G300 - I want to swap partitions AND install ICS, please help

[Guest derei]

Hello, I want to move on to ICS for my Huawei Ascend G300. I read about rooting, steps needed to install ICS and I think I can do that by myself.

What I don't know how to do is to swap partitions, as I have an external SD card and those 2GB of internal SD are just wasted. I would like to have that partition in use, instead of the ~750MB one.

Is this change Firmware independent? how to do it? Will it affect my android installation?

I'm just freaked out to not brick my phone.

Thank you in advance.

[Guest tcpaulh]

Modaco owner Paul has done it but we don't know exactly how...yet

[Guest Dazzozo]

It relies on a change to the ramdisk and recovery.

[Guest derei]

I'm a Android newbie... I just learned what ROM and FIRMWARE words mean :D ... so "ramdisk", seem to much for me right now.

Maybe we'll find out how the swap can be made.

[Guest tcpaulh]

It relies on a change to the ramdisk and recovery.

Recovery ramdisk rather than boot ramdisk I presume?

[Guest Dazzozo]

Recovery ramdisk rather than boot ramdisk I presume?

No, the boot ramdisk needs a change. it needs to know what partitions are to be mounted as what.

Recovery needs to treat /emmc as /data and /data as /emmc instead, and needs to format and back them up as so, so they need switching there too.

[Guest sandrogp]

Would be great to have a step by step guide aimed at newbies as to how to make this changes to the boot ramdisk and recovery. Or am I being too ambitious?

[Guest derei]

Indeed, a tutorial for swapping partitions would be great !

Thanks

[Guest KaterM]

I suggest you get yourself a text terminal app installed first, try out commands like

df, mount etc

RTFM on partitioning under Linux, Boot process and such ...

And think again.

You might even end up writing this tutorial yourself :-)

[Guest derei]

I suggest you get yourself a text terminal app installed first, try out commands like

df, mount etc

RTFM on partitioning under Linux, Boot process and such ...

And think again.

You might even end up writing this tutorial yourself :-)

Thanks for suggestions ... but at this point is like asking a monkey to pick assorted colors. It might be able to do it, if it mimics what it sees. But won't have a clue about what's doing.

I have no linux skills, nor android experience. I just know that I would like to better use my phone and I'm asking for guidance. Just changing my firmware to android 4 is a challenge for me, but I've seen step-by-step explanations and I am sure that I can follow that.

Now, If I could do some "magic" with phone's internal memory space, it would be neat.

Still hoping that someone will be willing to guide me trough this.

Thank you!

[Guest popoyaya]

With your enthusiasm I'm sure you will learn how to do it. After bricking your phone several times ;)

[Guest derei]

With your enthusiasm I'm sure you will learn how to do it. After bricking your phone several times

On this I agree with you. But I fail to understand how this kind of answers are meant to help me in my problem.

Do you speak on behalf of entire modaco community ? And thus express the unwillingness to help on this matter?

Or is just your way to show that you are "smart"?

[Guest Alkapton]

I know linux well, but not android. Daz is expert guru gurus go to for help.

From his hints above I cant figure how to swap pattitions. Daz too busu with cm10 (I hope) to write idiot guides so we must hope for the comming of one willing to translate uber geek into either geek or english.

[Guest fr0do]

This thread is nuts. If someone knew how to do what you're asking, it would be done already and you wouldn't need to ask. It's something everyone would want.

[Guest tcpaulh]

Somebody does know how to do it. Modaco Paul. He said he'd supply details. I've asked again since then but don't think he saw the message.

[Guest kyan31]

With your enthusiasm I'm sure you will learn how to do it. After bricking your phone several times ;)

:o ... :lol:

[Guest fr0do]

Somebody does know how to do it. Modaco Paul. He said he'd supply details. I've asked again since then but don't think he saw the message.

I don't think it's something safe enough to make public. It's published in its current form if you don't mind risking it. The op could just use that if that's what he wants.

I'm sure devs would be interested in getting it going. This is kinda horse before the cart territory. No disrespect intended. ;-)

[Guest MrPuddington]

Messing with partitions can be very dangerous - depending on how robust the boot routine is, you can easily brick the phone if you get it wrong. That's probably why you do not see a lot of experimentation here.

From experience, I would say there are two ways to achieve the goal. Paul did the "easy" think - the partition is still the same, but he swapped how they are being used. That requires changes in the boot process etc, so it may not be easy to replicate.

The second way is to change the partitioning itself - basically making the virtual SD card smaller, and the space for apps larger, without swapping them. With other phones (such as the ZTE Blade) that is quite easy, but maybe not with the G300.

[Guest krofinski]

Hi all,

IMHO, this is an even better approach, because you do not simply swap, but use BOTH partitions at the same time. Everything is explained in this old thread:

[Guest tcpaulh]