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Hello XDA Developers.
I have hit a brick wall trying to partition my 8gb SD card for my MyTouch3g, and could use a little help, i can getting very frustrated and any help will be appreciated .
Questions:
1) Is there any way to partition the 8GB SD card on the computer, then just put it into the MyTouch3g?
2) How do i know what size partitions should be for my 8GB card?
I cannot get adb set up on the computer properly to do it, also many of the guides are for the G1 and involve typing things in the recovery console with the hardware keyboard.
I have googled for hours trying to find a guide specifically for partitioning with the Mytouch3g without using adb, but could not find one.
Side note: I rooted my phone using the 1touch method.
you can use Amon_Ra's recovery and it'll do it for you automatically.
http://theunlockr.com/2009/08/22/how-to-root-the-mytouch-3g-or-g1-in-one-click/
...
maybe dumb question, can i flash the Amon_Ra's recovery img after already having the cyanogen recovery img...or do i need to start with a clean slate?...and any advice if im using the stock 4gb SD card as far as partitioning/format for better performance?
i need help too...
please help a noob!!!
i'm in the exact same boat. using cyanogen 4.0.2 also and an 8gb sd card too.
please help...
Same
Yeah im worried about flashing another recovery image over the Cyanogen recovery image.
I rooted using the 1-touch method that auto installed Cyanogen Recovery image....dont know if flashing another recovery image would brick it or not
if you guys have the myTouch and unsure, unroot then root again using the Amon_Ra method on unlockr
http://theunlockr.com/2009/08/22/how-to-unroot-your-mytouch-3g/
I use Amon_Ra's recovery and I know it does the partition for me automatically, but how do I know what size my partitions are ? For example, there are some roms that require 96Mb's for Swap...Any help will be greatly appreciated and thanx to all the Devs for their hard and continous work on the G1 and MT3G....
unk2009 said:
I use Amon_Ra's recovery and I know it does the partition for me automatically, but how do I know what size my partitions are ? For example, there are some roms that require 96Mb's for Swap...Any help will be greatly appreciated and thanx to all the Devs for their hard and continous work on the G1 and MT3G....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you ask this in every thread?............search please!!!!
Cyan's recovery should have an option to auto format your card
you can use Amon_Ra's recovery img without flashing it to your phone!
Just boot it, instead of flashing it.. and select the option to partition the sdcard and then reboot...
No changes to your phone... just a partitioned sdcard!
use the following commands with fastboot loaded on your phone (back + power)
fastboot boot your_recovery_img.img
Hope this helps
philicibine said:
you can use Amon_Ra's recovery img without flashing it to your phone!
Just boot it, instead of flashing it.. and select the option to partition the sdcard and then reboot...
No changes to your phone... just a partitioned sdcard!
use the following commands with fastboot loaded on your phone (back + power)
fastboot boot your_recovery_img.img
Hope this helps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
does this really work? first time i have seen this reported. Have you done it? If you have could u give me some more detailed instructions on how to do it. Please and thank you. If this is a totally noob request I apologize,I am new to this.
Follow this guide and you can partition the card how you like.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=535914
It really is easy to do, just try.
Here's what I am doing. I'm a complete noob and it took days and days of tinkering and reading through this site to refine this. I've done it multiple times now with experimental ROMs and it works great for me.
Put your SD card in your computer's reader, or a 3rd party reader device. Copy all the files to your hard drive in a backup folder of some kind.
Go get GParted at http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
You can download the iso image. Use a program like http://www.imgburn.com/ to burn the iso image to a CD which will be bootable.
Once you have the Boot CD with GParted you can boot your computer up with it in the disc drive. Make sure your BIOS settings have the CD before your hard drive to check for boot sequence.
GParted will start up, I pick the defaults. It reads my SD reader with my 8GB Class 6 inserted. Make sure you select your SD card from the drop menu, the default is my computer hard drive which you don't want to touch!
I delete all the partitions on the card.
The first partition is your FAT32 and it will be the largest partition.
The next Partition you want to make is an ext2, ext3, or ext4 partition. I use ext3. I make this partition about 800 MB. This is where the Cyanogen ROM will copy your apps to automatically when it detects it.
The last partition is going to be a Linux Swap file and should be about 32 MB.
I've seen where some people use a 64 MB swap file but I think the general consensus of 32 is fine.
Once you are done, close out GParted and pull the CD out when it ejects your tray. When you reboot the computer without the CD in it, your Windows OS should boot right up like normal.
In Windows you should see the large FAT32 partition on your SD card. Windows won't see the ext3 or swap partitions. Copy your SD card files back to your SD card and eject the card.
When you put the card in your MyTouch3G, turn on the phone. Leave it alone when your screen comes up. The Cyanogen ROM will detect your ext3 partition and begin copying all your apps to it. At first it will look like you have no apps but they will begin appearing as they are copied to your SD card. It may take a couple minutes depending on how many apps you have.
The GParted CD is an easy way in the future to wipe out partitions on your card and set it up for you.
I have tried all kinds of ways to partition my sd card to get data2ext to work on b 0.5.
- Partitioning through rom manager
- Partitioning through paragon partition manager (didn't even work)
- Manually partitioning by running commands through terminal emulator
I manage to get the linux swap and fat32 partition but no matter which method i tried, i just can't get the ext2 partition. On the emulator, it asked if my file system was an ext2 system.
By the way, i am using an 8gb sd card that came with Nokia 5800. Is this the cause of not being able to create the ext2 partition?
Easiest way I can think of is to use the live distro of Gparted.
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php
Awesome partitioning tool and has a gui anyone can follow.
E.E.
i just partioned my 8gb yesterday with paragon, no problems. what kind of problem did you have?
@eepunk I will try that later... i'll see if there is any solution in the current software(s) i have...
@haha123 the problem i'm facing is i cannot see the sd card when i click format partition... Maybe i'm doing it wrong. Here is how i do..
1. Plug my phone into USB and click Disk Drive
2. Open up Paragon Partition Manager 11 Personal
3. Click on Partition Manager on the left tabs and launch the partition manager
4. At the bottom, click on Basic Hard Disk (HTC Android Phone USB Device)
5. Click on Format Partition in the Disk View tab.
The problem is when i click format partition. It just shows the hard disk in my PC but not the HTC Android phone USB Device.
I even tried skipping the format partition to try creating a partition but i still cannot see the HTC Android Phone USB Device.
The Error i get is "The disk already contains four primary partitions. Basic hard disks can contain only four primary partitions, including extended one.
Eh...
Why not just boot into Clockwork and use the Partition menu
spicyjoe said:
@haha123 the problem i'm facing is i cannot see the sd card when i click format partition... Maybe i'm doing it wrong. Here is how i do..
1. Plug my phone into USB and click Disk Drive
2. Open up Paragon Partition Manager 11 Personal
3. Click on Partition Manager on the left tabs and launch the partition manager
4. At the bottom, click on Basic Hard Disk (HTC Android Phone USB Device)
5. Click on Format Partition in the Disk View tab.
The problem is when i click format partition. It just shows the hard disk in my PC but not the HTC Android phone USB Device.
I even tried skipping the format partition to try creating a partition but i still cannot see the HTC Android Phone USB Device.
The Error i get is "The disk already contains four primary partitions. Basic hard disks can contain only four primary partitions, including extended one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I followed this step by step guide:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=512873
I had the card formatted to fat32 (using windows) before partitioning, maybe you can try that?
pjgodd said:
Eh...
Why not just boot into Clockwork and use the Partition menu
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm, i was looking around in that menu but there isn't any saying create partition... just format and stuff... :S
@haha123 Hmmm, give that a try.... i've just downloaded the gparted software so will try that first...
EDIT: Given up all hope, i can't even get gparted to boot with USB...
Check the GUIDE...
Thanks blayo, i tried that and it crashed all the apps on my phone until i had to format my sd card and restore nandroid... hmmm... mysterious, but thanks, i'll let data2ext pass.... wouldn't want to brick my phone...
spicyjoe said:
Thanks blayo, i tried that and it crashed all the apps on my phone until i had to format my sd card and restore nandroid... hmmm... mysterious, but thanks, i'll let data2ext pass.... wouldn't want to brick my phone...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, this is the formatting guide... what the hell did you expect? There are certain files on SD fat32 partition that some of apps use. If you unmount SD card and reformat it, those files are not available any more. Right?
Yeah true but even when i restore it doesn't work. Alright man, thanks for the guide anyways.
So I'm thinking of finally installing CWR on my phone but my question is - how do I partition my SD card for ROM's that use Apps2SD/Data2SD? Also, I see that different ROM's use different size CWR's, how do I change that? Probably noob questions.
haven't done it myself, but to partition read the FAQ about partition in hyperdroid:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=918899
for the different roms with different CWM, simply usb flash -> flash required CWM and you are ready to go.
cheers.
Skellyyy said:
So I'm thinking of finally installing CWR on my phone but my question is - how do I partition my SD card for ROM's that use Apps2SD/Data2SD? Also, I see that different ROM's use different size CWR's, how do I change that? Probably noob questions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
[HOW-TO] Make Ext4 from Recovery Without Losing FAT32 Data
I wrote a guide just for such occasions. =] Good luck.
Its actually really simple, it just looks confusing. CWM has 3 partition sizes for your phone memory, 150 250 and 400. These are the sizes your ROM can be with the respective types of CWM. I use 250. Now to partition your sd card its extremely simple. (NOTE: This is for windows only) Download Minitool partition wizard, load it up with your sdcard connected to your computer, now you should see the sdcard will be one partition formatted as FAT32. Now, if you right click on that and select move/resize then drag it to how big you want your A2SD partition to be. (THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT Drag it from the right so that the grey box is on the right of the FAT32 section. Dont make it larger than 1024 MB, however mine is 512MB and it is more than enough) Right, so now right click on the unallocated part of your sdcard and select create. Make it primary, not logical. The file type should be either EXT2,3 or 4. (I use 3 as it seems to be the most compatible) and there you go, done
Hi,
First off if this is answered I am sorry.
I did a lot of searching and was unable to see the answer to this...
I am running CM7.1 off uSD. Install went well, and have no issues. That being said, I am unable to find out where on the card to sideload books. I have booted into CM7.1, turned on USB storage, and have 2 drives appear in win: MYNOOK and CM7 SDCARD. I used the size agnostic image, and it appears that there is only the single partition on the card, and in file explorer, it shows the correct card size for memory, but only the single partition.
The only folders appearing on the card are:
.android_secure
Android
LOST.DIR
I tried to manually copy the books, media, etc. folders into a My Files folder on this drive, without success.
There is no other partition to repartition (shouldn't have to do that with size agnostic?). I have no problem loading books into the MYNOOK book folder, which I assume is the internal device memory.
Here is my question. How/where do I sideload books to use the storage on the uSD card? Do I have to create the folders somewhere? If so where?
My goal is to utilize the storage available on the card, but be able to read the titles in the stock software. Is it possible to do this without rooting, or do I need to root for any reason to access the right folders on the card for storage?
THANK YOU ALL!!
klewlessnoob said:
I tried to manually copy the books, media, etc. folders into a My Files folder on this drive, without success.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In what way was it not successful? Did the files copy and just can't find them with a reader? If so which reader?
The book I transferred over was not found in the stock software when I opened my library. Is there somewhere specific I am supposed to place it on the card for the Nook to see it? Thanks!
For the stock reader, I think you must use the 1gb area of the internal memory drive, which shows up as a separate drive on your PC when you plug it into the computer. When you are in CM7 and connect to the pc, cancel when it tries to install a device for the NC. Check the notifications on the NC, you need to click a button to enable copying files from your pc, and take care to properly safely remove/eject before disabling that and disconnecting the cable from your pc. Better to get a separate reader and install it from the market (e.g., Cool Reader). You can also install the Nook app from the market, but then books need to go within (possibly in a specific subdir) of the "Nook" folder on SDCARD.
So there is no way to use the card memory to store books if I want to use the stock reader??
Should there have been a "NOOK" folder created on the SD card as part of the CM7 process? Is that a file that the user needs to create? If so, does it go in the same partition as the CM7, as that is the only partition my machine is able to see?
thanks again
Hopefully you'll get more input on this, but I think the point of keeping the Nook stock available (aside from not voiding your warranty) relates to use of B&N books. However you can eject your CM sd card and use another sd card if you want more space for user media for use with the stock app. I thought the media drive was the 1gb area, but now I'm not so sure because on mine the MYNOOK disk is much smaller.
When you are in the stock firmware... you are seeing the boot partition of the uSD...
You can write the boot partition... resize it... then run the installer...
I have done it in the past... set up a 2GB boot partition... then setup the ROM on uSD. You then have a 2GB partition you can use when in stock.
Thanks for the info. I am a bit confused by your suggestion, can you please offer a bit more?
By writing the boot partition, then resizing it, does that mean I can resize now, after I have already set everything up? If so, what do you mean by the installer? Or do you mean I have to wipe the card and start over? If that is the case (start over) do you mean wipe the card, create a small partition for the boot to install on? Would that requre the use of an image that is not size agnostic?
Either way, how do I get the file structure in place on the non boot partition for the nook to see files that are saved there?
Thanks again for any help you can provide!
I have never had luck resizing it after it has been booted in the Nook and all the partitions created...
I have written the size agnostic image to the card... resized the only partition created at that point... then put the ROM on it and booted it in the nook so the installer script (size agnostic recovery) can do the partitioning and install the ROM.
For the question of getting the file structure... I'd have to ask how you wrote the files on the uSD... were you CM or stock?
I had always planned on running cm from the card, so when I wrote the files to the card, I was stock.
If I follow what you are saying, then steps for me to try at this point would be:
1. Reformat card
2. Write the disk image to the card
3. Shrink the single partition on the card (where the image is)
4. Add the CM ROM to same partition as the image
5. Install card and boot device
If this sounds right, I have 2 questions.
What size should the partition be for the image and CM ROM, maybe 2GB?
Will the Nook "see" the non-CM partition and create the file structure for saving files on the 2nd partition at some point? In my searches I saw that in early versions, there was a requirement that the 4th partition on the card be expanded to use for storage, won't I only have 2 at this point?
Thanks again so much for the help!
When you write the image to the card... it will only be about 114 MB.... you will probably want to increase the size to avoid any possible size issues later (with ROM's getting larger)
If you plan to use the stock nook ROM as well as CM7... you will probably want 2 GB boot partition... otherwise if you plan to only run CM7 you probably only want about 250 MB.
You can modify vold.fstab on the stock ROM to use partition 4 of the SD for its SD use... then you could avoid the 2 GB boot partition.
What happens when you use VG's SASD... the boot image is about 114 MB... when you boot it in the nook it creates partitions 2, 3 and 4... 2 and 3 are ext3 partitions, partition 4 is fat... partition 4 is the one set for sdcard in the ROM booted from SD...
This is why you can modify stock vold.fstab to point to partition 4... then both ROM's will be putting stuff on the same partition for "SD Card"
I think I follow that, but my issue is that currently I am unable to see partition 2,3 or 4 which I think is part of my problem.
When I set up the card, I used the SASD method, and all I can see in both win explorer and partition software is the single partition on the card. Should there also be partitions 2,3, and 4? Do I have to do something to make those partitions viewable?
I am not comfortable enough with my skill level to attempt to modify the stock vold.fstab file on the device, and was hopeful that by properly setting up the card, I would be able to keep stock as is, and use the card to multipurpose, ie run cm7 on part and use the remaining space on card to store books to be read in stock firmware. I am still hoping to do that....thanks
As far as only seeing partition 1.... that is a limitation of Windows.
By following the advice pertaining to starting over and increasing the size of the Boot partition immediately after writing the image... before doing anything else... you can provide more space for the stock ROM to use on the SD... it will use partiton 1 (the boot partition) without the other modifications to vold.fstab
ok, confused again
If I start over, write image, then resize that partition with the image, am I going to use the "rest" of the card, NOT in that partition to use with storage? OR am I going to resize the partition with the image to be big enough to use as the partition to put books on?
If it is the former, don't I again run into the problem of how to find the other partitions, or will I create them when resize the first partition after writing the image?
Thank you!
You will only ever see the first partition of the sd card when booting from the stock OS. Also with the card inserted in a usb flash card reader on Windows you can only mount the first partition as a drive letter. But you can see and resize partitions with contiguous unallocated space using MiniTools Partition Wizard.
OK thats good to know. Do you know if the SASD install should have created other partitions when I installed to the card? The reason I ask is that even in Partition Wizard, I am still only able to see the 1 large partition with everything in it.
If I start over again, will I need to use the wizard to create partitions first, then write the image to the resized 2 GB first partition, or should I write image to card, resize the first partition? If the latter, will resizing the first partition autmatically force the other partitions to be seen? I am not sure of this option, as I can't see where in the process the other partitions are created? Is this part of the process when CM7 boots?
Thanks!
Write the image. Safely remove from pc. Reinsert to pc. Use minitool partition to resize the (only, at that point) partition to the size you want. Use Apply in minitool software. Quit minitool and resume with the card setup.
does the minitool at that point (resizing) create the other partitions, or will the card setup do that? Do I have to do anything else to the other partitions to make them visable to the stock nook so that they can be used to access books while in stock os?
The card setup will create the other partitions. The stock os is never going to see anything but the 1st partition. You would need a terminal emulator or rooted file explorer installed in the stock os in order to mount another partition.
If that is the case, that stock os will never see anything other than the 1st partition, then there really is no way to accomplish what I am trying to do, correct?
In other words, put CM7 on the card, then when I want to use stock, boot into stock and have the reader find books saved on the card?
This question probably belongs in the thread "[ROMS]NEW! Dualboot Mirage CM7 / ICS CM9 Image for SDcard [3/26]", except that I can't post there yet.
I was able to create a working dual boot card per the instructions. However, I could not make a working card that made use of all 16 GB of my card, rather than just the <4GB size of the image file. The card still worked when I used fdisk on my Mac to increase the size of the last, 'sdcard', partition to fill up the available space. However, that did not increase the capacity of the FAT volume in that partition, leaving the extra space still unavailable.
After saving the files from that volume, I then used the Mac's Disk Utility to erase the partition and re-create it as a FAT partition using all the available space. Once I did that, unfortunately, the Nook would then not recognize anything on the SD card and would only boot into the Nook's own ROM.
As an alternative, I tried leaving the existing partitions alone and editing the MBR with fdisk to create a new partition using the available space, which I then formatted as a FAT partition with Disk Utility. Again, the Nook would no longer recognize the SD card and would only boot into its stock ROM.
I actually tried the above with two 16GB SD cards, a SanDisk Class 4 and a Samsung Class 10, and with two Nooks. Moreover, I tried a number of manipulations of the MBR, mostly to make it identical to the original one except for necessary size changes. Nothing worked to get a card that would boot and use the full 16 GB. I'll admit I haven't tried everything, such as trying to resize to something less than the full 16GB, but I've put so much time into this already that I don't want to do any more until I get some feedback.
aarons510 said:
This question probably belongs in the thread "[ROMS]NEW! Dualboot Mirage CM7 / ICS CM9 Image for SDcard [3/26]", except that I can't post there yet.
I was able to create a working dual boot card per the instructions. However, I could not make a working card that made use of all 16 GB of my card, rather than just the <4GB size of the image file. The card still worked when I used fdisk on my Mac to increase the size of the last, 'sdcard', partition to fill up the available space. However, that did not increase the capacity of the FAT volume in that partition, leaving the extra space still unavailable.
After saving the files from that volume, I then used the Mac's Disk Utility to erase the partition and re-create it as a FAT partition using all the available space. Once I did that, unfortunately, the Nook would then not recognize anything on the SD card and would only boot into the Nook's own ROM.
As an alternative, I tried leaving the existing partitions alone and editing the MBR with fdisk to create a new partition using the available space, which I then formatted as a FAT partition with Disk Utility. Again, the Nook would no longer recognize the SD card and would only boot into its stock ROM.
I actually tried the above with two 16GB SD cards, a SanDisk Class 4 and a Samsung Class 10, and with two Nooks. Moreover, I tried a number of manipulations of the MBR, mostly to make it identical to the original one except for necessary size changes. Nothing worked to get a card that would boot and use the full 16 GB. I'll admit I haven't tried everything, such as trying to resize to something less than the full 16GB, but I've put so much time into this already that I don't want to do any more until I get some feedback.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well you're missing just one step after fdisk. If Disk Utility is failing at it you could try terminal:
First you need to find out where your /sdcard is being mounted at. Use "diskutil list" to find out
Once you find out where it's being mounted (eg. /dev/disk4s7). You will then need to unmount the volumes before you can format it.
Code:
$ diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk4s*
$ diskutil partitionDisk "/dev/disk*" 1 MBRFormat "MS-DOS FAT32" "sdcard" "*M"
Replace * with the actual values needed. You might need "sudo" to perform the format command. Make sure you're formatting the correct mount point or else you might end up wiping your system. But if you were able to use fdisk, I'm sure you have a good understanding of terminal.
Haven't tried it myself. But it should(might) work.
-Racks
Won't "diskutil partitionDisk ..." wipe out all volumes on disk?
racks11479 said:
[See previous post!]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I type
Code:
diskutil partitionDisk
in Terminal to get usage info, I see, inter alia, the following:
Code:
(Re)Partition an existing disk. All volumes on this disk will be destroyed.
But that is clearly not what I want to do. Am I missing something?
Updated update:
I have tried, several times and on both SD cards and both Nooks, diskutil eraseVolume, a presumably more powerful version of the erase option in Disk Utility. I tried one or another of the commands:
Code:
diskutil eraseVolume MS-DOS sdcard /dev/disk4s7
diskutil eraseVolume 'MS-DOS FAT32' sdcard /dev/disk4s7
on cards that were booting, but with the small sdcard partition or the small volume on the enlarged partition. I also tried at least one of those commands on a card that was already not working after modification. In all cases, the commands ran without error but produced a non-booting card. Changing the 'ob' partition id back to 'oc' with fdisk didn't help, nor did any restoration of the original fdisk MBR info.
In sum, the only change that I have been able to make to a card as originally written from the image without making it unbootable was to enlarge the sdcard partition while leaving the sdcard volume untouched, and therefore not using most of the capacity of the partition.
Some more general but related questions.
Since I've got your attention, Racks, let me ask a few questions whose answers might help me and others understand what is going on here and what might go wrong with this and other Nook Color boot setups. Of course, also please point out where anything I think I know is, in fact, wrong.
1) I understand that the firmware boot code on the Nook first looks for something on an inserted SD card to boot from. It seems it looks for a file named u-boot.bin on the first partition of the inserted card to which to transfer control. Does it also check other things on the card before transferring control to u-boot.bin? Does it look at the file MLO? Does it look at the partition labeled sdcard, or at any other partition, before doing so?
2) Presuming that it does transfer control to u-boot.bin, what does the latter check before either booting from the (default) ROM on the card or, if the Home button is being held down, going to the interactive boot dialogue? My experience has been that, when using one of my 'non-working' cards, the Nook goes quickly to the ROM on internal memory without showing any visible signs of doing anything else first. In other words, it 'knows' that it can't boot from a ROM on the sdcard before actually trying to do so.