioning.
and now i need to repartition Internal SD via CWM and shell using busybox commands here mentioned.

of course in link you suggested there is a customized CWM just for Legend & didn't work on Galaxy.
please anybody help to Re-Partition Internal SD and solution for 0 Cylinders appeared in shell when using "n" command to add a new partition.

---------- Post added at 01:12 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:34 AM ----------

& for now...
I used "C" switch in "Fdisk" to set Cylinders.
then it tells me "Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor SUN, OSF or GPT disklabel"
Building a new DOS disklabel. changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them."

& then....
i used "O" switch to create a new empty DOS partition table.

& then....
by "n" creating 2 new primary partitions by defining first and last cylinders.
and then "t" by "mkfs.vfat" make it "win 95 FAT32 <LBA>

& at last....
by "w" the partition table has been alerted.

but...
but...
fdisk: WARNING: rereading partition table failed, kernel still uses old table: NOT a typewriter.
~ #
-------------------
now i don't know what to do?
what is your suggestion?
I'm trying re-partition Internal SD.