Database Users

Backup A2SD???

Just ordered a shiny new 16GB Transcend Class 6 MicroSD... What's the best manner of backing up the current ext2 partition so I can copy it to the new ext2 partition? I would think loading up a linux liveCD would be the best, but I've never been able to access the folders in the ext2 that way. I'm sure I'm missing some su command comewhere to get to that stuff, but I'm a bit of a Linux noob, so any help would be appreciated. By the way, the 8GB AData that I bought a couple of months ago is not great... I don't recommend.

chicojd said:
Just ordered a shiny new 16GB Transcend Class 6 MicroSD... What's the best manner of backing up the current ext2 partition so I can copy it to the new ext2 partition? I would think loading up a linux liveCD would be the best, but I've never been able to access the folders in the ext2 that way. I'm sure I'm missing some su command comewhere to get to that stuff, but I'm a bit of a Linux noob, so any help would be appreciated. By the way, the 8GB AData that I bought a couple of months ago is not great... I don't recommend.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
install linux
sudo cp -a /media/yoursdcard/* /home/username/Desktop/yourfolderondesktop
and this to copy to new memory stick
sudo cp -a /home/username/Desktop/yourfolderondesktop/* /media/yoursdcard

1. Make a backup folder on the root of your sdcard.
2. In that backup folder make two more folders. Name one of them app and the other app-private.
3. Now go to ur terminal.
Type: su
Type: cp system/sd/app/* sdcard/backup/app
Type: cp system/sd/app-private/* sdcard/backup/app-private
That's it. That backs up all apps, paid or free!!!
Edit: this moves everything to your fat32 part of your sdcard that windows can see. You can mount your phone and copy everything to your computer.

sir*mez said:
1. Make a backup folder on the root of your sdcard.
2. In that backup folder make two more folders. Name one of them app and the other app-private.
3. Now go to ur terminal.
Type: su
Type: cp system/sd/app/* sdcard/backup/app
Type: cp system/sd/app-private/* sdcard/backup/app-private
That's it. That backs up all apps, paid or free!!!
Edit: this moves everything to your fat32 part of your sdcard that windows can see. You can mount your phone and copy everything to your computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that only moves the apks. my method backs everything up dalvik-cache data app and app-private

Why not use Backup for root users? It even backs up market cache!

serialtoon said:
Why not use Backup for root users? It even backs up market cache!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm going to give this a try. But I read in the comments and people are saying it doesn't work for pees with A2SD.

DOHCtor said:
I'm going to give this a try. But I read in the comments and people are saying it doesn't work for pees with A2SD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think it will work for people with the unionfs method. Not sure though ask marcus

I decided to go ahead and install a second partition on my laptop and installed Ubuntu... Now that I've done that, I need help on getting the SDK up and running on it! Windoze installs easily. Not sure about Ubuntu, although I'm SURE there's a thread on XDA about installing the SDK on Linux and I'm about to get torched!!! But the SD backup worked PERFECTLY!

chicojd said:
Just ordered a shiny new 16GB Transcend Class 6 MicroSD... What's the best manner of backing up the current ext2 partition so I can copy it to the new ext2 partition? I would think loading up a linux liveCD would be the best, but I've never been able to access the folders in the ext2 that way. I'm sure I'm missing some su command comewhere to get to that stuff, but I'm a bit of a Linux noob, so any help would be appreciated. By the way, the 8GB AData that I bought a couple of months ago is not great... I don't recommend.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I concur! My 8gb adata was crummy (constantly had to fsck it), so I got an 8gb transcend (working great so far) and have a 16gb transcend on order. All class 6.

sir*mez said:
1. Make a backup folder on the root of your sdcard.
2. In that backup folder make two more folders. Name one of them app and the other app-private.
3. Now go to ur terminal.
Type: su
Type: cp system/sd/app/* sdcard/backup/app
Type: cp system/sd/app-private/* sdcard/backup/app-private
That's it. That backs up all apps, paid or free!!!
Edit: this moves everything to your fat32 part of your sdcard that windows can see. You can mount your phone and copy everything to your computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
do not do it this way, fat32 does not support unix file permissions so a plain copy will mess things up.
if you don't know how to copy files under linux, use the following command to pack everything into a jar file in the fat32 partition (assuming you're using standard a2sd rom):
tar -cvf /sdcard/filename.jar /system/sd
if this succeeds you can copy this file into the new card (partition it first) and extract:
tar -xvf /sdcard/filename.jar

chicojd said:
I decided to go ahead and install a second partition on my laptop and installed Ubuntu... Now that I've done that, I need help on getting the SDK up and running on it! Windoze installs easily. Not sure about Ubuntu, although I'm SURE there's a thread on XDA about installing the SDK on Linux and I'm about to get torched!!! But the SD backup worked PERFECTLY!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's nothing to install. Download it and unzip and then set your path variable. Same as windows. I actually prefer Linux because you don't have to worry about the USB driver type.

Corrupted SD Card

I'm running CM 4.1.11.1 I think and just recently new apps wouldn't install, so I rebooted and all of a sudden all of the apps just turned into the standard icon and none of them said they were installed except for like 3 or 4 of them. I think the SD card is alright, but must have some kind of error in the ext filesystem as I can see all of the files on the FAT32 portion just fine. Do you guys know of any way to just fix the errors on the ext portion without reformatting it? Or do I have to kill all of the partitions and redo them?

You could use the repair ext filesystem option if you are running a recovery image that has it (Cyanogen 1.4 or RA 1.2.3) or just reformat the ext partition using gparted under linux.

Yeah, the repair ext thing didn't work. I think I may just have to clear off the entire card and start from scratch.

I got the same problem
then I backup all the apps up with: tar cvf /sdcard/backup.tar /data/app/*
then copy backup.tar to your desktop pc
then reformat your tf card and repart the partitions
when it's done,move it to your tf card FAT32 partition again
insert to your Phone
the install CM ROM
when it's done
enter the terminal or adb shell
cd /data/app
tar xvf /sdcard/backup.tar
(if it says read only filesystem something you can try reboot )
then check to make sure all the .apk files are under the /data/app directory
then type
fix_permissions
when it's all done reboot
if some apps' error
reinstall them
that's all I did
good luck to you ;-)

oh,I suggest that the size of your ext3 partition should under 400MB
that't the key to solve the problem I thought

[Q] Redirect mount point of External SD..

Can I change the mount point of the External SD card (microsd) from
/mnt/external_sd
to
/mnt/sdcard/MicroSD
I tried changing the entry in vold.fstab to no help. it wasn't mounted to /mnt/external_sd but it also wasn't mounted to the MicroSD folder i made on /mnt/sdcard
This would let any program that doesn't have the ability to handle the external SD card to be able to access it as it wouldn't know where it was. I could then do this to USB drives plugged in as well.

Nova5 said:
Can I change the mount point of the External SD card (microsd) from
/mnt/external_sd
to
/mnt/sdcard/MicroSD
I tried changing the entry in vold.fstab to no help. it wasn't mounted to /mnt/external_sd but it also wasn't mounted to the MicroSD folder i made on /mnt/sdcard
This would let any program that doesn't have the ability to handle the external SD card to be able to access it as it wouldn't know where it was. I could then do this to USB drives plugged in as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This might not exactly be the route you wanna take, but have you tried adding a symlink? Might do the trick, then again, I'm having a little issue with the same thing right now. Looks like this has been a popular subject lately

symlinks seem to be inoperable in HC.
Found this on another forum
Have you tried "bind" mounting?
Doesn't wok for me as I have a stock (unrooted) transformer...
cd /mnt/sdcard
mkdir MicroSD
mount -o bind /mnt/external_sd /mnt/sdcard/MicroSD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Works fairly well. Doesn't effect the storage count for the internal memory however. if we could actually mount it to a folder inside the scdard mount then it may show up as extra space, but i kinda doubt that bit.

Those system files are overwritten on each reboot so you have to "mount -o bind" on every reboot.
If you find a way to make this mount point permanent let me know, I am looking for a way as well.

If you're rooted, I think USB Mount All did this.

powercat_ said:
Those system files are overwritten on each reboot so you have to "mount -o bind" on every reboot.
If you find a way to make this mount point permanent let me know, I am looking for a way as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What system files? Its simply a mount point created and handled in memory. its never added to a file. I forget what the start up command file is in linux that is the sister of DOSs Autoexec.bat. It would need to be added to that as the last command. Now i have read this is a risky command to run as it can create a endless loop if something attempts to scan the directories it can run into a recursive loop. Now I believe this is because most instances of this command tend to be used to bring a directory onto the desktop thats a few steps above it. Considering that the way I am using it is to link a directory that is outside the scope of another, it shouldn't ever cause this and be a pretty safe way to do it. The BIND command creates a hard link between the two locations. the /mnt/sdcard/MicroSD is a directory I created. when I bind it to the /mnt/external_sd directory the files appear in both places at the same time as MicroSD is simply a... tunnel as it were into External SD. But the programs are convinced its MicroSD. So those that can't use the external sd slot now can through this "tunnel". The same trick can also be applied to the directory for the USB thumb/flash drives.
Just create a directory for it on /mnt/sdcard

fermunky said:
If you're rooted, I think USB Mount All did this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
why pay when you can enter a command and its done?

Yes, mount -o bind works, but if you reboot, the mount point is no longer there.
Sure, we can add an entry to fstab, but the file is overwritten by a reboot
the autostart file is init.rc, which is overwritten by a reboot as well, so that rules out using it to auto mount this bind.
let me know if you find other information as I would very much like this to work.
FYI I started a thread about this command a few days back but never got any pertinent information:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1287522
(this was before 3.2 when you couldn't access the SD card from usb)

Nova5 said:
why pay when you can enter a command and its done?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because it is only a few bucks, and it will do it for you without having to manually do it. I know it's quite a simple task, but I say best out of sight/out of mind.

its overwrites those huh? that bites..

fermunky said:
Because it is only a few bucks, and it will do it for you without having to manually do it. I know it's quite a simple task, but I say best out of sight/out of mind.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just takes a bit to track where we can stick the commands to get an auto start. I may make a simple script file to leave on the home screens. tap and done.

Okay it seems the location where the init.rc is stored is volatile. I created a test file in there and rebooted the tablet, file is gone. So its less overwriting and simply copying out of its hidden location to a usable one. sdcard in there is just a mount point for the actual hardware address location of the sdcard. So if we want to get the autostart we would have to discover where HC pulls that data from on boot.

Bind will fail if the location that actually holds the data is not present/ready. usb_storage is more affected by this as a user doesn't normally leave a flash drive in the port. Script manager can auto-execute a script on boot. Works well enough.
hmm...
It appears if you remove the usb drive after making the bind, the bind is broken. So while its workable, its not perfect. Of course since the microsd card is rarley removed, this isn't much of an issue. If we could get the script to also run on insertion of the USB drive that would then make it work better.
SCript Manager allows one to create a direct shortcut to execute a specific script. So you can swap USB drives, tap the script icon and then access the script through the bound directory.

I use the following program created by RubberBigPepper from an alternative russian site about android apps and devices.

Any interesting effect I've noticed, any time the script runs it creates a new mount entry for the bind command, even if that bind already exists. OfficePro5 shows this by listing MicroSD for each bind entry. So I had 13 entries of MicroSD as it ran that many times, due to a setting I shouldn't have checked... Run on Net Change. But it pointed out this interesting effect.

I now see the need for this as one of my apps does not natively see the ext sd card.
OK I tried the apk above and it does not seem to work. I get a folder called ex_sdcard but it is empty and does not reflect the sd card contents.
Nova, you found another way yet you could share, or do I just need to manually create symlinks after every boot?

mountmicrosd.sh
Code:
# Note : Super user required. Your Tablet MUST be rooted!
# Removing the card will disrupt the bind. And Require running script again when plugged back in.
echo Breaks any existing Bind mount to avoid creating duplicate Bind entries. a "failed" response is acceptable as is no response.
umount /mnt/sdcard/MicroSD
echo execute Micro SD mount - card must be plugged in or Invalid Argument error will occur.
mount -o bind /mnt/external_sd /mnt/sdcard/MicroSD
Place the above in a text file with the extension .sh Download from the Market a program called Script Manager. Place the sh file in your SD card root. Run script manager, select that file and check two boxes. Run on Boot, Run as Root. Also create the directory of "MicroSD" Just as its typed. Linux is very caps sensitive. now every time you boot it will automatically run the script and bind the ExSD to the MicroSD directory.
This one will do the USB drive.
mountusb.sh
Code:
# Note : Super user required. Your Tablet MUST be rooted!
# Removing the drive will disrupt the bind. And Require running script again when plugged back in.
echo Breaks any existing Bind mount to avoid creating duplicate Bind entries. a "failed" response is acceptable as is no response.
umount /mnt/sdcard/USBDrive
echo execute USB Drive mount - drive must be plugged in or Invalid Argument error will occur.
mount -o bind /mnt/usb_storage /mnt/sdcard/USBDrive
Create a widget with ScriptManager to have a touchable icon on your screen to run this one. Note it must have the folder "USBDrive" created on the sdcard.
It is unimportant if you use the same filename.sh i did. That is just so I knew at a glance what it does. # is a comment and Echo prints the text following it to the screen. I found a way around the mutiple bind entries by simply unmounting it before making the mount bind. You might see a Failed error, this is just fine. it just means there was no mount for it to undo on its first run. this will be more helpful on the USB drive script than the MicroSD card one.

Very cool, Nova5!
Thanks for taking the time to research it further.
I tested your solution and it works fine!

I updated it with a fix to prevent the multiple entries. You'll need to update your files to reflect the changes I made. a reboot will be the simplest way to ensure it starts with a clean slate. Notice I removed the comment about Running it once only, due to the umount command preceeding the mount command. This removes the bind from memory and then when its created again you don't have the problem of 13 entries of MicroSD in OfficePro like I ran into.
Alright, I think its as good it is going to get. You could put them in the same files but for simplicity and being able to swap USB drives without affecting the ExSD card two files is best.
Wait... debug time. I goofed something.
Okay fixed up and working right. Remember what I mentioned about linux and capitals? oops. Echo is not echo.

Shucks, im not rooted.

howto: mount external sdcard as sdcard0

So, the Note 8.0 is a nice, fast, expensive device that had a big shortcoming for me: as shipped, the SD card is not useful as a place where application data easily lands - it's only intended for storing music and video files, or those chunks of data you manually target to it.
I fixed it, after a fashion, by mounting the card at boot time as sdcard0, which Samsung normally assigns to the (very limited) internal storage. The internal /data/media pool is treated as the external sdcard and very little installation data defaults to it. Apps2SD is still broken, but quite a lot of things simply default to using /sdcard0 as their preferred storage, which I find helpful.
You have to mount it at start time (init.d), and you have to mount it correctly (bind)
I figured out and set my device up this way by setting init.d scripts I learned about from threads by Ryuinferno (init.d) and mattiadj (rebinding in the Note 2) for this. Translation: none of this is my work, I just sounded out how others had done it and am assembling it here, since I know it will help other Note 8 folks.
I think that the init.d script support is very interesting - there are a lot of ROM tweaks that rely on init.d. You do not need a custom kernel for init.d to work the note 8 - which is nice, since we have no custom kernel
The outcome of this mod is that with an sdcard inserted, I get:
/storage/sdcard0 29.7G 3.68G 26.0G 32768
and
/storage/extSdCard 9.87G 1.78G 8.09G 4096
If I remove the card at boot, I still have apps (installed at /data/data) and the media
pool reverts to normal:
/storage/sdcard0 9.78G 1.78G 7.99G 4096
I wrote none of the scripts I'm using and will be the first to admit that I may have set them up stupidly.
Doing this voids your warranty and gives you pimples and a moon tan. But it does mean your sd card expands your storage and I hope that if there are better ways to do any of this, folks will chime in.
tools needed:
- knowledge of ADB and working ADB
- helps if you know how Unix and windows terminate lines differently, and can get your copy of Notepad++ to help you with the script, if you're trying this from Windows
- a note 8 running the 4.1.2 software - this approach is only tested there
- Kies
- Possibly Odin as a replacement for Kies (untested)
- understanding of how to put your device into recovery mode and trigger the Samsung recovery
- the US stock firmware for your device, for use with Odin (unless waiting on 1+ gig downloads if you screw something up is ok by you - the Kies method works, slooooowly.)
- Framaroot, to root your Note 8 (see the thread by tweebee)
- Busybox installed
Steps:
Install Framaroot
Root your device
Install busybox
Easy part done.
Next, you need to be able to run init.d scripts. At first I thought this might require a custom kernel, until I ran into Ryuinferno's excellent tool for enabling init.d without a custom kernel.
the thread I learned this from is by Ryuinferno at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1933849
I used term-init.sh from an ADB command line, but the thread has an APK in it called Uni-Init.apk that I would expect to work.
What you're doing is creating an install-recovery.sh script and telling it to go read /etc/init.d and run scripts there at boot.
Next, you want to create a simple script and drop it into /etc/init.d You can do this with an adb push; if you create the file in windows, though, you need to deal with the line endings correctly. You need the script to be executable and to be owned by root.
The one I'm using is this, from Mattiadj of the Note 2 community
in this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2036796:
I call the script 07mount on my device, and a copy is attached to this post.
-----------------------script starts next line
#!/system/bin/sh
#extsd2internalsd is a modification that allows to switch internal sd to external sd
#and viceversa. With this you can use default internal sd only for app storage
#and the external sd to store all apps resource and all others stuff. The resut is a very
#big increase of installable apps on gnote2 and note8
#All credits to Mattiadj of xda forum for the idea and script and to mike1986 for
#the cmw zip. xda thread url
# at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2036796:
sleep 10
mount -o remount,rw /
mount -t vfat -o umask=0000 /dev/block/vold/179:17 /storage/sdcard0
sleep 30
mount -o bind /data/media /storage/extSdCard
chmod 777 /mnt/extSdCard
sleep 10
chown 1023:1023 /storage/extSdCard
chown 1000:1000 /storage/sdcard0
------------- end script on blank line above
You need /system remounted read/write, either in your favorite file explorer or via adb shell:
#mount -o rw,remount /system
to put the file in and
#chown root:root
the script itself
Now, put a fat32 formatted card into your sdcard, and reboot. When done, you should be able to see that your data storage has been remapped.
If you ever wanted to install a Samsung update, by the way, you'd need to completely unroot the device. I think the following would probably work:
- remove the su binary
- remove superuser from /system
- remove the busybox binaries
- remove install-recovery.sh from /etc and the /etc/init.d folder
If there was someting in an update you really wanted, you might do better to start by using the Samsung firmware downloaded from samfirmware.com, set your device all the way back to a clean install, then check for the OTA - Samsung does look at modifications and blocks updates to devices with changes to /system. My device is ineligible for OTA at this time.
That said, it appears that using Kies in emergency recovery mode can be used to reset your device to an as-shipped condition (I learned this when an early experiment resulted in my device being weirdly screwed up - bootable, but the network was down for the browser, etc. DNS and ping worked from an ADB prompt, though...)
You can download a copy of the script at http://www.mediafire.com/?2wbm439vlapb6om

I'm gonna try this when I have a full afternoon off as I tend to mess things up the first time I do them. But this will be super useful if I get it working. Hopefully when people start developing custom roms they can build this script in and save us all the trouble :highfive:

Haven't tried it yet, but it sounds like a custom recovery is very, very close. Once that happens, making this into a flashable modification will be trivial.
The very active Note II development is incredibly helpful, because our hardware and software are so similar to theirs.

I know this was something that users on the other Galaxy Note 2 threads were doing, and was wondering if at some point this will be an issue with say JB 4.2.2. I recall that Apps2SD would be an issue later on and wouldn't work, but I never got to that point. For me I am really in need of a 32GB tablet and just can't compromise even with a 64GB microSD card. I don't know why this tablet isn't supporting a 128GB microSD card, that would be awesome.

Upgrading internal storage by blending in sdcard
Just to be clear - this mod does not allow app2sd style migration of apps (in /data/app) to the sdcard.
Rather, it puts /data/media on the sdcard. A lot of apps use /data/media as their default for storage, though, so it's a helpful middle ground. Also, your apps are installed whether or not the sdcard is inserted, which is helpful.
I notice that the update includes a script called
install-recovery.sh - the same script that this method is using.
I have tested replacing a backed up copy of install-recovery and also
appending the command
run-parts /system/etc/init.d/ to the new file.
Using just a script to call run-parts or the stock install-recovery.sh works just fine.

I found a much easier way of doing this.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2276193

hi friends & master
please help me
Is there any way to transfer games and apps to the internal storage with app2sd (moving apps & games in from system Rom to SD card(internal) no memory card)?
my system rom There is almost full
1.44 GB (148 MB free)
internal 12.6 GB (5.8 GB free)
SD card 12.5 GB (5.6 GB free)
I do not need to memory card

External SD card write support for T530N? - solved

Is there any fix for external SD card write support for the T530N? I'm on a rooted stock Samsung build BOI2 ROM and TitaniumBackup is not happy .
UPDATE: I followed the information in the thread [FIX] SD Card Write Restriction ALL Firmwares and Models and it works.
I attached an edited platform.xml file in case anyone wants it. The upload is named platform.xml.txt so it has to be renamed to platform.xml before being copied to /system/etc/permissions
Obviously keep a backup copy of the original in case anything goes wrong. Also be careful, because if there are any problems or errors with that file and it can't be read by the system, there will be MAJOR issues. I recommend using the "more" command in the terminal emulator to validate that the file looks good, prior to copying it to /system/etc/permissions as outlined in the steps below.
Before being copied the /system directory must first be re-mounted as read-write with the following command:
mount -o remount,rw -t ext4 /dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/system /system
Since I did not have a root file manager I just installed terminal emulator, switched to superuser with "su -", copied /system/etc/permissions/platform.xml to the sdcard, copied it to my computer, edited it, copied it back to sdcard, then copied it via the root shell to /system/etc/permissions.
I can verify it works and TitaniumBackup is now happy.

Aethera said:
Is there any fix for external SD card write support for the T530N? I'm on a rooted stock Samsung build BOI2 ROM and TitaniumBackup is not happy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2716881