[Q] [PA 3.99] Enable USB mass storage instead of MTP? - Nexus 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello,
Is there a way to enable USB Mass Storage on Paranoid Android 3.99? I know it will supposedly prevent the phone from accessing the virtual sdcard partition while plugged to a computer, but this would be a minor annoyance in comparison to the complete pain in the ass that is MTP:
1. Transfers are slow and unreliable (stopping unexpectedly...)
2. It can only perform one task at a time (can't browse folders while copying files for example)
3. Poor implementation on Windows (Explorer keeps asking stupid questions like "are you sure this type of file will be recognized by your device?")
4. Computers with restricted user rights prevent MTP devices from installing.
and so on...
I've tried the following trick:
Code:
su
setprop persist.sys.usb.config mass_storage
reboot
But it didn't work.
Please help. I know it may require a lot of effort but I don't care: MTP is really too much of an annoyance.

No you cannot mount the sdcard as usb mass storage
In order to do that the sdcard has to be it's own fat partition.
On the nexus 4 it is part of the data partition and the folder is fused to the sdcard mount point.
Basically meaning that you can't mount /sdcard because it's not able to be mounted as it's not actually a partition.
And secondly the format is ext4 so even if you could mount it, it would not be readable by Windows
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app

Alex240188 said:
No you cannot mount the sdcard as usb mass storage
In order to do that the sdcard has to be it's own fat partition.
On the nexus 4 it is part of the data partition and the folder is fused to the sdcard mount point.
Basically meaning that you can't mount /sdcard because it's not able to be mounted as it's not actually a partition.
And secondly the format is ext4 so even if you could mount it, it would not be readable by Windows
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How would Android react if /sdcard was actually a separate FAT32 partition mounted in its usual location?

CutterX said:
How would Android react if /sdcard was actually a separate FAT32 partition mounted in its usual location?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
According to this article that should work.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/21/ice-cream-sandwich-supports-usb-mass-storage-after-all-galaxy-n/
Swyped from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

CutterX said:
How would Android react if /sdcard was actually a separate FAT32 partition mounted in its usual location?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It would work. However doing that is not an easy task.
It would require;
1. Changing the partition table on the phone.
2. Rewriting the bootloader (not 100% sure on this one, but it would be needed to flash any rom from the bootloader (stock)).
3. Rewriting a recovery to support the new partition.
4. Finally making the changes to the rom to support ums mounting.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda app-developers app

It looks like this would be something in relatively high demand. So I've been trying to get Android/vold to mount and recognize a vfat image as an sdcard but haven't had any success. It might be easier to work with if I killed off the fuse mount to start, but I'm not really looking to do that right now. Manually mounting the image isn't a problem (busybox mount or using losetup first to establish the loop) but without Android recognizing it, there's no chance of being able to use usb mass storage.
Of course the inherent issue will then be "lost" space with regards to the internal storage, since it'd be dedicated to the "sdcard". It seems most users would be fine with this, setting aside a gig or two.

Related

ICS Device Encryption and SDCARD Impact

Damnit.. My company required encryption of the data on my Nexus S when I was testing ICS Beta with Email / Exchange.
Went ahead and encrypted the device.
Then, I wanted to install ICS Combo Beta 11, so I formatted /system /data /boot and tried to install from /sdcard/*.zip.
No luck.
Clockworkmod recovery cannot mount /sdcard anymore.
Wanted to try and format it, but the clockworkmod tries to mount it first, before formatting
HELP!
I'm stuck with only recovery now and no way to get the update package installed
Is there a way to install from zip via the command line?
You should be able to use fastboot to load the rom on your device. I haven't tried it this way before but it should work:
Code:
fastboot update rom.zip [-w if you want to erase data too]
Give it a spin.
The SDCard not being able to be mounted has been covered a few times but I can't recall the proper fix by heart - search around and you'll definitely get some results that can help you with that.
Greetz
Sounds like it's busted.
Sent from my Nexus S using xda premium
Can you still enable USB Mass Storage in recovery? Try reformat the SD from your desktop?
Si_NZ said:
Can you still enable USB Mass Storage in recovery? Try reformat the SD from your desktop?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thought about that, but what filesystem? FAT32?
Sure
Greetz
I had the same problem with one of the first ICS betas.
Formatting to FAT32 on my Mac was not enough, I had also to reformat under Android. Hope, you backed up your data
dr911 said:
I had the same problem with one of the first ICS betas.
Formatting to FAT32 on my Mac was not enough, I had also to reformat under Android. Hope, you backed up your data
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Definately backed up..
This was a real scare.. I couldn't mount or format from clockworkmodrecovery. All I had was the adb shell and the builtin /sbin commands.
LUCKILY I found this article;
http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/...mmcblk0++mkfs++ext2__fromsearch__1#entry56396
It didn't exactly match what I was experiencing, but the key was the parted program.
Using it, I was able to reformat my media (partition 3) and am now able to repush things to it.
Stupid sdcard encryption..
Reinstalling ICS Beta 11 now
Blood pressure slowly decreasing.. damn that was a nightmare
So some lessons learned;
DON'T try to partition your SDCARD from clockworkmod or Windows or Mac. The USB storage presented to your computer is a single partiton from you mmcblk0 sd storage. If you partition it, you've got a partition inside a partition which will only make sense to your windows/mac system. Inside of Android, the partition is essentially corrupted and it won't mount.
Formatting from Windows only makes it appear to be working.. in reality you've created a second partition and it's corrupted from the Android point of view.
parted is the only way to fix it. from parted do mkfs type fat32 partiton 3 (media) that will reformat the partition correctly and give you access from Android and external USB hosts.
That's weird...
People have been able to format the SD as ext4 on a desktop using Ubuntu for example. I don't understand how that is different to mkfs.ext4 vs mkfs.vfat. I mean why am I confined to formatting on the phone itself? I'm really confused now.
On a side note. What you experienced is totally expected if you think about it carefully. It's like you have just lost the key to open your SD content by wiping the phone, of course it can no longer be mounted. But I'm not sure why it cannot be simply formatted in CWM.
nauckwj said:
Formatting from Windows only makes it appear to be working.. in reality you've created a second partition and it's corrupted from the Android point of view.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That means, I should check my SD Card, which I formatted under OSX with Disk Utility?
Maybe I'll do it next time I flash a new ROM, because for now it works fine.
nauckwj said:
Blood pressure slowly decreasing.. damn that was a nightmare
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I had a similar situation a few weeks after I got my beloved NS when I tried Whispercore. The hole NS got encrypted and formatting the system partition in CWM didn't work, but what I read it was luckily due to a problem with the CWM version. Flashing a newer Version of CWM solved the problem. First I was dying!
So, when I encrypted with ICS and got this problem I calmed down much faster
Si_NZ said:
That's weird...
People have been able to format the SD as ext4 on a desktop using Ubuntu for example. I don't understand how that is different to mkfs.ext4 vs mkfs.vfat. I mean why am I confined to formatting on the phone itself? I'm really confused now.
On a side note. What you experienced is totally expected if you think about it carefully. It's like you have just lost the key to open your SD content by wiping the phone, of course it can no longer be mounted. But I'm not sure why it cannot be simply formatted in CWM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My problem was I used the Windows fdisk partitioning utility to repartition my /sdcard partition. That was part of the problem. I did also read how some people were repartitioning the /sdcard partition, which is kind of weird. I can understand why someone might want to reformat it as an ext4 filesystem, but why would you want to partition a partition?
The /sdcard partition is actually the third partition on your mmcblk0 device. If you partition it, most utilities will fail to recognize it as a valid media device anymore, because they expect to be able to read the filesystem data structures when they mount it. These won't exist if a partition table is sitting at the beginning of the blocks.
I couldn't reformat from within CWM because it first tries to mount the partition. if it fails to mount, CWM won't reformat it. Only way to reformat it was with parted, unless you have a working system installation.
Last night I was also able to reformat it from within ICS. Had to do a full factory-wipe from within ICS, then it indicated the sdcard was no longer valid and asked me if I wanted to reformat it. Once I said yes, all was back to normal.
Fun fun

Ext4 / NTFS MicroSd & Usb Mounting -v2.3 (fat32 UMS) MTP/UMS Switching/ CM9/10 info

Ext4 / NTFS MicroSd & Usb Mounting -v2.3 (fat32 UMS) MTP/UMS Switching/ CM9/10 info
Hi,
i have developed an App, EzyMount - that pretty much takes care of mounting & utilising ext4 / ntfs storage properly. So no need to be limited to 4gb file size restrictions anymore !!
Updated info for CM9 / CM10 builds
****************************************************************
It seems that CM9 /CM10 changes the default mount point for external sdcards
For ntfs partition only sdcard
Change the default mount point to: /storage/sdcard1
Then try mounting here it should work ok and be picked up automatically by other Apps as well.
If you have two partitions:
1st Partition would be vfat then this should get auto mounted to /storage/sdcard1
2nd Partition (ntfs) : change the mount point to: /storage/sdcard0/extStorages1
Then try mounting here it should be ok
*****************************************************************
Version 2.3 Update
Universal Mass Storage Mode support for 7.7 tabs also most other devices.
Auto MTP/UMS Switching
When you select either MTP Mode or UMS Mode, the App will automatically switch your device into these respective USB transfer method.
It is also possible to use UMS mode for any external MicroSd card, fat32, Ext4 or NTFS formatted.
For ext4 / ntfs this is taken care of by the App
For fat32 external sd cards (these are mounted automatically by Android)
Create a new Mount Point which is the folder location of your external MicroSd card.
For example, on Galaxy 7.7 devices - this will be /mnt/sdcard/extStorages/SdCard.
For Galaxy S3 devices - this will be /mnt/extSdCard
For other devices this is typically, /mnt/sdcard/external_sd
In the partition setting put: /dev/block/mmcblk1p1
Once you have created this mount point, just select "UMS Mode".
After you have finished copying files to or from your PC, it is important to "safely eject your usb device from your PC".
Important too - Finally, disable "UMS Mode" by it pressing again.
You can switch back to MTP by selcting "MTP Mode".
(If MTP does not become active straight away (Android being slow too pick up the change)- you may need to Go to : Settings > Storage > USB PC connection & toggle between Media Device (MTP) & Camera PTP. So Android re-starts MTP. However, it should work without this step)
*****************************************************************
Version 2.1 update
1) New Sliding UI.
2) Ability to mount up to 10 devices / partitions.
Just create a new Mount Point for each device / partition you need to mount.
To create a new Mount Point:
Just slide the UI to the "mount another drive or partition". Then just use select a mount option as per usual to create a new mount point and mount at the same time. Or you can press the "microsd info" "usb drive info" to create a new Mount Point.
3) Works with ICS update
Just ignore "ICS warning messages" - when it comes to ntfs usb devices.
*****************************************************************
Version 1.7 update
1) Quite a few new features added:
NTFS / Ext4 MTP Modes - this allows you to easily switch between "normal mode" and MTP mode.
MTP mode is used for transferring files to PC.
Usage Example:
Personally, I have a 32 gb sd card
the First partion on it is an exFat 4 gb partition. This is picked up the tab and mounted as normal to the location of /mnt/sdcard/extStorages/SdCard
I can use this for my cwm backups etc, other files etc - system running as normal.
This 4gb partition will show up in windows via MTP.
The problem:
I also have a 28GB Ext4 second partition on the Card , this could be an NTFS partition too.
I want this too show up in windows so I can transfer (br rips etc) but it wont as the my first fat32 partiion is shown up instead.
By using NTFS MTP Mode or Ext4 MTP Mode - the App will automatically "switch" the partitions so the larger NTFS or EXT4 mode shows up in windows.
Once done then you can disable NTFS / EXT4 MTP MODE and the device will go back to normal as it were.
(the MTP folder location is set to work already for 7.7 devices and similiar. For other devices this needs to be adjusted. It is normally the default folder loaction of where the external SD card is mounted by the phone.)
UMS Mode - universal mass storage mode.
Although the 7.7 does not have ums mode (MTP is being standardised on ics devices and above) but there a lot of devices than can only use ums mode for transferring file to PC.
I have added a ums mode. Which basically makes your micro sd partitions available on pc. (suitable for non MTP devices)
You do not need to "turn on usb mass storage mode" just select "ums mode" from the APP and it will do it for you.
Also - in windows ext4 partitions are not recognised but ntfs one are off course. In linux both should be available. (one of the benefits of MTP)
Comaptibility Mode
Is for those users whose mounting of micro sd cards might fail for some reason. This mode tries a bit more thorough to mount your micro sd drives.
Better Error Messages
I have added a lot of better error messages that the de facto "error mounting " message
It should provide the reason why things might not be mounting.
I hope this helps some with issues and pm if you have any other issues or things you think might be useful to add.
( I will get round to updating the website with the added features soon)
*****************************************************************
version update 1.6
1) Fixed slight issue with Auto Ext4 permission handling.
2) Also changed the default mount folders of NTFS or Ext4 microsd card to the /sdcard/extStorages/SdCard
This should mean now MTP will see the card in windows properly and you can access them as you would normally. (I think this has caused some confusion - i had left this generic for other users on different devices)
(This means for other devices you should specify the folder in the "location" settings which is normally seen by windows MTP - i.e when you use a fat32 microsd)
I hope this has resolved some issues people might have been having.
version update 1.5
1) Modified labelling on some settings to make it clearer.
2) Mounting usb devices has been slightly tweaked to care of multiple partitions.
version update 1.4
Following on from your recommendations.
1) Mounting MicroSd Ext4 or Ntfs now automatically takes care of you partitions so you do not need to specify them.
This should make it much simpler to mount your microsd cards.
2) Usb Mounting widget should be compatible for all home screen launchers. (touchwiz, adwlauncher etc.)
************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
please remember to unmount usb / microsd devices before ejecting - For usb devices you use the 1-click usb mount/umnount home screen widget for this or from within the App
************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
There have been a few issues regarding using external Usb formatted Ntfs or Ntfs microsd drives. Also I wanted to use an internal micro sd Ext4 partition for large movies (1080p hi-def/bluray etc) or just keep them on an external Ext4 usb disk. Having looked at other solutions, there didn't seem like one that just "worked" or the way I wanted it to do so.
Using Ext4 over Ntfs is native to linux/android and it consumes less cpu than using ntfs. But you cant simply mount an ext4 device and start using it like a regular file system as the file permission are not properly created by Android. I also still needed to have Ntfs read/write support on occassions.
You can use any cheap otg usb cable found on ebay etc. (The same cables as used for 10" galaxy tab devices for example).
As I used the 7.7 as one of my development device so it is pretty suited for our tabs & similiar tablets i.e 7.0+ etc, but is more than generic enough to work on other devices.
The App provides all the necessary features and customization options so you don't need to worry about file formats, file size limitations or file permissions again !!
There are more tips on how to best use the app on my website. If you have any comments good or bad please let me know so I can improve the App.
Cheers.
Need help in mounting microSD as Mass Storage
I don't understand Settings Guide on your website. I downloaded your app but it isn't working for me and I get Partition error every time I try to mount. What should be my partition and what should be the location? I simply want to mount my NTFS microSD card as mass storage which is usually at /extstorages/SDcard/. I did root my device last night and I also installed busybox v1.19 few minutes ago. What am I doing wrong?
Same here, says "Check your partitions". Why do *I* have to worry about partitions? Can't it just work?
Using rooted Tab 7.7.
Asad_Khan said:
I don't understand Settings Guide on your website. I downloaded your app but it isn't working for me and I get Partition error every time I try to mount. What should be my partition and what should be the location? I simply want to mount my NTFS microSD card as mass storage which is usually at /extstorages/SDcard/. I did root my device last night and I also installed busybox v1.19 few minutes ago. What am I doing wrong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
belyj said:
Same here, says "Check your partitions". Why do *I* have to worry about partitions? Can't it just work?
Using rooted Tab 7.7.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi guys,
The default partition of your microsd card is typically:
/dev/block/mmcblk1p1
1) If you have only one partition - so you will put the following in the partition setting:
So for example an NTFS only formated microsd card :
/dev/block/mmcblk1p1
And the same would go for an Ext4 formatted only card:
/dev/block/mmcblk1p1
2) If you have two partitions then typically you will have:
/dev/block/mmcblk1p1
/dev/block/mmcblk1p2
And so on ..
(you can always check for these from a terminal/adb shell)
As these partitions are same for your microsd, you can set them once and forget them about afterwards. I don't try automatically choose these partitions for you and this depends on your partitioning scheme more than anything.
For Usb devices the App will automatically try mounting your usb partitions as these are likely to change more often then not.
Typically, I would recommend the following:
If you have a large 32gb / 64 gb microsd card
Create The first partition as fat32 - maybe 4gb.
This partition will be /dev/block/mmcblk1p1
The tab will automatically mount this first partition & you can use things like cwm recovery for backup as normal.
(Also you wont see an unsupported file system icon in your status bar.)
Then create a second large partition (ext4 or ntfs) :
This partition will be /dev/block/mmcblk1p2
So set this as your Ntfs partition or ext4 partition.
Once you can mount you microsd ok - then you can set it to automount boot.
So need to mess with the settings after that.
Hope this helps and please let me know.
Cheers.
Still MTP connection
Thank you for your explanation. I've can now mount/unmount SD card but when I connect it computer it starts MTP connection and still shows under my computer as a portable device rather than a Mass Storage. Also if I connect it to my computer first it would still ask me to restart the MTP connect when I click mount SDcard and again it shows as a portable device. Changing debugging settings won't help either.
Partition /dev/block/mmcblk1p1
Location /mnt/sdcard/extStorages/SdCard
Asad_Khan said:
Thank you for your explanation. I've can now mount/unmount SD card but when I connect it computer it starts MTP connection and still shows under my computer as a portable device rather than a Mass Storage. Also if I connect it to my computer first it would still ask me to restart the MTP connect when I click mount SDcard and again it shows as a portable device. Changing debugging settings won't help either.
Partition /dev/block/mmcblk1p1
Location /mnt/sdcard/extStorages/SdCard
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just tried this. If you click on the "portable device" in windows it shows up as tablet. You can copy files to where you mounted the sd card.
It should work fine.
For me I leave set pretty much as default. As I have the first partition on my sdcard as an exfat / fat32. Then I have an ext4 or Ntfs Partition. This way you tab will behave exactly as normal. But The App should be fine regardless of whatever partitions you have.
Please try this and let me know.
(Also I will look to be adding an auto mounting microsd feature in the next few updates if there is some demand for this. Plus any other features people might suggest in the meanwhile )
Cheers.
To those who have installed EzyMount,
I have updated the microsd mounting feature so it should automatically mount the correct partition for you.
You dont have to manually change the partition settings anymore.
Having said that if there is a particular partition on your microsd you want to mount, then put that in the settings. The app will first try to mount that partition, then try to mount the other partitions if the first mount was not successful.
Also i would suggest setting the mount point folder (location option in settings) to /sdcard/SOME_FOLDER
& not /ext/extStorages/SdCard. which is where the tab mount would mount the microsd card.
Let me know how it goes with the update.
Hope this helps.
cheers.
Hi buddy.
I am totally confused as to how this works.
I went through the info at your website, but I still cannot get this to work.
I have tried only USB flash memory with an OTG USB adapter, both EXT4 and NTFS. I just get an error that says: Error Mounting USB Drive. I can tell that it seems to try, because the activity LED on the drive will flash when I click Mount.
I am using a Samsung Note (i717), so I am not sure if that is the problem. I am only rooted, but the kernel and software is stock 2.3. The phone has both internal memory (called USB Storage by the system) and an sd card; could the app be confused by the various memory locations?
I don't have a spare microsd to format as NTFS, otherwise I would try that.
Any ideas on what I should try? I am a little confused by the settings... they seem to be in many locations, so I am not sure what things to change.
Thanks!
G8351427 said:
Hi buddy.
I am totally confused as to how this works.
I went through the info at your website, but I still cannot get this to work.
I have tried only USB flash memory with an OTG USB adapter, both EXT4 and NTFS. I just get an error that says: Error Mounting USB Drive. I can tell that it seems to try, because the activity LED on the drive will flash when I click Mount.
I am using a Samsung Note (i717), so I am not sure if that is the problem. I am only rooted, but the kernel and software is stock 2.3. The phone has both internal memory (called USB Storage by the system) and an sd card; could the app be confused by the various memory locations?
I don't have a spare microsd to format as NTFS, otherwise I would try that.
Any ideas on what I should try? I am a little confused by the settings... they seem to be in many locations, so I am not sure what things to change.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
I have slightly updated the labelling in the App so should a bit less confusing
You shouldn't really need to change anything.
Partition - refers to the actual "physical" location of your drive as sen by the Androis OS / kernel but this is taken care of automatically so you dont need to specify this. Although you can still specify a partition and that will be mounted.
(You can see the list of your partitions by doing ls /dev/block/* for a command prompt for example)
Location - is where your microsd or usb device will be mounted. Basically the folder loaction on your device where you can see its files / folder contents etc.
The other option refer to the various features - such as auto mounting at boot, auto fixing ext4 permissions, auto usb mounting. If you dont need them you can disable them.
So hopefully we can narrow down the issue.
Do you have busybox,superuser installed ok?
I am not sure what the actual "Usb Storage" on the note is. Maybe there is a variation in the labelling but it should be resolvable.
If you can get me the output from your device from an adb shell or connectbot for example of the following commands:
# mount
and
# df -h
These should help me figure out what might be going on.
(i'll see If i can get my hands on a galaxy note - or have a look at some of the dev stuff in the meanwhile)
Cheers.
Hi. I also heve this problem with Galaxy Note (unable to mount USB drive with one NTFS partition).
Please describe how can i help you to figure out the issue step by step.
Thenks.
-=galex=- said:
Hi. I also heve this problem with Galaxy Note (unable to mount USB drive with one NTFS partition).
Please describe how can i help you to figure out the issue step by step.
Thenks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problems - been busy with some other work.
So far the App has been installed on the note more tham any other device so seems to be working for some.
A lot of problems are being caused by some users not unmounting the usb device after mounting it for the first time. Which confuses things. I will be releasing an update that takes care of this and possibly a self diagnostics checker that should help in identifying some potential problems.
Also android / linux can be somewhat particular about ntfs so best run a drive check in windows first. Or even better can you try another newly formatted ntfs usb device and see if that works.
I will pm you once i get the chance.
Thanks.
-=galex=- said:
Hi. I also heve this problem with Galaxy Note (unable to mount USB drive with one NTFS partition).
Please describe how can i help you to figure out the issue step by step.
Thenks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have sent you a pm. Also i have been looking at some of the note dev threads so should have a solution for you I think.
Cheers.
Hi All,
Updated the App to version 1.7.
Check the first post.
Cheers.
This is working great for my 64GB microsd as NTFS. The main problem i have (rather an annoyance) is there is now a constant notification about a "Blank SD card" in the notifications shade.
Does anyone know how to supress this, as it is very annoying to keep seeing it.
rEVOLVE said:
This is working great for my 64GB microsd as NTFS. The main problem i have (rather an annoyance) is there is now a constant notification about a "Blank SD card" in the notifications shade.
Does anyone know how to supress this, as it is very annoying to keep seeing it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could use the solution ezynow mentions in the first post. Create a small fat32 partition at the start of the SD card, this will also be accessible by things like recovery. Then use the rest of the card as NTFS.
I should apologize for not seeing that tip in the OP. I'll have to wait till i've got some time to repartition the card - any suggestions of what size to make the small one?
Only other problem I see is that the "mount at boot" option doesn't seem to work and I still have to go to the app to enable this.
Trouble with Ext4 MTP
I'm using a 32GB external sd card with a very small 8MB fat32 partition followed by an ext4 partition using the remainder of sdcard. Using Ezymount 1.9, I have been able to mount/bootmount my ext4 partition nicely. Where I'm still struggling is to get the ext4 partition to be accessible when the phone is USB attached to my Linux pc. When the USB cable is attached, I see the phone's internal sd and fat32 partition. When the EXT4 MTP option is enabled, still the fat32 partition is mounted on my pc. I've experimented with UMS and Compatibility modes, but the behavior remains the same.
On my SGS2, the default mount location for the fat32 partition is /mnt/sdcard/external_sd. I created /mnt/sdcard/external_sd_ext4. My external sdcard appears as /dev/block/cyasblkdevblk0, with the fat32 partition as p1 and ext4 as p2. I've configured Ezymount for ext4 with /dev/block/cyasblkdevblk0p2 with a location of /mnt/sdcard/external_sd_ext4. I've tried a number of points for the MTP location, but the resulting behavior remains the same.
Can you help me to get the ext4 partition accessible from my pc when attached via USB?
Thanks
GalaxyQuest99 said:
I'm using a 32GB external sd card with a very small 8MB fat32 partition followed by an ext4 partition using the remainder of sdcard. Using Ezymount 1.9, I have been able to mount/bootmount my ext4 partition nicely. Where I'm still struggling is to get the ext4 partition to be accessible when the phone is USB attached to my Linux pc. When the USB cable is attached, I see the phone's internal sd and fat32 partition. When the EXT4 MTP option is enabled, still the fat32 partition is mounted on my pc. I've experimented with UMS and Compatibility modes, but the behavior remains the same.
On my SGS2, the default mount location for the fat32 partition is /mnt/sdcard/external_sd. I created /mnt/sdcard/external_sd_ext4. My external sdcard appears as /dev/block/cyasblkdevblk0, with the fat32 partition as p1 and ext4 as p2. I've configured Ezymount for ext4 with /dev/block/cyasblkdevblk0p2 with a location of /mnt/sdcard/external_sd_ext4. I've tried a number of points for the MTP location, but the resulting behavior remains the same.
Can you help me to get the ext4 partition accessible from my pc when attached via USB?
J
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi GalaxyQuest99,
Could you please run the diagnostics report and send it to me. Hopefully, it is a configuration issue.
What phone/tablet are you using & Also what linux os are you running so i can repoduce the issue.
I am also working on some major new features - so version 2.0 is in the works
Thanks.
Diagnostic?
ezynow said:
Hi GalaxyQuest99,
Could you please run the diagnostics report and send it to me. Hopefully, it is a configuration issue.
What phone/tablet are you using & Also what linux os are you running so i can repoduce the issue.
I am also working on some major new features - so version 2.0 is in the works
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a Samsung Galaxy S2. I use Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. I ran the diagnostics, but don't where to find the report.
Thanks
GalaxyQuest99 said:
I have a Samsung Galaxy S2. I use Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. I ran the diagnostics, but don't where to find the report.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
There should be a report generated under /sdcard/ezymount_test.txt.
Could you email it to [email protected].
If there isnt a report then email me at this address too so i can you send you an updated version of the app if needed.
Will setup ubuntu and test this also.
Cheers.

Secure delete for S3

I want to be able to securely delete files(overwrite the whole file at least once) on my s3. I tried to install the app undelete which also has an option to securely delete files. But when I start the app it complains about not finding any fat formated file system. I also tried shredroid but this program crashes on startup, maybe because it also expects a fat file system? So is there a working way to secure delete files on the s3? It doesn't have to be an app, if there is some linux utility like srm compiled for android that would be great.
There's an app called Secure Deletion for Android in the Play Store that should do what you need. No free version, though, and it only has one review and 50+ downloads. FWIW, the single review was 5 stars. I'm gonna keep looking because I would like the same thing.
From what I can tell, stuff like that wont work on our devices' internal memory due to the method samsung has used to grant access to the partitions. Undelete never worked on my Xoom because of the same issue, possibly due to the fact both devices utilize MTP. However, it should work on any external SD cards you may have, however that is just me speculating as I have not tried it.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium
d3athsd00r said:
From what I can tell, stuff like that wont work on our devices' internal memory due to the method samsung has used to grant access to the partitions. Undelete never worked on my Xoom because of the same issue, possibly due to the fact both devices utilize MTP. However, it should work on any external SD cards you may have, however that is just me speculating as I have not tried it.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now that you mention it, the internal storage is mounted as a FUSE filesystem, not the expected ext3/4, so it's probably because it's a "fake" filesystem. I wonder if there is a way to access the raw physical filesystem (/data is ext4, which should be compatible with most secure delete apps) instead of the userspace filesystem.
EndlessDissent said:
Now that you mention it, the internal storage is mounted as a FUSE filesystem, not the expected ext3/4, so it's probably because it's a "fake" filesystem. I wonder if there is a way to access the raw physical filesystem (/data is ext4, which should be compatible with most secure delete apps) instead of the userspace filesystem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. Couldn't remember what it is called. But that is exactly the reason it can't find it with the app. Also, if journaling is enabled, then a secure delete still wont work on ext3/4. This isn't a bug, its due to the way ext with journaling handles reads/writes.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium
Anyone know why it's mounted via fuse? The same files are also available via /data/media and /data is mounted as ext4. Maybe it would be possible to unmount the fuse filesystem, remount the data filesystem as ext2 (no journaling) and then run some secure delete program?
octapod said:
Anyone know why it's mounted via fuse? The same files are also available via /data/media and /data is mounted as ext4. Maybe it would be possible to unmount the fuse filesystem, remount the data filesystem as ext2 (no journaling) and then run some secure delete program?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's because of the MTP. If it were mounted as a normal filesystem, you could use USB Mass Storage, but you would lose access to all of your internal storage while it was in UMS mode.
Also, I don't think you can mount one filesystem as another, so mounting ext4 as ext2 will possibly corrupt your data. What you could do is mount the ext4 filesystem with the journal features turned off (which is practically the same as ext2 but better), then secure delete.
The issue for me is, that task seems a lot more involved on a phone/tablet than it is on an actual computer. Not sure if it would even work. And if you want to secure delete every time you delete something, that's a whole lot of effort to go through. Of course, if you want it deleted that badly, it's probably worth it to you.

Important and Read RE: MTP in recovery aka data/media

This is completely pulled off of my other thread in the HOX+ section
our device is a data/media device which is why usb mount don't work
here's a link that explains it all
http://teamw.in/DataMedia
and part of the convo with dees_troy is below
<Dees_Troy> Nope, it will *never* work on a data/media device
<Dees_Troy> read and learn: http://teamw.in/DataMedia
<WinBot> [Link] http://tinyw.in/lstO :: What is a data media device? | TeamWin
<Dees_Troy> definitely worth understanding
<Dees_Troy> at some point we're going to try to kang in MTP for recovery
<Lloir> so for now then it's sideload or from inside the rom
<Dees_Troy> or adb push
<Lloir> aye
<Dees_Troy> or gtfo
<*****> so cant mount usb storage with newer devices...hmm one x did guess this is where confusion at least on my part came to be
<Lloir> lmao Dees_Troy
<Dees_Troy> one x wasn't a data media device
YOU MUST either transfer the rom\boot\porn\audio\mods while the phone is on or use adb push or even sideload when in recovery, THIS IS THE ONLY way
IF you want to read without clicking the link i'll whack it up in #2
What is a data media device?
I'm writing this page because there seems to be a lot of confusion about how many of the newer Android devices work. Starting in Honeycomb 3.0 with the Xoom, Google changed the way that they handled storage. Instead of having a "data" partition with your apps and a separate "sdcard" partition for storage, Google started giving you a single, very large data partition. Inside /data is a folder at /data/media that contains all of the contents of what you think of as your internal sdcard.
Since /data/media is part of /data, we pretty much never actually format the data partition. Formatting data, of course, also removes the media folder that contains the internal sdcard. When you choose a factory reset, instead of formatting, we use rm -rf commands to remove all the folders except for the media folder so that we can remove all of your apps and settings while leaving your "sdcard" intact. In TWRP we also have a wipe internal storage option that rm -rf's the media folder and a "Format Data" option that formats to recreate the entire file system in case something goes completely wrong or to remove device encryption.
When you're booted to Android, Android fuses the media folder to /sdcard and emulates a FAT files system that doesn't have permissions for legacy apps. We don't currently have fuse in recovery, so we just add an extra mount command to mount /data/media to /sdcard so in recovery you still have to worry about permissions on /sdcard.
Because the "internal sdcard" is not a true FAT file system, you can't mount it via USB storage. Well, that's not technically true, but the vast majority of people use Windows computers and Windows doesn't recognize ext4. If we were to allow you to mount the data partition via USB storage, Windows would claim that the device wasn't formatted and offer to format it for you, which, as you can imagine, would be a disaster. The whole ext4 setup is another reason that Android switched to using MTP for transferring files. Most of these devices don't have the necessary kernel configuration to even support USB storage mode, so it's not very easy to enable USB storage if we even wanted to try. Unfortunately at this time, MTP isn't available in recovery, so if you have no other option, you will have to use adb to push and pull files to/from your device.
As a special note, if you choose to do a factory reset from your ROM, even if the ROM says that it will wipe everything including the internal storage, well, that's not what TWRP will do. A stock AOSP recovery would format data including the "sdcard" but TWRP will use its regular factory reset setup that leaves the internal storage intact.
There are a couple of nice gains with using this setup vs the old data + FAT storage partition. With /data/media you, as the user get more control over how you use your storage. If you have a ton of apps, then that's no problem since you have a huge data partition to work with. If you don't have a lot of apps, you get more room to use for storing things like movies. Further, ext4 doesn't suffer from the 4GB file size limit that FAT has, so you can have a large, high-def movie on your device if you like. I'm sure another motivating factor was to get Android away from using FAT which is a Microsoft creation. Performance on ext4 in Android is also probably better than FAT. As a downside, data media devices tend to store a lot more app data in the "data" section and so backups on these devices tend to be larger.
Thank you for this post. I had been a bit curious about this. I have Evo LTE. But I also Boughy a family member a GNex that I have to maintain. I know that my Evo, I can plug into windows, and when I select USB transfer (not in recovery), it mounts my internal storage (not ext_SD) , and it shows as removable drive in windows. But,....when I plug in GNex, it shows up as GNex , not removable drive H. I always wondered a bit about what this all means.
Thanks for the info. :thumbup:
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
Thanks for the useful post.
If I make a nandroid backup for the whole device, will it exclude the /data/media folder? Because on my old phone the nandroid backup doesn't include /sdcard.
romitkin said:
Thanks for the useful post.
If I make a nandroid backup for the whole device, will it exclude the /data/media folder? Because on my old phone the nandroid backup doesn't include /sdcard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes it does, we are past the point where that causes issues.
Everyone just needs to get used to the data/media thing. And learn how to use adb side load
I predict a whole bunch of "bricks" due to people not informing themselves on how the phone works and how to use adb
Sent from my One X using Tapatalk 2
A little bit from my side as well I hope someone will find this helpful. Virtual SD card on Android
Can't you use USB Host if you got recovery installed as well? I think I've read that somewhere...
mike1986. said:
A little bit from my side as well I hope someone will find this helpful. Virtual SD card on Android
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Link broken, here is the correct URL:
http://android-revolution-hd.blogspot.com/2013/03/virtual-sd-card-on-android.html
Oh and bump for anyone new to the idea of a "data/media" device. You're not in Kansas anymore.
NxNW said:
Link broken, here is the correct URL:
http://android-revolution-hd.blogspot.com/2013/03/virtual-sd-card-on-android.html
Oh and bump for anyone new to the idea of a "data/media" device. You're not in Kansas anymore.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lloir, thanks for sharing and good explanation. MTP makes sense and on my One, this way file transfers are simple and fast. However there are two things I dislike about MTP right now:
When you copy files to the device, on some file types it throws a warning that the device might not be able to read the file. This interrupts the file transfer and I have to confirm I want to copy the file to the device. On an older MP3 player I have, I could deactivate this by editing a device capabilities XML file. On the One, I did not find such a file. Perhaps an option in the MTP deamon?
When I am transferring files, I can't browse through other folders at the same time. It says the device is busy.
Is there a way to solve those two issues or "is it what it is"?
Lloir said:
Windows would claim that the device wasn't formatted and offer to format it for you, which, as you can imagine, would be a disaster
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did that on a device. Windows offered to format and I did it. Man that was not good! 2 hours later after manually restoring the partition values I was OK and the most amazing thing all my data was there perfect and untouched :silly: :highfive:
Thanks for that great explanation. Been having some issues with windows and android. Nothing big just had to sideload my ROM and killed my "sdcard" at least now I know why

[A] Regarding Mounting SD Card in TWRP

After a few days of googling, i stumbled upon a thread in Droid DNA forum. Which led me to this answer right from the source on why it's not possible to mount our SD Card or actually, just a folder in /data, in TWRP.
Just wanted to share and hope this will clear things up and hoping that people won't wipe their /data partition since it will delete the SD Card folder as well.
I find this very enlightening so read on.
What is a data media device?
I'm writing this page because there seems to be a lot of confusion about how many of the newer Android devices work. Starting in Honeycomb 3.0 with the Xoom, Google changed the way that they handled storage. Instead of having a "data" partition with your apps and a separate "sdcard" partition for storage, Google started giving you a single, very large data partition. Inside /data is a folder at /data/media that contains all of the contents of what you think of as your internal sdcard.
Since /data/media is part of /data, we pretty much never actually format the data partition. Formatting data, of course, also removes the media folder that contains the internal sdcard. When you choose a factory reset, instead of formatting, we use rm -rf commands to remove all the folders except for the media folder so that we can remove all of your apps and settings while leaving your "sdcard" intact. In TWRP we also have a wipe internal storage option that rm -rf's the media folder and a "Format Data" option that formats to recreate the entire file system in case something goes completely wrong or to remove device encryption.
When you're booted to Android, Android fuses the media folder to /sdcard and emulates a FAT files system that doesn't have permissions for legacy apps. We don't currently have fuse in recovery, so we just add an extra mount command to mount /data/media to /sdcard so in recovery you still have to worry about permissions on /sdcard.
Because the "internal sdcard" is not a true FAT file system, you can't mount it via USB storage. Well, that's not technically true, but the vast majority of people use Windows computers and Windows doesn't recognize ext4. If we were to allow you to mount the data partition via USB storage, Windows would claim that the device wasn't formatted and offer to format it for you, which, as you can imagine, would be a disaster. The whole ext4 setup is another reason that Android switched to using MTP for transferring files. Most of these devices don't have the necessary kernel configuration to even support USB storage mode, so it's not very easy to enable USB storage if we even wanted to try. Unfortunately at this time, MTP isn't available in recovery, so if you have no other option, you will have to use adb to push and pull files to/from your device.
As a special note, if you choose to do a factory reset from your ROM, even if the ROM says that it will wipe everything including the internal storage, well, that's not what TWRP will do. A stock AOSP recovery would format data including the "sdcard" but TWRP will use its regular factory reset setup that leaves the internal storage intact.
There are a couple of nice gains with using this setup vs the old data + FAT storage partition. With /data/media you, as the user get more control over how you use your storage. If you have a ton of apps, then that's no problem since you have a huge data partition to work with. If you don't have a lot of apps, you get more room to use for storing things like movies. Further, ext4 doesn't suffer from the 4GB file size limit that FAT has, so you can have a large, high-def movie on your device if you like. I'm sure another motivating factor was to get Android away from using FAT which is a Microsoft creation. Performance on ext4 in Android is also probably better than FAT. As a downside, data media devices tend to store a lot more app data in the "data" section and so backups on these devices tend to be larger.
Android 4.2 has changed things with /data/media devices a little bit due to the multi-user support that came in 4.2. Each user is assigned a subfolder in /data/media. The main user gets /data/media/0 and subsequent users get /data/media/10 and /data/media/11 and so on. If you switch users in Android 4.2, the system will remount the /sdcard folder to point to the proper user's folder. TWRP has been updated to use the /data/media/0 folder starting in 2.3.2.0.
Another "feature" of 4.2 is that when you "update" to 4.2 it may attempt to upgrade your /data/media to multi-user. If you're running an older version of TWRP than 2.3.2.0 or newer, a factory reset may trigger multiple upgrades, causing your "sdcard" to get moved to /data/media/0 then /data/media/0/0 and then /data/media/0/0/0 and so on depending on how many times you "upgraded". This may cause backups to not be visible in TWRP. Also, there currently isn't a good way to go back to a 4.1 ROM after using a 4.2 ROM without having to manually move your files around.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://teamw.in/DataMedia
I asked them if it's possible to just mount the ext4 partition if Windows users install some apps that can read them. Will see if they're going to answer.
Hope this helps. Cheers.

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