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I have a question that is more android-in-general than Nook specific. I am trying this out on my Nook first, as it is an unbrickable device, before tinkering with my target device (a phone). My phone also does not have Clockworkmod recovery support, so a bricked device would be fatal.
I am attempting to increase the memory available for installed apps. My phone has limited space, but a bunch of pre-installed junk that I thought I might be able to get rid of in order to make more space for more apps. Knowing that simply deleting these pre-installed apps from the /system folder does really nothing, I set about making and editing an image file from the /system partition, then reflashing this image back to phone. As I am trying this on the Nook first, here is what I did:
1. Adb into the Nook and dd the system partition to a system.img file on the sd card.
2. Copy the system.img file to my desktop and mount the image.
3. Edit the image, removing the LiveWallpapers.apk file (a hefty ~3M file), then save the result back out as a new system.img.
4. Copy the new system.img to the sd card, then adb back into the Nook and dd the system.img from the sd card back to the system partition.
Everything appeared to work fine. The Nook boots, runs fine, and the LiveWallpapers.apk file is nowhere to be seen. Problem is, there is no difference in the available memory on the device.
In retrospect, I suppose I should not have expected there to be a difference. I am under the impression that the system partition is a read-only partition, and that extra space on this partition is not available for installation of apps. I am guessing that in order to increase the memory available, I would need to resize the data partition.
So, ultimately, my question is whether or not this is correct. Do I need to resize the data partition in order to actually get more memory available for apps, or is there an easier way? If I would need to resize the partition, how would I go about doing this, and would I need to take this extra space away from the system partition (the extra memory would need to come from somewhere, I imagine). I would envision removing bloatware from the system partition, shrinking that partition as I would no longer need that much space, and giving that extra memory to the data partition. Bear in mind that I need to do all of this through adb as I will not have Clockworkmod recovery on my target device.
Alternatively, I could be out my gourd and none of this makes any sense. Feel free to let me know if this is the case.
Thanks!
You've got it right.
The Nook emmc has partitions for boot, rom, system, data, and media. Originally data was 1g and media (/emmc under CM7) was 5g, newer models have reversed this. Data is where apps and their data go.
There are threads here about repartitioning newer Nooks with lots of good discussion. It sounds like you are capable (or want to be capable) of creating a custom partition scheme; there's enough info there for you to do that.
Experimenting with an 8g SD card might be a good place to get familiar with the tools. The "size-agnostic" installer will use a pre-partitioned SD if it finds one IIRC.
Good luck!
Sent from my NookColor using xda premium
xdajunkman said:
I have a question that is more android-in-general than Nook specific. I am trying this out on my Nook first, as it is an unbrickable device, before tinkering with my target device (a phone). My phone also does not have Clockworkmod recovery support, so a bricked device would be fatal.
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just wanted to re-iterate the importance of what you said here.
I have sent several people off to buy Nook Colors who were interested in developing for android, for this very reason.
Nothing else you can get your hands on ( to my knowledge ) is as safe of a dev-tool as the Nook Color, because of the first boot to sd-card.
It doesn't matter what you do to it, at the end of the day you'll have a working device unless you throw it down the stairs or something.
Bonus points for running an sd-install directly, because when you hose it you just reflash a new microsd card.
Can't reformat the card because windows only reads the boot partition? No problem - if you still have your Nook Color with it's stock software just boot it up and pop the microsd card in. The B & N software in the Nook Color will just format the card, without a care in the world for any existing partition schemes or whatnot.
You're on the right track for what you're trying to do, as the previous poster has pointed out, so just wanted to give you another vote of confidence letting you know you're doing all the right things for all the right reasons.
Thanks for the replies!
You know, I actually did the repartition of my Nook using the CWR zip file. I hadn't thought to go look through the original thread for the manual instructions. As you pointed out, I found the directions here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=13971291&postcount=110
The only problem is that his instructions require that you boot from the SD card in order to manipulate your interal memory. This is fine and good on the Nook, but not possible with my phone. Any idea what would happen if I tried to repartition the internal memory while booting from the internal memory? Seems that this would not be possible....or at least wrought with peril. I think that my phone can boot into a fastboot mode, but have not tried that...anyone know if this would help?
Perhaps I am just playing with fire here and need to settle for cramped memory space on my phone. I am just too accustomed to my 5GB of available app space on my Nook.
Thanks again.
Well, after some more Googling, I think I might abandon the repartitioning bit. I think I am likely to brick my phone, even though I think I could do it manually on the Nook. In addition, it appears that many phones are set up so that the kernel resets the internal memory partitioning on boot....so I might also need to mess with the kernel to get this to stick. This is beyond my skill set and really not worth my turning my phone into a paperweight.
I thought of a bit of a workaround, however. As I can extract and edit the image of the system partition, I will simply install the apps that I will eventually want on my phone on my Nook instead, extract the apk's from the Nook, then insert them into the system image file from my phone. Reflashing the system image then puts these apps into the system partition instead of the data partition, effectively saving me hoards of space on my data partition. A bit laborious, but for several core apps that I know I will want and that are memory hogs, I think it will be worth it.
Anyone see any problem with this approach?
Hi, I'm rocking the latest CM7 nightly, which doesn't support WebTop, so I have a 1GB+ partition just taking up space of my precious storage (which is very limited since I only have a 2GB SD card for now). I just read this article, could this be used to get rid of the webtop partition (and possibly shrink the /data as well)?
+1
Sent from my MB860 using XDA
nm, was thinking erase and not deleting the partition.
CaelanT said:
nm, was thinking erase and not deleting the partition.
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Yeah, I saw it in the update email, lol
even deleting the partition, the memory of it won't be relocated to anywhere else, DONT DO THAT IF YOU ARENT A DEVELOPER WHO KNOWS WHAT IS DOING! =)
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
You need to be able to edit the partition tables somehow, deleting the webtop partition and expanding the sdcard partition. Not sure how we can get a utility on the phone to do it. Id imagine it would be best to do it from a recovery so you wouldn't be using the internal storage partition while trying to do it. I don't think any simple and easy solution exists for this.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
I'm not a dev, but I'm quite knoelegable in general stuff (like partition maps, filesystems, etc) and a fast learner. That said, your right on that I probably shouldn't just go out and try it, and since I don't want to lose my little baby to a hardbrick, I was never planning on trying anything out. I posted the link to see if anyone had tried that method on an Atrix, or if someone knoelegable (or with a bunch of high end smartphones lying around) could try. I also must admit I haven't really read the thread & post linked in the article: I have a very busy week and this isn't something to do in a rush.
I'm also interested in this. I'll be following this thread to see if a solution comes up.
Silly suggestion: how about taking the card out and hooking it up with a proper PC. Copy the contents out of it to a temporary location. Then reformat the card to the full capacity and then re-copy all the items back in after. Reformat may have some issues if you are using Windows to try and rid of the EXT partition, but there are plenty of Partitioning programs out there that will kill it (including the native command prompt one called Diskpart).
bchliu said:
Silly suggestion: how about taking the card out and hooking it up with a proper PC. Copy the contents out of it to a temporary location. Then reformat the card to the full capacity and then re-copy all the items back in after. Reformat may have some issues if you are using Windows to try and rid of the EXT partition, but there are plenty of Partitioning programs out there that will kill it (including the native command prompt one called Diskpart).
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Click to collapse
We are talking about the internal storage (which is not removable as far as I know), not the MicroSD card.
adriangb said:
We are talking about the internal storage (which is not removable as far as I know), not the MicroSD card.
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The OP: "Hi, I'm rocking the latest CM7 nightly, which doesn't support WebTop, so I have a 1GB+ partition just taking up space of my precious storage (which is very limited since I only have a 2GB SD card for now). I just read this article, could this be used to get rid of the webtop partition (and possibly shrink the /data as well)?"
Notice the SD card comment..
bchliu said:
The OP: "Hi, I'm rocking the latest CM7 nightly, which doesn't support WebTop, so I have a 1GB+ partition just taking up space of my precious storage (which is very limited since I only have a 2GB SD card for now). I just read this article, could this be used to get rid of the webtop partition (and possibly shrink the /data as well)?"
Notice the SD card comment..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, but the webtop partition is on internal storage (unless you are using webtop2sd).
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
bchliu said:
The OP: "Hi, I'm rocking the latest CM7 nightly, which doesn't support WebTop, so I have a 1GB+ partition just taking up space of my precious storage (which is very limited since I only have a 2GB SD card for now). I just read this article, could this be used to get rid of the webtop partition (and possibly shrink the /data as well)?"
Notice the SD card comment..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was only to point out a possible reason for which I would want to do this, since I probably wouldn't care too much about 1GB of internal storage if I had a 32GB SD card.
U can format the partition by fastboot erase webtop command but other then that u cant use that space for other purposes and as far as i can tell there are certain number of partitions in atrix system (ever one is for some specific thing).
SO my suggestion is DO not completely delete the partition insted make it so small (as small as possible) and reallocate all of the free space to system partition (where user and preinstalled apps are installed. this way no natural order of flashing and backup will be disturbed and we will get extra space for applications and stuff.
Possible problems (unable to flash SBF through RSDlite) {Who flash thins via RDS now any ways ?}
if flashed rom with webtop (bluer bassed ROMs) then there is strong possibility that webtop partition so small unable to flash webtop causing aborted flasing process.
xateeq said:
U can format the partition by fastboot erase webtop command but other then that u cant use that space for other purposes and as far as i can tell there are certain number of partitions in atrix system (ever one is for some specific thing).
SO my suggestion is DO not completely delete the partition insted make it so small (as small as possible) and reallocate all of the free space to system partition (where user and preinstalled apps are installed. this way no natural order of flashing and backup will be disturbed and we will get extra space for applications and stuff.
Possible problems (unable to flash SBF through RSDlite) {Who flash thins via RDS now any ways ?}
if flashed rom with webtop (bluer bassed ROMs) then there is strong possibility that webtop partition so small unable to flash webtop causing aborted flasing process.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True, I hadn't thought of that. CWM flashs could probably work fine, or be modified to do so, but sbf I don't know, and sbf is useful to recover from a softbrick (I had to do so once, I don't remember th exact circumstance thou).
Some dev who knoes what he is doing would have to check this and see if there is a possible workaround (like the one you gave).
Sent from my MB860
in soft brick u can access fastboot so no need to flash SBF just flash recover and from it mount storage as a mass storage on pc and copy rom and flash. i do it all the times.
last time i used rsd was to flash unlock bootloader sbf.
xateeq said:
in soft brick u can access fastboot so no need to flash SBF just flash recover and from it mount storage as a mass storage on pc and copy rom and flash. i do it all the times.
last time i used rsd was to flash unlock bootloader sbf.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I know, I don't remember what tje exact circumstance was, but maybe I just had the sbf laying around, it's irrelevant to the thread anyways (as is this post). I was just trying to point out that it's just better if we can keep the sbf fladhing capibility, even if it's only to be able to return it under warranty (althou I'm pretty sure you can also flash stock ROMs under CWM, granted someone made a zip out of it).
Maybe there is a way of tricking the phone into thinking the webtop partition is an sd card after it's re-formatted. Like formatting it into a fat32 partition and have some command to mount it.
i will never use webtop, its just some space useless to me =[
i have found a purfect solution to webtop extras space problem.
BUY A BIGGER CAPACITY MEMORY CARD
Every thing els dont have to change, give developers some time they will find some webtop replacement and we r gona love it.
It's been bugging me for a while that the system partition sizes are so huge, and I only get a little over 9GB for actual storage. Specifially the cache, of which I'm only using 104/2037MB, and the system, of which I'm only using 485/2717MB.
Is there any way to resize these partitions to give me more room for storage? I'm looking into making a new partition on my sd card, but that still doesn't solve the stupidly huge cache/system partitions.
There is also the issue of the missing space. As far as I can tell, my phone only has 14892MB in total, not the advertised 16GB. I understand that usable space is frequently lower than advertised on storage devices, but this is a little bit too much.
I've researched this but couldn't find anything useful. Maybe my google-fu is low haha.
Thanks in advance.
Bump.
Masterjuggler said:
Bump.
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Click to collapse
I've been looking for a way to do this as well. I feel like I'm wasting at least a good 3gb that could be used for installing some larger games or something. As far as I can tell, there is a way to do it on another variant of the S4, involving using odin to flash a Chinese version of the stock rom(specifically the PIT file) which repartitions the storage. But it only works on that variant, and won't work for us. No way to do it on the sph-l720, at least none that I can find.
I was thinking I could reclaim some of the system partition by taking any apps that are essential to me, and converting them to system apps. But since the system partition gets wiped every time I update the rom, which is very frequently, that would be a disaster.
Why? It's been stuck at 60.5mb used and 1.2GB free according to Diskinfo forever now. Ever since I restored Madvane's unrooted B180 backup & then flashed root with Magisk.
Why does it bother me? Because I have no idea what I'm talking about and I feel like maybe Cache is storing in the Data Partition where I install my apps...? Is it?
Also with 1.2GB free in the Cache parition & 1.2GB free in the System Partition, can I just partition those and make the Data partition bigger for more available Internal Storage for apps and stuff? I mean I have external storage as default location but so many files still get installed on internal and I'd like to expand that if I could alter these partitions.
Anybody done that before or can answer my questions? Thanks! Images attached
Anyone ?
I have not read of anyone here repartitioning internal storage. I don't think it's as simple as repartitioning a PC hard drive with a GUI tool.
Do you have any tools in mind to do this repartitioning? I think it would be a highly risky operation, so be sure to make full backups and note all the original settings of existing partitions before repartitioning.
You can Google threads on people repartitioning internal storage for other phones, but note the ones who ran into problems and bricked their phones.
I wouldn't mess with the partition sizes, personally.. in theory it works, but it can trigger some arcane safeguards added by oems.
Try wiping the cache partition in twrp..? Could have gotten bugged, which would throw an error and require reformatting
Is there any indication of a problem with the cache partition?
It's biggest usage would be to download an OTA file, so unless that's happening, I would expect cache partition to remain remain mostly empty as OP reported. Probably what's in there is TWRP or stock recovery logs - you can confirm with a root file manager.
Wiping the cache partition as suggested won't harm anything and it would be interesting to know what it's reported usage is after wipe and reboot.
divineBliss said:
Is there any indication of a problem with the cache partition?
It's biggest usage would be to download an OTA file, so unless that's happening, I would expect cache partition to remain remain mostly empty as OP reported. Probably what's in there is TWRP or stock recovery logs - you can confirm with a root file manager.
Wiping the cache partition as suggested won't harm anything and it would be interesting to know what it's reported usage is after wipe and reboot.
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Click to collapse
I guess that was my question too. If there was any idication of an issue here. Seeing that free space I'd like to have it though.
On another note. There's no indication of anything being wrong with my Data partition but I formatted it to ext4 back when I bricked my phone in a hope it would fix something. But it seems fine. IDK what they default partition type was.
My data partition is ext4, which I believe is the stock default type.
divineBliss said:
My data partition is ext4, which I believe is the stock default type.
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Click to collapse
Thanks man you've been allot of help. Have you tried L-Speed? I'm thinking about trying it. I do have Kernel Auditiur installed. Don't use it.
Nothing is broke but thought about trying L-Speed.
Never heard of it. If you try it, let us know what you think.
WifiGhost said:
Thanks man you've been allot of help. Have you tried L-Speed? I'm thinking about trying it. I do have Kernel Auditiur installed. Don't use it.
Nothing is broke but thought about trying L-Speed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
divineBliss said:
Never heard of it. If you try it, let us know what you think.
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Click to collapse
I just tried it seems like a nice and easy way to tweak performance or battery.
I prefer kernel adiuator myself.. L Speed has too many generic settings which do next to nothing for actual performance, reminiscent of the many garbage tweak programs that have been out there for years. K.A. allowed for better control of the cpu governor settings, which allowed me to negate some of the impact of emui's 'battery optimization'. A little bit of entropy tweaking on top of that, and I no longer experience nearly the amount of choppiness
As I'm sure you all know, OnePlus 8 pro is a bit of a special case. We don't have twrp, so I can't partition that way, and we don't have parted in the terminal and I can't quite figure out how to install it. What I wanna do is add like 2gb to the system partition, does anyone know how?
Add 2gb for what exactly? You can't extend the partitions on the device itself. Normally you want the system partition as small as possible to free up more storage, but put simply if you want to extend the partition you would have to flash a system.img that has been extended.
This however would be pointless because having extra free space in the system partition does nothing as nothing writes to system outside of a software update.
superchilpil said:
Add 2gb for what exactly? You can't extend the partitions on the device itself. Normally you want the system partition as small as possible to free up more storage, but put simply if you want to extend the partition you would have to flash a system.img that has been extended.
This however would be pointless because having extra free space in the system partition does nothing as nothing writes to system outside of a software update.
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Click to collapse
Flashing extra stuff my dude, there's plenty of reasons to extend your partition, and that's an extremely roundabout way to do it
Like i mentioned earlier, theres parted and fdisk, I'm just looking for usage commands or syntax, not reasons not to do it.
superchilpil said:
Add 2gb for what exactly? You can't extend the partitions on the device itself. Normally you want the system partition as small as possible to free up more storage, but put simply if you want to extend the partition you would have to flash a system.img that has been extended.
This however would be pointless because having extra free space in the system partition does nothing as nothing writes to system outside of a software update.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well you actually CAN extend system partition, my nexus 7 2013 and a lot of older devices have ways to do this. My nexus 7 2013 has 1.6gb of system partition so it can flash a11 ROMs.
yokonzo said:
Flashing extra stuff my dude, there's plenty of reasons to extend your partition, and that's an extremely roundabout way to do it
Like i mentioned earlier, theres parted and fdisk, I'm just looking for usage commands or syntax, not reasons not to do it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And we now have twrp
jamescable said:
And we now have twrp
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Latest OnePlus 8 pro fork of twrp is not working for me, that's the first thing I tried but unfortunately i can't even seem to do adb commands or mount a partition