Repartition SD card after Clockwork Recovery setup

[Guest kongo09]

I'm running MCR v9 with ClockworkMod Recovery 2.5.0.7 and a2sd+ vom MCR v9

Using Ubuntu 10.10 and ADB I can see the partition table:

# ./parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 print

Model: SD SU16G (sd/mmc)

Disk /dev/block/mmcblk0: 15.9GB

Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B

Partition Table: msdos


Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags

 1      512B    15.4GB  15.4GB  primary  fat32        lba

 2      15.4GB  15.9GB  512MB   primary  ext3[/codebox]

Now, I would like to change this setup and enlarge my second partition and create a third partition.

Can someone please enlighten me how to do this. I've searched a lot and read a lot and most people say that this is easy and simple and I should just Google it or forget it if I don't know how to do it.

By the way, I'm running Ubuntu 10.10 and tried gparted on /dev/sdb but that doesn't even see the partition table. It reports the space of partition 1 as unallocated and doesn't show partition 2.

[Guest EddyOS]

1. Download the GPartEd Live CD .ISO image from here:

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php

2. Burn to a CD

3. Boot PC from it

4. Select SD card

5. Resize partitions

Best to do this with a card reader as opposed to through the phone

[Guest kongo09]

1. Download the GPartEd Live CD .ISO image from here:

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php

Thanks for the reply. So essentially you're saying that it makes a difference to use GPartEd from a Live CD vs. from a running Linux system. I'll try that right away and report back.

[Guest kongo09]

I'll try that right away and report back.

Sorry, but this doesn't work at all. The only difference to using my Ubuntu is that the Live CD boots a Debian image and then runs GPartEd pretty much the same way as my Ubuntu does. It then recognizes the HTC Desire on /dev/sdf (or so) instead of /dev/sdb

However, it still shows the 15 GiB of my first FAT 32 partition as "unallocated" and the second partition simply doesn't show at all. I tried this on two different machines with the same result each time. I don't have a card reader for micro-SD cards.

Can anyone shed some light on this? Any other way to partition? Command line? Recovery?

[Guest EddyOS]

Missed you are running Linux - in which case you just use GPartEd in that

You could flash AmonRA to partition the card again (or CWM if you're on a version which supports it) but back up the SD card content first

Also, invest in a microSD adapter - saves hassle

EDIT: OR backup the SD card in Windows and then use GPartEd to completely format the SD card and partition from scratch (again, get a microSD adapter as doing it through the phone is too much work)

Edited February 2, 2011 by EddyOS

[Guest kongo09]

Missed you are running Linux - in which case you just use GPartEd in that

Well, as I said, this doesn't work as it doesn't read the partition table properly. The space of the first partition is recognized as "unallocated" and the space of the second partition doesn't even show.

You could flash AmonRA to partition the card again

I will look into that.

Also, invest in a microSD adapter - saves hassle

Does this show my card differently from the phone? Or could it be that ClockworkMod uses some strange way of partitioning the card?

EDIT: OR backup the SD card in Windows and then use GPartEd to completely format the SD card and partition from scratch (again, get a microSD adapter as doing it through the phone is too much work)

Can I completely wipe the card with GPartEd even if it doesn't see its full space (only space of the first partition)?

Thanks for the help!

[Guest EddyOS]

Once completely formatted then surely you can set the FAT32 partition and then the EXT after it?

I find it easier to do it away from the phone as there's no way the phone can have an affect on the outcome. Just personal preference

[Guest kongo09]

Once completely formatted then surely you can set the FAT32 partition and then the EXT after it?

Ok, I took your advice and wiped the whole card. As I didn't see the full card in GPartEd, I've installed AmonRa recovery and used that to partition the card with one big partition. Then I went over to GPartEd which just like before saw only unallocated space. In GParted I've created my three partitions (one large FAT32 and two Ext4) and Ubuntu right away mounted these as three new drives.

So far so good. Back in Android, I now have the weird situation that the phone does not see these three partitions. I've moved my backup back to the FAT32 but Android itself does not see it at all, not even from the Recovery. So in effect, I cannot flash any ROM. Even more strange, I took a photo that indeed was stored somewhere on the SD card, but not on my new three partitions. I can see it from Recovery but I cannot find it on any of the three mounted drives I see from Linux.

This whole thing amazes me more and more and I don't understand how people keep saying that this is easy stuff.

[Guest danfrance]

Ok, I took your advice and wiped the whole card. As I didn't see the full card in GPartEd, I've installed AmonRa recovery and used that to partition the card with one big partition. Then I went over to GPartEd which just like before saw only unallocated space. In GParted I've created my three partitions (one large FAT32 and two Ext4) and Ubuntu right away mounted these as three new drives.

So far so good. Back in Android, I now have the weird situation that the phone does not see these three partitions. I've moved my backup back to the FAT32 but Android itself does not see it at all, not even from the Recovery. So in effect, I cannot flash any ROM. Even more strange, I took a photo that indeed was stored somewhere on the SD card, but not on my new three partitions. I can see it from Recovery but I cannot find it on any of the three mounted drives I see from Linux.

This whole thing amazes me more and more and I don't understand how people keep saying that this is easy stuff.

Whats the second EXT partition for?

[Guest kongo09]

Whats the second EXT partition for?

I was trying to install CoolZ ROM with data2ext which requires two Ext 4 partitions. I ended up wiping the card with AmonRA and partitioning it inside AmonRA. I also experimented with partioning it by hand using ADB and parted but that turned out to be difficult in terms of getting dimensions right.

[Guest tigris666]

It could be a dodgy SD card. I bought some cheap nasty 32gb card off ebay, and every time I tried to partition it with gparted, it would tell me it worked fine, then next time I plugged it in, all partitions except the first one would show as unallocated.

When I went and bought a nice class 6 16gb card, paid a fair bit more but oh well, it works flawlessy. I did exactly the same stuff I was doing with the other card, and it was working with the new one. So seems to me, there are some dodgy cards out there and you may rip your hair out for days not knowing what you are doing wrong, when in fact you are doing nothing wrong other than dealing with a dodgy SD card.