I never thought I would ask this: how do I format my GS?

[Guest Firasco]

Hi everyone,

Okay I feel like a total noob. But I have been trying to just completely wipe the internal "SD" memory of my Galaxy Nexus... without success. I try to delete the folder separately after mounting but it's so slow and keep freezing.

I'm running MoDaCo ROM and it's also rooted. So I did format everything that I could format in the bootloader. The internal memory survives everything, including wipes and new ROMs etc.

Please help. I want that memory cleaned :)

[Guest gadgetshop]

I know its a different phone but I`ve just data wiped my galaxy S2 by entering settings > privacy > wipe, it then gave me the option to wipe internal memory

[Guest Firasco]

I know its a different phone but I`ve just data wiped my galaxy S2 by entering settings > privacy > wipe, it then gave me the option to wipe internal memory

Thanks for your reply. I already tried this more than once. The stuff is still on the internal memory. All the folder that were created by apps are still there. Like PhotoFunia app folder or Pulse etc

[Guest gadgetshop]

Have you tried format storage in settings? Or can you not format the card while connected to pc

[Guest jmagee]

I thought doing a factory reset wiped everything. I know rooting it did for me as I set it all up then rooted and lost everything.

[Guest djmcnz]

I thought doing a factory reset wiped everything. I know rooting it did for me as I set it all up then rooted and lost everything.

So you've got CWM installed.

Boot to recovery and using adb run:

adb shell rm -fr /data/media/

Which forces the deletion of the "sdcard" directory.

Highly destructive, be careful as it will also nuke all of your nandroid and Titanium backups... and I don't know if the phone will boot properly after this... and you might not even be able to install a rom from CWM afterward... you may need to recreate the /data/media directory (and leave it empty) for anything to even psudo-mount 'sdcard'.

However, if it monumentally cocks things up you can always fastboot flash the stock images.

[Guest Firasco]

Ohhh that sounds too risky. I can't believe there isn't a normal way to format that internal storage. Anyone an idea???

[Guest ratcom]

The only safe way I use is just before copying over a rom onto my phone for flashing is with root explorer (or any other file explorer)is to select everything and delete it. This means only your rom once dragged across is on the phone after formatting system / data / cache ect in cwm . Would be nice if someone got around to fixing cwm to format everything and then mount correctly ;)

[Guest kendon]

use the command like this:

adb shell rm -fr /data/media/*

then you should be fine. don't forget to mount "data" in cwm menu before.

[Guest Firasco]

use the command like this:

adb shell rm -fr /data/media/*

then you should be fine. don't forget to mount "data" in cwm menu before.

Thanks for your reply. Is that a safe method and have you tried it yourself?

Please let me know.

[Guest kendon]

i am a unix admin so i know what this command actually does. i would consider it safe. i rarely wipe my phones, so i havent used it.

[Guest Firasco]

Finally found a good solution through Galaxy Nexus ToolKit at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1392310

In the process of relocking and getting back stock ROM everything was wiped. FINALLY!