[MOD] G300 Int2sdext2

[Guest Cyda]

New update posted above. The mod no longer needs a PC for removal and can now be removed via a CWM flashable zip.

[Guest terry.n]

Cyda - Really brilliiant mate - thank you!

Quick question to anyone - if an app is already on the external SD card, should I move it back to phone before using link2Sd?

[Guest Colossae3.23]

yeah that's what I had to do. But you need enough room in the phone's memory first. So go through and link anything on phone first

EDIT:

opps, sorry read your post too fast. I did move all apps on my external card, to the phone, then linked them to the, "SD Card 2nd part" but not sure if makes a difference or not. Don't think it hurts anything

PS: you can do this all from Links2SD

Edited November 13, 2012 by Colossae3.23

[Guest Cyda]

The normal android move to sd should work fine side by side with this mod, there is even an option in Link2SD to do this so you should be able to choose if you want a file linked to the new sdext2 partition or moved to sd in the traditional sense. The benefit of using the Link2SD and sdext2 partition is that it doesn't get unmounted when you connect your USB and mount the sdcard so your apps are still accessible, where as with the normal move to sd your apps are not accessible whilst the sd card is mounted on your pc.

The only time I could see you needing to move apps around before installing this would be if you already had a 2nd partition setup on your sdcard and used it with Link2SD, as once this mod is installed it would take over and the apps on the 2nd partition would not be accessable unless you manually mounted it.

[Guest godsakes]

Hi Cyda, I feel like giving the new CM9 a try and would like to make a backup your excellent stock+ rom, but when I backup in Clockwork, once it gets to /datadata (I assume that's the modified 2gb internal partition) it errors saying it "can't mount /datadata..."

Is there no way of backing up the lot? do I just have to remove this mod before trying CM9 and forget about the backup?

[Guest Cyda]

I would have thought it would back the partition up, unless the version of CWM expects that partition to be vfat. Best thing would be to just remove it before trying CM9, you can always backup Stock+ after the mod has been removed and then re-apply it if you ever go back to the rom.

[Guest godsakes]

Thanks for the quick reply Cyda, think I've got a backup 2 days ago so that will do, after reading some of the wifi issues with CM9 I think I'll stick with yours until there's more updates from Daz

[Guest b4da55]

Thats where apps data is store and is due to a corrupt app .

[Guest Colossae3.23]

@Cyda

yeah mine didn't backup /datadata either. I've flashed CM9 now, but if wifi freezes continue I may need to nandroid back. I didn't remove your mod before the flash. If I want to go back, I'm guessing I want to restore the backup that was prior to your mod, as the latest nandroid 1) didn't backup correctly, and 2) it has your mod on it. Is that correct? Is that clear :huh: ?

[Guest Cyda]

@Cyda

yeah mine didn't backup /datadata either. I've flashed CM9 now, but if wifi freezes continue I may need to nandroid back. I didn't remove your mod before the flash. If I want to go back, I'm guessing I want to restore the backup that was prior to your mod, as the latest nandroid 1) didn't backup correctly, and 2) it has your mod on it. Is that correct? Is that clear :huh: ?

Yeah, you'll want to flash the removal zip to remove the mod and then restore back to the nandroid backup up made before applying the mod.

As for CM9; I had one freeze the very first time I turn wifi on but since then it has been fine and switched on/off numerous times. The rom is running so well too, I'd certainly recommend trying it.

I am actually messing with this mod at the moment to see if I can get it to work with CM9. We don't need the partition formatting to ext4 because CM9 handles the storage correctly (are you taking notes Huawei!?!) so it should just be a case of creating a mount point for the partition to work with Link2SD. I wouldn't really use that partition for anything else so it would be nice to get it working with Link2SD.

[Guest Colossae3.23]

I am actually messing with this mod at the moment to see if I can get it to work with CM9. We don't need the partition formatting to ext4 because CM9 handles the storage correctly (are you taking notes Huawei!?!) so it should just be a case of creating a mount point for the partition to work with Link2SD. I wouldn't really use that partition for anything else so it would be nice to get it working with Link2SD.

I like the sound of that. /\

I agree CM9 is a sweet one, but I've had couple freezes since last night. Think I'll hang with it for a while to see if it straightens out. Should I have removed your mod, before flashing CM9, and if so, would help if I did it now?

Ta

[Guest Cyda]

Yeah, you certainly want to remove this mod before flashing CM9.

As for this mod working with CM9 I just got it working. It seems that CM doesn't call the install-recovery.sh that Link2SD normally used so you cannot set the mount that way, this explains why tcpaulh couldn't get this mod working on Shendu rom. I've just changed the mount script to an init.d script and ran it that way and works fine. I'll do a bit more testing and post some files later.

Edited November 14, 2012 by Cyda

[Guest oldfella]

oddity to report - after connecting to my PC via USB, on disconnecting I get a "blank SD card" warning.

it isnt, though one app had trouble finding it, root explorer is seeing it OK

rebooted and all fine

the download for the removal tool isnt working ?

[Guest Cyda]

oddity to report - after connecting to my PC via USB, on disconnecting I get a "blank SD card" warning.

it isnt, though one app had trouble finding it, root explorer is seeing it OK

rebooted and all fine

the download for the removal tool isnt working ?

The link for the removal tool is working for me but here is a mirror: http://ubuntuone.com/1az92hvwNjEJQ3fvoWIpvL

Sounds an odd one that. Might be worth trying my new mod instead, its a bit more compatible.

[Guest terry.n]

oddity to report - after connecting to my PC via USB, on disconnecting I get a "blank SD card" warning.

it isnt, though one app had trouble finding it, root explorer is seeing it OK

rebooted and all fine

the download for the removal tool isnt working ?

I have the same thing - my guess is the OS is trying to re-mount both the 'internal' and external sd cards - but it can't remount the internal (probably because it was never dismounted, as we only see one drive on the PC now) and gives this stupid error cause it doesn't see the fs it expected.

Edited November 14, 2012 by terry.n

[Guest Cyda]

I have the same thing - my guess is the OS is trying to re-mount both the 'internal' and external sd cards - but it can't remount the internal (probably because it was never dismounted, as we only see one drive on the PC now) and gives this stupid error cause it doesn't see the fs it expected.

I think your probably spot on there. The partition never gets unmounted and passed to Windows so when it gets 'unmounted' to be passed back it doesn't respond as expected so throws an error. Either way it doesn't seem to affect anything other than the error message it gives. If you have the storage swap bug I guess that is better than your storage getting swapped on every boot.

Edited November 14, 2012 by Cyda

[Guest terry.n]

Funnily enough, I never had the storage swap bug. I guess the advantage of this over Link2Int is that apps will still run while the phone is connected to a PC.

But I gather that CM backups don't backup this partition? Would backups work with the Link2Int mod?

[Guest Cyda]

Funnily enough, I never had the storage swap bug. I guess the advantage of this over Link2Int is that apps will still run while the phone is connected to a PC.

But I gather that CM backups don't backup this partition? Would backups work with the Link2Int mod?

Yeah, they work with Link2Int because it doesn't change the format of the partition. The reason CWM backups don't work with this mod is because CWM expects a different format - it would be possible to compile a CWM that works with this mod but if you don't have the swap bug it is far easier to just use Link2Int.

[Guest terry.n]

Thanks for the quick reponse Cyda - as I'm already using Int2sdext2 and moved about a gig of stuff over, I can see an evening of moving everything back to SD, uninstalling Int2sdext2, installing the Link2Int mod, and moving apps again :)

Ah the joys of being a geek :P

[Guest dwvl]

Sorry for the long post, but I'm really struggling with this. Since upgrading to ICS (I'm running Stock+, after having used the Yoigo B944 update.app, rooted, etc.) my phone suffers from the "default storage swap" bug. Every time I select "Restart" from the phone's power button menu, storage defaults to Internal.

The problem I'm having is that even with this mod (with the internal SD formatted to ext4) the phone *still* defaults to Internal Storage after a Restart! But the fact that the internal SD is now ext4 prevents the phone from using the internal SD (it shows as "Total space 0.00B" System Settings... Storage). And when I then try to change the Default storage location back from Internal to SD card, the phone sits forever showing the "Switching.... Please wait" message.

Unfortunately I can't take any screenshots of this behaviour, because the phone says it's out of storage when it tries to save the screenshot (of course!).

I was wondering whether I was falling foul of using the wrong CWM version, so I changed from CWM-6 to CWM-5.0.2.8 without improvement. I've installed / uninstalled the Mod many times.

I then experimented by manually formatting the Internal SD as ext4 (using MiniTool Partition Wizard on my PC) without installing the Mod (so no Link2SD). This resulted in the same behaviour as above, so I don't think it's related to the Mod itself. I had to reformat the Internal SD as FAT32 to allow the phone to swap the Default storage back to SD Card.

Has anybody else seen this behaviour? Has anybody who actually suffers from the "default storage swap" bug actually used this Mod to solve the problem?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions! This Mod is a great idea, and has a lot of potential....

[Guest dwvl]

Has anybody who suffers from the "default storage swap" bug actually used this Mod, apart from me?

[Guest Cyda]

Has anybody who suffers from the "default storage swap" bug actually used this Mod, apart from me?

From the responses I would guess no.

I assume you have tried a full format of your card in Windows? What card size/rating is it btw?

[Guest dwvl]

Hi Cyda. Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I've done a full (not quick) format of the Card in Windows using an SD Card reader. It's an 8GB class 4 card that came with my Nokia 5800 a few years ago :huh:

Do you have any idea why an Ext4-formatted internal SD can apparently be mounted by the phone, but not usable?

[Guest Cyda]

Hi Cyda. Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I've done a full (not quick) format of the Card in Windows using an SD Card reader. It's an 8GB class 4 card that came with my Nokia 5800 a few years ago :huh:

Do you have any idea why an Ext4-formatted internal SD can apparently be mounted by the phone, but not usable?

I've not seen this happen but when I talked about this method with tillaz he mentioned that he thought it was possible this could happen, and I guess he was bang on.

I had the swap bug when I first moved to ICS and it didn't matter which rom I used it was always there on reboot, in the end I bought a new class 10 sdcard and the problem went away. Strangely, the old card was also a class 10 (it was as much an upgrade from 16gb to 32gb as a attempt to fix this bug) and after a while I ended up full formatting it then trying it again in the phone to try to reproduce the problem to test this mod, and I could never get the bug to happen.

TL;DR: maybe try a different sdcard.

[Guest dwvl]

maybe try a different sdcard.

Well, yes, my new 16GB Class 10 Samsung card arrived yesterday, and I'm pleased to report that it's cured the "defaults to internal" bug for me.

If my experience is representative, I think that Int2sdext2 should probably be marked as "a good idea, but turns out not to work after all". I have been using your Link2Int mod very successully, though. I thoroughly recommend that to anyone who wants to use the 2GB of internal SD space for something useful - thanks Cyda!

Edited November 30, 2012 by dwvl