Noob Question - Yet another A2SD Partitioning

[Guest Miracle Boy]

Hi All,

Sorry to start yet another thead on this issue, but I've done a fair amout of research on this topic, probably too much, and now I'm confused as to what I should do.

I have a UK Spec Orange San Fran. It's currently running Flibblesan's Froyo G2 - R8a ROM (Great ROM!! Thanks Flibblesan!!!) With one of Frankish's lovely GB thin circle themes (Thanks Frankish!!!)

I have read the guides by ztedd & wbaw & they are good guides, but I've also read about a few horror stories on the XDA site, though they are mostly older posts from last year.

I have purchased a 8GB Sandisk class 2 SD card & it currently has 1 single primary partition on it (FAT32). I also purchased a USB to micro SD card adapter so I could, if easier, repartition the card without having to insert it into the phone & mount via USB.

I have read that I can either use the MiniTool Partition Wizard on a windows machine to repartition the card, or repartition it in clockwork recovery. I have CW v2.5.1.8 installed so I beleive partitioning should be successfull using that.

I currenly have no apps installed on the SD card as I have never tried using Move 2 SD to move anything over.

What I am unsure of is which of these two methods (clockwork or MT Partition Wizard) would be the most reliable, or safest way to go?

Do I need to back up the exitsing files on the SD card, then format the card before I repartition the card to create an ext partition? I'm guessing that if I resize the FAT32 partition to make space for the ext partition, the data on the FAT partition could or would be corrupted?

I intend to create a ext2 partition on the card. I was planning on making the ext2 partition 1024Mb in size, but I have read a lot of older threads that suggest that it is in some way "safer" to make the ext2 partition no greater than 512Mb in size. Is this still an issue with current ROM's?

Also, if I use clockwork to format the card & then create an ext2 partition, will clockwork automatically create the partition as the second and also primary partition?

If I use the MT Partition Wizard to create the ext2 partition on the card, assuming that I create it correctly i.e. FAT32 = First, Primary partition, ext2 = Second, Prmary partition, do I then just insert the card into my phone & boot it?, and then A2SD will see that a ext2 partition has been created & start to automaticlly move the apps installed in the (internal) system to the newly created ext2 partition on the SD card?, and then from now on, anything I Download from the market or Appbrain will be downloaded to the SD card automatically by default? Right?

I have no intentions of messing around with the internal system & date partitions on the phone. I doubt I'll end up installing that many apps to cause me any space issues in the future.

Sorry, this post has ended up being a lot more long winded that I had expected it to be :huh:

THANK YOU!!!

Edited March 3, 2011 by Miracle Boy

[Guest IronDoc]

Yes clockwork does it all for you.

Yes backup your data.

1GB is excessive, 512 would be more than enough.

And yeah it gets done automatically.

It symlinks /data so that android will think it's on the phone memory even though it's not.

Just skimmed your post so ask if you need more info.

Edited March 3, 2011 by IronDoc

[Guest Roo13]

Hi,

I too feel not at ease messing up withs apps, partitions,etc..., maybe you haven't seen this thread: http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-blad...to-new-sd-card/ which may interests you.

I made a full backup and restored only sd-ext, cause apps won't move themselves to the ext partition i guessed, and to be sure apps2sd doesn't install anything on the FAT32 you can install move2sd enabler to disable it :huh: or check periodically if it has..

You may take the advantage of those changes to update to r9b of the rom (r10b has a superuser issue for me so i can't really advise you to go that high) wich can be install without wipes.

Feel free to ask here or on the other thread.

[Guest Miracle Boy]

Hi,

I too feel not at ease messing up withs apps, partitions,etc..., maybe you haven't seen this thread: http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-blad...to-new-sd-card/ which may interests you.

I made a full backup and restored only sd-ext, cause apps won't move themselves to the ext partition i guessed, and to be sure apps2sd doesn't install anything on the FAT32 you can install move2sd enabler to disable it :( or check periodically if it has..

You may take the advantage of those changes to update to r9b of the rom (r10b has a superuser issue for me so i can't really advise you to go that high) wich can be install without wipes.

Feel free to ask here or on the other thread.

Ah, yes, I do remember stumbling onto this thread at some point. I should probably have asked my questions in the thread that you had already started. Ooops!!

@IronDoc, O.K. thanks for the info. I have had problems with windows drivers & not being able to mount (The Phone) via USB so I think I'll create the ext2 partition within clockwork, and then remove the SD card from the phone & compy all the old files that were on the FAT32 partition, back on to the FAT32 Partition using an USB to Micro SB adapter.

@Roo13, I'll let you know how the above goes!!

Cheers

[Guest IronDoc]

Copy the files before you partition or you risk losing some. Hopefully not too late.

I partitioned like a fool and lost all my titanium backups the other day :(

Edited March 3, 2011 by IronDoc

[Guest Roo13]

Copy the files before you partition or you risk losing some. Hopefully not too late.

I partitioned like a fool and lost all my titanium backups the other day :(

+1

About ext partition, i've been told it is ext3 that is made by CWM bu my previous SD partitionned by CWM was shown as ext2 in EASEUS, anyone has clue about that...? So far, it's made with EASEUS (CWM messed up the SD), still working and is 1GB..i'll see on long term..

[Guest Miracle Boy]

Copy the files before you partition or you risk losing some. Hopefully not too late.

I partitioned like a fool and lost all my titanium backups the other day :(

That's a shame mate, I hope you didn't loose anything you really needed.

I've already taken a back up of all the contents of my SD card. I backed up all the files on it when I replaced my OEM 2Gb sd card with the 8Gb Sandisk card I installed last night. I have a few clockwork backups on there, as well as a few Titanium Backups I did, but I doubt I'll roll back to any of them anyway, unless I have problems with my partition setup.

Thanks again for your help!!

[Guest Miracle Boy]

About ext partition, i've been told it is ext3 that is made by CWM bu my previous SD partitionned by CWM was shown as ext2 in EASEUS, anyone has clue about that...? So far, it's made with EASEUS (CWM messed up the SD), still working and is 1GB..i'll see on long term..

Sorry, but I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean. But, As far as I know, you can choose what type of partition you want to create in clockwork. (either ext2 or ext3) I'm not familiar with EASEUS, I'll have to google that;-)

Thanks

[Guest Roo13]

Sorry, but I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean. But, As far as I know, you can choose what type of partition you want to create in clockwork. (either ext2 or ext3) I'm not familiar with EASEUS, I'll have to google that;-)

Thanks

Can't remember, i did it few times and all i was asked about the ext partition was it's size...Don't know if you know, but you'll be asked too to choose swap size, it seems it's safer to leave at 0MB so SD isn't too much hurt by IOs on it

EASEUS isn't as powerful as gparted maybe but at least i could rebuild partitions CWM, or I more certainly :( but can't tell how, messed up..

[Guest Miracle Boy]

O.K. I hope I'm not speakin too soon, but I seem to have managed this without any trouble at all really. :(

This is what I did.

Booted phone into Clockwork recovery (I'm using v2.5.1.8)

selected "advanced" & then "Patrition SD card"

I was then prompted to choose the size of the partition. I was presented with a list of MB options, I chose 512Mb

Once that was completed by clockwork (only took about 20 seconds) I rebooted the phone.

On reboot, all seemed o.k., so I launched the market app & that came up ok (though I've not tried to download anything from it yet)

I then mounted the SD card through the phone via USB and backup up the three folders that were now there (most of te files I had previously on the card had vanished!!)

Then I deleted the three folders that were on the SD card.

Then I copied ALL the files from my prevoious (un-repartitioned state) back up back across to the SD card. and unmounted the sd card from the PC then remounted it to the phone.

Everything seems to be working o.k.

I've just downloaded a game "solitaire" from the market, just to make sure it would work o.k. and it worked just fine!! :(

IronDoc & Roo13, Thank you for all your help!!!

Roo13, I hope this will assist you in getting your sd card to function correctly.

As a side note. I shut the phone down & removed the SD card & put it into my USB to microSD card adapter & had a look at the card with the MiniTool Partition wizard. Is seems that although I wasn't given the option to choose whether I wanted an ext2 or ext3 partition, clockwork created it as an ext2 partition, which is what I wanted anyway!!

[Guest Roo13]

Roo13, I hope this will assist you in getting your sd card to function correctly.

It is working, it's just that each time i used CWM to create the partition the rest of the SD was un-formatable and un-mountable...The software i used made it right, so far 1GB ext2 works good.

Thanks for the feedback about CWM creating ext2 partition