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[Q] Rooted Nook Simple Touch, Help Partitioning micro SD card

Hi! Successfully rooted my Nook ST using Nook Manager, except I used a 32 GB micro SD card to do the rooting. After rooting, I ended up with two partitions on the SD card, Nook (239 MB) and Nook Manager (62.9 MB). I was wondering what I need to do to be able to utilize the rest of the space on the card? The reason I bought a 32 GB card was so I could store all my sideloaded books there, and now I find I'm just limited to the space/partitions showing up when I connect the nook via USB.

You need to repartition your card.
Partition Magic can do that.
If you want to use multiple partitions on the SD card (like 2 x 16 GB) you might want to look at:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2184495

Renate NST said:
You need to repartition your card.
Partition Magic can do that.
If you want to use multiple partitions on the SD card (like 2 x 16 GB) you might want to look at:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2184495
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, will download a copy of Partition Magic later. I really am completely clueless when it comes to programming though. In fact, I'm only here because the folks at mobileread told me I'd probably have better luck having my question/s answered here than there. So just to confirm, I can repartition the drive using partition magic so I'll have one extra partition for the books I want to sideload, and I'm good to go already when I re-insert the SD card into the Nook? Or do I have to attempt the code that you gave in the thread you linked?

If you want to have a single FAT partition on your SD card you can do that without much change.
It comes down to whether you want to be able to pull the SD card and plug it into random desktops and things.
If you want to have multiple partitions or ext3 partitions you will have to use the new vold in the link above.

if used windows 7,8. Insert a memory card into the card reader. Go to cmd(administrator mode) and run command:
Diskpart
List Disk
Select Disk 1 (#select sdcard)
clean (#clean partition sdcard)
create partition primary
active
format fs=fat32 quick
assign (#run command if not view sdcard in mycomputer )

Renate, I tried to repartition my SD card, but got a "disk is not formatted, do you want to format it now?" message. So I had no choice but to do a data recovery using EaseUs Partition Master first, then went ahead and clicked format now. Then I tried using Minitool Partition Wizard (couldn't find a free version of Partition Magic) to create new partitions in the formatted SD card so that the NookManager partition would be larger (27 GB) while the NookBackup partition would be 2 GB. Except that I can't seem to create any new partitions at all. And I also have no idea how to restore the data I'd backed up earlier either.

Sorry, I missed seeing this come up when you posted it.
When your Nook asks you if you want to format you should say "No!".
It could be that it misidentified the situation.
In any case, you want to look closer before formatting anything.
Here's a gotcha.
If you are using ext3 and the internal clock has reset itself then the last mount will be in the future.
That makes things angry. Check that the date/time on the Nook is correct.

You can use gparted to give the card the partition layout you need (i.e. first NookManager partition is big, second NookBackup partition is only large enough to hold a backup), then write the first partition from NookManager.img into first partition of the card (you need to do something roughly similar to this. Then you can use gparted to set the "boot" flag on the first partition and use the card to backup&root your Nook. Then remove the "boot" flag, and keep using the card for storage (it's a bit messy to have both user&app files AND NookManager boot files in the same place, but if you only have one card, then this is inevitable - i haven't found a way to mount the second or the third partitions from the card). The card will act as normal storage device when flag is not set, and as NookManager bootable card when flag is set.

Features of Marshmallow - Episode 1 : Using microSD card as internal storage

New android version Marshmallow has a feature to use microSD card as internal storage.
When Marshmallow detects a microSD card for the first time it asks to chose Portable or Internal storage mode.
If you choose "Use as portable storage" you will use it as before. You can save your photos, videos, some applications or their data,
backup/restore your phone, etc. and you can see your files if you take it out of your phone and connect to another device or PC, as usual.
But if you choose "Use as internal storage" and click "ERASE&FORMAT" button at next screen,
then your microSD card will be formatted as ext4 and encrypted. You will loose everything in your microSD card and it will
become your only internal storage. Now, If you take it out of your phone and connect to another device or PC, it will not possible to see your files
since it is encrypted. Your microSD is usable only with your phone.
Than, what is the advantage of using microSD card as internal storage?
If your phone's real internal storage very small (ex: 4gb) and you have trouble installing new apps then you may put a 32 GB microSD card and use it as internal storage. Then your internal storage will be 32 GB (Not total of 36GB).
It will act as your phone's internal storage.
Disadvantages?
microSD card used as internal storage is useless out of your phone since it is encrypted. You can not use it taking out of your phone and putting into another device to transfer your photos, music files, zipped ROM files etc.
It will not be visible as external storage anymore.
Phone's real internal storage is not visible.
So,
If your phone's real internal storage is not too small and especially if you want to use your external storage as usual, there is no need to use a microSD card as internal storage.

darkRd said:
New android version Marshmallow has a feature to use microSD card as internal storage.
When Marshmallow detects a microSD card for the first time it asks to chose Portable or Internal storage mode.
If you choose "Use as portable storage" you will use it as before. You can save your photos, videos, some applications or their data,
backup/restore your phone, etc. and you can see your files if you take it out of your phone and connect to another device or PC, as usual.
But if you choose "Use as internal storage" and click "ERASE&FORMAT" button at next screen,
then your microSD card will be formatted as ext4 and encrypted. You will loose everything in your microSD card and it will
become your only internal storage. Now, If you take it out of your phone and connect to another device or PC, it will not possible to see your files
since it is encrypted. Your microSD is usable only with your phone.
Than, what is the advantage of using microSD card as internal storage?
If your phone's real internal storage very small (ex: 4gb) and you have trouble installing new apps then you may put a 32 GB microSD card and use it as internal storage. Then your internal storage will be 32 GB (Not total of 36GB).
It will act as your phone's internal storage.
Disadvantages?
microSD card used as internal storage is useless out of your phone since it is encrypted. You can not use it taking out of your phone and putting into another device to transfer your photos, music files, zipped ROM files etc.
It will not be visible as external storage anymore.
Phone's real internal storage is not visible.
So,
If your phone's real internal storage is not too small and especially if you want to use your external storage as usual, there is no need to use a microSD card as internal storage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No way to read or write in ext4 in pc???

jaswinprakash said:
No way to read or write in ext4 in pc???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Possible, on Linux

Ranpe said:
Possible, on Linux
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But its still encrypted, so that won't help I guess. Also once you flash your phone or something, the contents won't be available anymore I think. It's just a guess though, I don't know how it is decrypted and all.
Sent from my MotoG3-TE using XDA Forums

jaswinprakash said:
No way to read or write in ext4 in pc???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems to be not possible out of your phone by anyway since it is encrypted.
I don't not know whether it is possible to extract encryption key from phone and decrypt the files using this key but this shouldn't be possible because of security reasons.
No one desires access to the important files in the sd card if it is captured by any one else.

darkRd said:
It seems to be not possible out of your phone by anyway since it is encrypted.
I don't not know whether it is possible to extract encryption key from phone and decrypt the files using this key but this shouldn't be possible because of security reasons.
No one desires access to the important files in the sd card if it is captured by any one else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is possible done it in my Lenovo A328. Courtesy of this mod:
http : / / forum.xda-developers.com / android / development / rom-flight-a328-custom-rom-based-150429-t3137708

Adoptable storage

Decided to start using this yesterday, was a sort of on the whim decision.
I have a 32 gig S7 and a 64 gig sd card, it is an expensive samsung SDHC EVO UHS card. (they cheaper now but was expensive when I purchased).
So previously I had internal memory which was the phone's internal storage, obviously this is not the full 32 gig as a chunk is partitioned off for OS usage.
SD card as portable storage formatted using exFAT
I noticed first when I installed superman rom I couldnt make /data F2FS, tkkg explained it is because alot of the scripts used to install the likes of magisk etc. do not support F2FS so my internal is ext4, but I managed to make the cache filesystem F2FS at least.
Likewise yesterday I discovered using the portable sdcard as F2FS is also not supported, the rom wont auto mount it and a notification appears saying its corrupted. Since I had already wiped the SD to change filesystem I decided to try adoptable storage, I enabled using the adb method and using the mixed mode so not the full sdcard is adoptable storage, in my case I chose a 50/50 split bearing in mind nandroid backups are huge, to do one single backup I need 12 gig free on the portable sdcard storage.
Interestingly I discovered the partition used for the adoptable storage is F2FS , it gets mounted under /mnt/expand/{some long random id}, I dont know the exact criteria for how parts of data get moved there but 1.8gig was utilised from the off.
Knowing its F2FS which is more resilient than exFAT, I have already moved titanium backups to the adoptable storage away from the portable sdcard storage and I plan to also move media to it as well that is currently on the portable storage.
My free space that is available for internal use is now moved from 13.6gig free out of max 25 gig to 36gig free out of a max 55gig.
I have one warning tho, I have already raised this on github to the TWRP dev's, from what I can see TWRP is not adoptable storage aware. The F2FS partition is not auto mounted in TWRP and I cannot even find a way to manually mount it (in the GUI), since some stuff from /data will get moved there it means when a nandroid backup is done parts of /data may be excluded that are sitting on the adoptable storage. Not a big deal if you doing a backup to test something, and then if you restore, its done close to when the backup is taken, but if the restore is done a long time after the backup the adoptable storage been out of sync might be an issue.
I welcome further thoughts from people.
update TWRP devs say it is supported but might be an issue with mixed mode which I will provide them more info on later.

attaching speed test
first sdcard is exfat second is f2fs Adoptable

I'm really confused what you are trying to show? Are you claiming that your sd card somehow becomes faster as adoptable storage?

I dont know if it is actually faster but it does benchmark faster probably due to using F2FS instead of exFAT.
The main reason I am preferring F2FS as it has more resilience than exFAT whilst still been fast.

Ok a little update, after my failed aatempt to upgrade to a 128 gig card, I restored the nandroid backup which I made before I first inserted the 128gig card.
Now the adopted storage is not been mounted by android, I wont be doing anything about this now as I have another 128 gig card arriving tommorow at which point I will need to setup mixed storage on that anyway, but it seems if you try to make another adoptable storage on new card, even if you have a nandroid backup, the previous adoptable storage is not preserved, suggesting the settings for it are not configurdd in a location that is included in nandroid backups.
I am not aware of a process that allows an already created adoptable storage partition to get remounted, I assume I would need to wipe the sd card again and rerun the commands to set it up which is not very user friendly.
It was running perfectly fine until I tried to make a new storage on my 128gig card, but is flawed if you are swapping out sd cards.

ok some clarification on the bench figures.
The red scard is the portable sdcard storage.
The yellow sdcard is actually the phone internal memory.
Internal memory is the adoptable storage.
So the F2FS isnt miles faster which makes sense as F2FS is supposed to be very close to exFAT in performance, faster than ext4 but not so much exFAT, however it has exFAT levels of performance with better data integrity mechanisms (exFAT has no safety mechanisms).
I found this out in two ways.
The internal memory test failed when I accidently left the bench folder read only in the adoptable storage.
I also added a custom location test of /sdcard which matched the yellow sdcard scores.
The question now is that is the slower write performance of a evo+ card going to be noticeable versus the internal storage speeds. So far indications seem no, also that by default my camera was writing to the sdcard anyway and has always worked fine.
It seems what goes on the mnt/expand or on /sdcard when device storage is specified is automatically decided by an algorithm.
Those who are want to use adoptable storage and have concerns over write speeds, there is pretty fast sdcards out there like the samsung pro which has 90mB writesm, but I think that card can only go up to 64gig in size.

adoptable storage on z4/z3+

friends...adoptable storage is now available without root and without unlocking bootloader....
(Source http://www.modaco.com/news/android/h...s7-edge-r1632/)
In order to set adoptable storage up, you will need a computer with working 'adb' and, of course, a microSD card in your phone, the faster the better (I personally use a 128GB EVO+ in my own device. Here's the process!
1. BACK UP THE DATA YOU HAVE ON YOUR MICROSD CARD. Your card will be formatted by this process, so make sure you have saved any pictures, videos etc. from your card to your PC before you start.
2. Decide how you want to split your card. You can either commit 100% of the card to internal storage, or split between internal storage and conventional SD. This option is useful if you like to unplug your card and put it in your PC. I would probably recommend committing the whole card.
3. Open your command window / terminal on your computer and type the 'adb shell' command (with your phone connected of course). You will need to enable USB debugging in developer settings (which in turn is displayed by tapping the build number of the device 5 times) in order to see the option.
4. Type 'sm list-disks' to list the disks available for adoption. It'll look something like "179,64" - take note of the disk ID (disk:179,64 in this example).
5. Partition the disk. For this we use the 'sm partition DISK TYPE RATIO' command. For example, to partition the disk above as fully adopted storage (aka private) I'd use the command 'sm partition disk:179,64 private'. If I wanted a 50/50 split between adopted and regular, I'd use the command 'sm partition disk:179,64 mixed 50'. "working for me" on 64 gb sd card"
its Easy right?
6. This process will take a while, but when it's done, the Settings -> Additional Settings -> Storage view on your device should show the new Internal Storage. Note that, for some reason, the total space isn't reported correctly as you can see in this image, however everything seems to work OK. When you install apps, they will generally install automatically to the storage with the most space available, although you can manually move things around if you want to, perhaps for performance reasons (the real Internal storage will likely always be a bit faster).

Tried it a while ago, it breaks the camera, i can't take any pictures, it keeps saying invalid storage and i cant change it.

SD card for app storage

I'm using a 400GB SD card. I saw a comment about creating 2 different partitions on it as I want to use part of it for app storage and the other part for file storage, The second partition would be exFAT so I can remove the card and transfer my books, music, etc. to it by attaching the SD card to my laptop as I understand that Windows would not be able to recognize the partition that would be formatted as internal storage. I did format the SD card using my laptop as two separate partitions. My Samsung Galaxy Tab A saw both partitions. I selected the 96GB partition as I wanted to use that for app storage and selected the option to use it as internal storage. Unfortunately when I did that, it appears that the system set the whole CD card up for internal storage. Does anyone have any insight on how to accomplish this - use part of the SD card for internal storage and part of it for storage that would be recognizable by Windows? Thank you very much.

I have not tried, so take the advice as a suggestion, perhaps android can be "fooled", which I doubt.
After creating a bulk partition in android, move the SD to Windows and resize that partition, and create a second partition on the remaining capacity and hide it.
Now move the SD back to android and see what happens.
If android will reformat the partitions again then I can't advise anything else.
However, if android accepts the memory, then the next step is to discover the partition in Windows and recheck the SD in android.

ze7zez said:
I have not tried, so take the advice as a suggestion, perhaps android can be "fooled", which I doubt.
After creating a bulk partition in android, move the SD to Windows and resize that partition, and create a second partition on the remaining capacity and hide it.
Now move the SD back to android and see what happens.
If android will reformat the partitions again then I can't advise anything else.
However, if android accepts the memory, then the next step is to discover the partition in Windows and recheck the SD in android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I was trying to work on that and now the Android Storage module (in Settings) keeps crashing when I open it. IDK what happened here. I've reformatted the SD card, I've removed the SD card, I've rebooted the table multiple times. I'm almost to the point of having to restore the tablet from scratch ... again.

Try this:
Link2SD - Apps on Google Play
Complete app management, move to SD, clear cache, remove bloatware and more
play.google.com

JR1979 said:
I'm using a 400GB SD card. I saw a comment about creating 2 different partitions on it as I want to use part of it for app storage and the other part for file storage, The second partition would be exFAT so I can remove the card and transfer my books, music, etc. to it by attaching the SD card to my laptop as I understand that Windows would not be able to recognize the partition that would be formatted as internal storage. I did format the SD card using my laptop as two separate partitions. My Samsung Galaxy Tab A saw both partitions. I selected the 96GB partition as I wanted to use that for app storage and selected the option to use it as internal storage. Unfortunately when I did that, it appears that the system set the whole CD card up for internal storage. Does anyone have any insight on how to accomplish this - use part of the SD card for internal storage and part of it for storage that would be recognizable by Windows? Thank you very much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're trying to convert a partition in sd card as internal storage and leave the rest as an external storage. Not possible as far as I know.

TheMystic said:
You're trying to convert a partition in sd card as internal storage and leave the rest as an external storage. Not possible as far as I know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats a bummer but that is what I was feeling was going to be the outcome. I guess I'll just go with it as internal storage then and be rlefated to wireless transfer of my books, etc. To the tablet. Any thoughts on why my Storage module keeps crashing now? Something definitely went nuts somewhere along the way here. It was running fine.. until I start poking around with this. I'll probably just do a rebuild again tonight.. if I can find my steps notes.

I also don't think it's possible to do what you have in mind. It's also important to remember that Windows will only mount the first partition of an SD card. It won't see any other partitions without 3rd party software installed.

JR1979 said:
Thats a bummer but that is what I was feeling was going to be the outcome. I guess I'll just go with it as internal storage then and be rlefated to wireless transfer of my books, etc. To the tablet. Any thoughts on why my Storage module keeps crashing now? Something definitely went nuts somewhere along the way here. It was running fine.. until I start poking around with this. I'll probably just do a rebuild again tonight.. if I can find my steps notes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The reason people want a micro SD card is to be able to move it around between devices, so it is not a good idea to convert it into 'internal storage' for two reasons:
1. You can no longer move the card around (not without reformatting it again).
2. This process would significantly slow down the system if the OS starts saving apps, data and files on the micro SD card because it sees this space as internal storage.
Because of how you partitioned the SD card and tried converting only a part of it as internal storage, my guess is the process caused corruption somewhere, and the system is crashing because of that. I'm afraid you'll have to do a factory reset and start from scratch. I hope your files are safe.

JR1979 said:
I'm using a 400GB SD card. I saw a comment about creating 2 different partitions on it as I want to use part of it for app storage and the other part for file storage, The second partition would be exFAT so I can remove the card and transfer my books, music, etc. to it by attaching the SD card to my laptop as I understand that Windows would not be able to recognize the partition that would be formatted as internal storage. I did format the SD card using my laptop as two separate partitions. My Samsung Galaxy Tab A saw both partitions. I selected the 96GB partition as I wanted to use that for app storage and selected the option to use it as internal storage. Unfortunately when I did that, it appears that the system set the whole CD card up for internal storage. Does anyone have any insight on how to accomplish this - use part of the SD card for internal storage and part of it for storage that would be recognizable by Windows? Thank you very much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should NEVER use an SD card for internal storage. They are MUCH to slow for that purpose. Today's SoC have RAM chips mounted directly on top and are several times faster than the fastest SD card bus. And low end tablets, which includes ALL Tab A devices, use a USB bus with limited bandwidth. So using faster SD cards is pointless as they will still only be as fast as the bus. SD cards are fine for storing video, audio, text and downloaded files, but NOT for running apps. Doing so will cause the device to be laggy at best, and cause crashes at worst.

blaacksheep said:
I also don't think it's possible to do what you have in mind. It's also important to remember that Windows will only mount the first partition of an SD card. It won't see any other partitions without 3rd party software installed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The two partitions on the USB flash drive can be seen* in Windows without third-party software.
*I don't have an English Windows interface.

ze7zez said:
The two partitions on the USB flash drive can be seen* in Windows without third-party software.
*I don't have an English Windows interface.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I meant that it won't mount the second partition, although you can see it in Disk Manager.

blaacksheep said:
I meant that it won't mount the second partition, although you can see it in Disk Manager.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Windows 10 mounts both of these partitions, assigns them letters and you can use them (read and write).

ze7zez said:
Windows 10 mounts both of these partitions, assigns them letters and you can use them (read and write).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I stand corrected! Previous versions of Windows could not do that.

ze7zez said:
The two partitions on the USB flash drive can be seen* in Windows without third-party software.
*I don't have an English Windows interface.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Something strange in that attachment. Since when do Android SD cards have NTFS partitions? As far as I know, the internal storage partitions that Windows couldn't read were formated as Ext3 or Ext4 and the external as either FAT32 or exFAT.

lewmur said:
Something strange in that attachment. Since when do Android SD cards have NTFS partitions? As far as I know, the internal storage partitions that Windows couldn't read were formated as Ext3 or Ext4 and the external as either FAT32 or exFAT.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't suggest the volume label. Partition K: is FAT. The example shows that Windows can show two partitions on a USB stick.

ze7zez said:
Don't suggest the volume label. Partition K: is FAT. The example shows that Windows can show two partitions on a USB stick.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course it can. It can show several. But NOT the two partitions created on an Android SD card because one of then is formated in a file system Windows doesn't recognize and that is what the poster was talking about.
edit: Disk Manager will actually show the partition but it won't be assigned a drive letter because Windows can't mount it.