Database Info

Tried apps to SD now phone wont boot!

I was trying to install my apps to my sd card today and now my phone wont reboot. This is what went down. I partitioned my 4g micro sd card, or so i thought. I used Paragon and it gave me an error after reboot;
invalid partition data- partition control blocks information incompatible"
So I restarted my computer. I checked on my phone and it showed i only had 3 gigs available. The partition i made was for 1, so i figured what the hell. It did work. I checked in Paragon and it showed the two partitions. Anyway, i proceeded to input the prompts in adb and it connected, but the second cmd wouldnt work $ mkdir /backup. I went ahead and followed the rest of the commands. At $ adb shell reboot the phone of course rebooted.
I didnt finish the last two commands but accidently restarted my phone. Now it hangs at the G1 screen. rooted g1 by the way.
I have wiped the data and cache, but of course that will do nothing in this case. So it does get me to that screen. I can also hold the camera and power and see my skating androids. But how do i get my phone to boot back up?
At the recovery utility using Alt X to get to console gives me a # prompt.
Help would be greatly appreciated guys, i dont have another phone haha!
Thanks

I'm guessing what you means by "I didnt finish the last two commands but accidently restarted my phone." is that you weren't able to do the "ln -s /system/sd/app /data/app"? If so then at that # prompt, you need to type those very same commands,
Code:
ln -s /system/sd/app /data/app
reboot
hopefully will work after that

Nope. Thats a no go. However, i decided to throw the update back onto my sdcard via sdcard reader. I put the sd card back in and its about done updating back to rc33. I'll report. Seems good so far.

Its all good!
Thanks

you wiped data and that symbolic link is still there?

I wiped my phone and want to redo the app to sd process, but the apps are still on my sd card ext2 partition is there a way I can restore those apps after a wipe or do I have to wipe the ext2 partition and just start over, if so how would I go about doing so.

Joeriginal said:
I wiped my phone and want to redo the app to sd process, but the apps are still on my sd card ext2 partition is there a way I can restore those apps after a wipe or do I have to wipe the ext2 partition and just start over, if so how would I go about doing so.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You've done accidentally what I did intentionally.
I moved apps and data over to the SD ext2 partition, then intentionally wiped the phone to start as fresh as possible.
I thought all I needed to do was recreate the symlinks with:
Code:
ln -s /system/sd/app /data/app
ln -s /system/sd/data /data/data
reboot
That should have worked, but didn't. Maybe you'll have better luck than I did.
I was using the LucidREM mod of the JF1.42 firmware which comes with scripts for moving the data and apps.
If you aren't using this version, you'll need repeat the whole manual process of modifying the mount.d and init.rc files so you can see the /system/sd partition on the card.
If you are, you can use the copy.sh undoapps and copy.sh undodata commands and that will put everything back on your phone. At that point it should be exactly as it was before.
If successful, you can try moving everything back either with the Market app, or one of the other scripts floating around on here....
For what it's worth, I never could get things to work when I moved /data/data.....I've had to keep that on my phone and just move the apps. Others seem to have more success moving both without issue.

Joeriginal said:
I wiped my phone and want to redo the app to sd process, but the apps are still on my sd card ext2 partition is there a way I can restore those apps after a wipe or do I have to wipe the ext2 partition and just start over, if so how would I go about doing so.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can give you the code to do it, or you can just use my app that runs the same commands I'd give you. If you use the app just uncheck the checkbox before pressing the move apps to sd button. If you want to go the code route, follow my tutorial starting from the recovery terminal part.
EDIT: oh and 4phantomii: did you just do that code or did you rm -r /data/data and rm -r /data/app first? If you didn't remove the directories first I have no idea what that would do but it seems like it'd make a symlink INSIDE the /data/app and /data/data rather than making them the symlinks.

New and improved Apps to SD(more stable, more powerful, etc) Tutorial

Well, some of you may have heard my ramblings around here that I've been working with some of the devs here(JF and MartinFick deserve major praise, probably more than me) on getting a better way to do the whole apps to sd thing.
After 3 days of talking/discussing/working on it, I've finally reached the fruits of that investigation and thought I'd share. This new method uses the filesystem unionfs to essentially meld the /data directory with the /system/sd directory, so that they appear to be one. This has the potential to allow users to move specific apps to or from the sd card, is far more stable than the normal symlink method(will still boot, etc even if there's no SD card) and should be easier to set up. Now, onto the tutorial of setting this up.
BIG DISCLAIMER NOTE: This is a major hack of the phone and it is fully possible that it will break your phone(I've seen no permanently bricked phones but that doesn't make it impossible). Use this method, and my app along with it at your own risk.
REQUIREMENTS:
1: This only works on JF(possibly only on 1.5, not sure about the others) and The Dude's v.1.0 or greater. The Dude's 1.0 or greater actually does the steps in this tutorial for you so you can just run appstosd2 and set it all up from there if you're using his ROM.
2: This still requires you to have 2 partitions set up, first FAT32 and second ext2. Although you can use the appstosd2 app attached to this post and available in the market for $0.99 which will partition the card for you.
3: If you want your apps to go to the sd card, you must have a directory "/system/sd/app" If you didn't have apps to sd before on the ext2 partition do the following in terminal emulator or run my appstosd2 app after finishing the tutorial:
Code:
su
mkdir /system/sd/app
If you want the private-apps, or dalvik-cache moved you can replace "app" in that code with ""app-private", or "dalvik-cache" respectively. Do not copy "data" to the sd card. My script will delete it on the next reboot.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alright, first there's some files you need.
1: init.rc in .zip attached to this thread
2: a2sd.sh in .zip attached to this thread
All the above listed files should be put on your sd card(my tutorial will assume they are in the root directory of the sdcard(the topmost folder)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you need to undo the normal apps to SD first do the following in the recovery terminal(it's not strictly necessary but I'd recommend it):
Code:
mount data
rm /data/app
mkdir /data/app
if you moved the dalvik cache, repeat steps 2-3 with "dalvik-cache" instead of app. Ditto with "data" for the data cache.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then go to terminal emulator and type the following:
Code:
su
cp /sdcard/init.rc /data/
cp /sdcard/a2sd.sh /data/
Then reboot and you're set. By default all future apps are installed to the sd card. In order to move an app to the internal memory do the following in terminal emulator:
Code:
su
cp /system/sd/app/[the app you want to move] /system/intmem/app/
rm /system/sd/app/[the app you want to move]
I will be incorporating this into my appstosd app soon(probably as a JF and TheDude-only version until the rest of the devs get on board).
I have included a copy of appstosd 2, which will copy all apps from internal memory to the sd card with an option to remove them from the internal memory. This will only work if you have followed this tutorial.
If you don't have partitions set up, appstosd2 will now do that for you with user-set partition sizes.
NOTE: If you're using The Dude's ROM and find yourself with an outdated version of this since he doesn't always update his ROMs at the same time I update this, do the following in terminal emulator to update(after putting a2sd.sh from the attached a2sd.zip on your sdcard):
Code:
su
mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
rm /system/bin/a2sd.sh
cp /sdcard/a2sd.sh /system/bin/
reboot
For JF1.5, do the following to update:
Code:
su
rm /system/intmem/a2sd.sh
rm /system/intmem/init.rc
cp /sdcard/a2sd.sh /system/intmem/
cp /sdcard/init.rc /system/intmem/
reboot
NOTE FOR UPDATERS: If you had your data on the sdcard(/system/sd/data), it WILL GET DELETED with the new version. This is a necessity in order to get both wallpaper and protected apps working. I recommend moving it back to the phone.
EDIT: And here's another tutorial from ThatsBS(might be easier for the less tech savvy to follow?):
I am still learning a lot everyday from this forum. So for people new to this process let me noobify it, if I can, as I am one too.
Start by reading the first page!! Get all the stuff you need from page 1. (apps2sd2.zip and a2sd.zip )
I started from a fresh wipe and flash of jf1.51 adp.
A newly formatted fat32, non partitioned sd.
Put the init.rc and app2sd.sh on the sd (the files NOT the zip)
Then go to the terminal emulator and typed:
su
cp /sdcard/init.rc /data/
cp /sdcard/a2sd.sh /data/
Then reboot
Next I ran the apps2sd 2 app. It will ask you how much to you want to partition. I did 3000mb the first successful time and the dreaded low mem notice would not leave the status bar. I have read not to make it more then 1500mb. Have a good connection, dont force close it. It will reboot.
Next, after the reboot, I ran the apps2sd 2 app again and pressed "copy apps to sd" (let it do its thing)
Reboot.
Next I went back to the emulator and typed:
su
mkdir /system/sd/app-private
mkdir /system/sd/dalvik-cache
Reboot.
Go back to the apps2sd 2 app and hit move dalvik-cache.
Reboot for good measure and your done.
I did this in about 10 mins. Worked flawlessly.

I have a ?, if i have been using your app what dod i do diferent or what should i change?
Thanks

Good job, thanks!
[email protected] said:
will still boot, etc even if there's no sim card
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You mean SD card?
[email protected] said:
Alright, first there's some files you need.
1: unionfs.ko from here:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
JF1.5 build has already unionfs.ko in it, doesn't it? Is there any difference between this unionfs.ko and the one included?
1. I hear unionfs is not really stable at this point, is it true?
2. Why do you want to move the whole /data folder to sd, instead of just /data/app, /data/app-private?
3. You might want to add a command to remove previous app2sd changes (i.e. delete symlinks, create folders.)
4. How do you put selected apps to internal memory after this? Copying to /data will copy to sd card again.
The whole idea is really interesting! Thank you for your work!

ArmandHammer said:
I have a ?, if i have been using your app what dod i do diferent or what should i change?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't have to do anything different. It will find all the apps you put on the sd card. If you want to set the phone back to normal(so the phone memory apps can still be there), you can do the following in the recovery terminal:
Code:
mount data
rm /data/app
rm /data/dalvik-cache (only if you moved the dalvik-cache)
mkdir /data/app
mkdir /data/dalvik-cache
@Dimath: yes, I did mean SD card, good catch
1:JF didn't mention it and from a little bit of using it, it seems stable to me. Plus, no matter how much I've screwed up, I haven't managed to boot loop my phone yet.
2: You could just mount those independently. I might end up doing that eventually but for now the way it is works for reasons I'll get to.
3: True, although it's not strictly necessary. If apps2sd already works, this won't break it. I'll put in a guide on undoing the symlink method
4: Actually, no. My script sets the internal memory as the main file system in the union, so apps automatically go there. Moving apps to the sd card just involves copying them to /system/sd.

Ok, just a little confusing.
I didn't use the apps2sd to move apps over to my SD card. What I did was set it with the busybox ls command. I guess that's the symlink.
My question is, if I didn't use apps2sd, can I still use your method? I also moved the dalvik cache also, everything works fine for me now, my apps go directly to the SD card when installing since my memory stays at around 65 MB no matter what I do.
Just need some laymen terms to help me understand that if I'm NOT using apps2sd, and I just linked them with the recovery method, what's my pitfalls / advantages?
Thanks.

larrygates said:
Ok, just a little confusing.
I didn't use the apps2sd to move apps over to my SD card. What I did was set it with the busybox ls command. I guess that's the symlink.
My question is, if I didn't use apps2sd, can I still use your method? I also moved the dalvik cache also, everything works fine for me now, my apps go directly to the SD card when installing since my memory stays at around 65 MB no matter what I do.
Just need some laymen terms to help me understand that if I'm NOT using apps2sd, and I just linked them with the recovery method, what's my pitfalls / advantages?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, any other method of apps to sd currently uses the same symlink method, so following the directions as if you installed my app will work. A note though is that all future apps will install to the internal memory by default. I did that because it's MUCH easier to move apps from the memory to the sd card than vice versa. You can use the code I posted if you want it the other way around.

would this also work for /data/data and app-private?
or is this particular setup only for dalvik-cache and app?
oh and before I do this, just wondering, so in theory, since I have a 1.5GB ext2 partition, my free memory will be 1.573GB (1.5GB + 73Mb internal)? The internal memory will just run down and switch over to the sdcard when needed (but be seen as one filesystem)?

andonnguyen said:
would this also work for /data/data and app-private?
or is this particular setup only for dalvik-cache and app?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This works for the whole /data folder and everything under it. Everything is automatically installed to the phone memory right now so you can just move over anything you don't want on it(will be making an app to do this automatically)
EDIT: oh and anything you already moved over to the sd card will still show up.

Code:
su
mount -o remount,rw /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
cp /sdcard/unionfs.ko /system/
cp /sdcard/init.rc /data/
cp /runme.sh /data/
cp /sdcard/a2sd.sh /data/
I see, when I run these lines of code (I can do this from adb also right using adb remount) this IS the new symlink method. It's just all at one time without me having to manually link anything.
Right?

larrygates said:
Code:
su
mount -o remount,rw /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
cp /sdcard/unionfs.ko /system/
cp /sdcard/init.rc /data/
cp /runme.sh /data/
cp /sdcard/a2sd.sh /data/
I see, when I run these lines of code (I can do this from adb also right using adb remount) this IS the new symlink method. It's just all at one time without me having to manually link anything.
Right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wrong, no symlinks here. Pure unionfs goodness. Basically it convinces the operating system that /data and /system/sd are the same thing. So anything that's on /system/sd shows up under /data but everything that's normally under /data is still there. Think of it like what happens in windows when you merge folders with the same name, but in this case in actuality everything stays exactly where it was.

New news: If you haven't seen it, I updated this tutorial(and the scripts with it) quite a bit and would now consider it to be completely fully functional.
Also The Dude will be sending me an advance copy of his next ROM tomorrow to verify it works. In his build the apps to sd will be automatic, with no user setup(although if you want apps on the sd card you'll have to make an app directory under /system/sd(mkdir /system/sd/app), ditto for dalvik-cache and data).
Finally, I will attempt to add this into my apps to sd app tonight, thus rounding out everything I can do.
After all this, the only thing left is for Haykuro to build it into his ROM and me to make an app to move specific apps to/from the sd card automatically.

This will no doubt be the method of choice in no time. Great work. Sticky?

If anyone dl'd the latest version(that fixed the race condition, etc), please download the one I just put up. I made that one in windows and I believe the funky carraige return(that indicates a new line) that windows uses screwed it up

So I got some kind of error, and I don't know what is going on.
I put in all the lines in the terminal emulator app..
but after line cp /runme.sh /data/ it gives me an error
it says "cp: cannot stat '/runme.sh': No such file or directory
Any help? I rooted my phone just so I could run my apps off of my SD card.. and now I can't figure out how to get it to work. Somebody help me please.

GTASouthPark said:
So I got some kind of error, and I don't know what is going on.
I put in all the lines in the terminal emulator app..
but after line cp /runme.sh /data/ it gives me an error
it says "cp: cannot stat '/runme.sh': No such file or directory
Any help? I rooted my phone just so I could run my apps off of my SD card.. and now I can't figure out how to get it to work. Somebody help me please.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which ROM is this? JF1.5 should have runme.sh there...

[email protected] said:
Which ROM is this? JF1.5 should have runme.sh there...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, I am going to re-partition my memory card.. and then re flash to JF1.5 and try it again.

Just tried it, one issue I'm seeing is android seems to install [email protected]@[email protected] into /system/intmem/dalvik-cache at boot. Is there anyway to have that only in my dalvik-cache on the sdcard?
Its a fairly large file at 3megs so I want it to reside solely on the sdcard and even if I delete it from intmem, whenever I reboot it gets added again.
Now when I display the internal phone storage from the settings menu, it shows up at 835 megs.
I wonder if this is possible to use unionfs and make an ext2 fs object as a file on the FAT fs. That way no 2nd partition is necessary. Plus, if you remove the sdcard, everything will still work.
Maybe we could combine unionfs and this method that uses an ext2 image on the fat32 for apps to sd.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=3402947&postcount=687
mkefs can be downloaded here:
http://sites.google.com/site/juanjosec/android

dwang said:
I wonder if this is possible to use unionfs and make an ext2 fs object as a file on the FAT fs. That way no 2nd partition is necessary. Plus, if you remove the sdcard, everything will still work.
Maybe we could combine unionfs and this method that uses an ext2 image on the fat32 for apps to sd.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=3402947&postcount=687
mkefs can be downloaded here:
http://sites.google.com/site/juanjosec/android
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been looking at that possibility with JF and MartinFick as well, seems like it could be a good plan but I wanted to get this bit done first. It's a good point about the dalvik-cache, but in order to fix it JF(in this case) would have to change /init.rc to make sure to do this bit before building the dalvik-cache.

Can't download apps from market
hmm so I didn't hit any errors when doing this, but afterwards I am unable to download any apps from the market. It just continually says "Starting Download..." Everything else seems to work well.
I had this same issue when I tried to manually setup apps to sd using the symbolic links. I narrowed the issue down and figured out this only occurred after I moved the dalvik-cache over to the sd card. I'm assuming I'm doing something wrong, but can't seem to figure it out. Any pointers in a general direction would be most helpful
I'm using JFv1.50 ADP1.5, not the modded version by LucidREM. For some reason the bootloader couldn't pickup his version on my phone and --edit-- I'm pretty sure I have the SD card partitioned correctly... everything else seemed to work ok. The ext2 partition shows up as the correct size
*EDIT* So apparently my issue was the SD card as well. Just did a format of the sd card and it fixed it. I also formatted data and cache (alt+w in recovery mode). Thanks MarcusMaximus!

[email protected] said:
New news: If you haven't seen it, I updated this tutorial(and the scripts with it) quite a bit and would now consider it to be completely fully functional.
Also The Dude will be sending me an advance copy of his next ROM tomorrow to verify it works. In his build the apps to sd will be automatic, with no user setup(although if you want apps on the sd card you'll have to make an app directory under /system/sd(mkdir /system/sd/app), ditto for dalvik-cache and data).
Finally, I will attempt to add this into my apps to sd app tonight, thus rounding out everything I can do.
After all this, the only thing left is for Haykuro to build it into his ROM and me to make an app to move specific apps to/from the sd card automatically.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I have apps2SD and the dalvik-cache both moved on the dudes builds already, do I still have to create those directories or will my existing setup still work fine? I would like to know what kind of issues I may run into when the dude releases .95 with this (hopefully, not getting my hopes up just in case).

data2sd

Hi All,
Here is my first contribution to the community, hope it is useful!
I've rezzed up a construct to produce a new /data on sd. It makes use of a second partition formatted ext2 or ext3 mounted to /system/sd with /system/sd/data then mounted over /data.
I've included a lengthy readme file which should explain things in greater detail.
Read the readme first to get a list of dirs & files this construct adds to the /data, then copy the files as explained and off you go!
currently my /data "volume" is 2GB and all is lovely!
Things to note:
I'm rom JF1.51 ADP1 CRB43, the sdcard is 8gb class6
The sd /data contains several scripts of my own design which if not needed can be deleted. I include my modified bootdeb.sh script as it mounts to /data/local/mnt/debian vs /data/local/mnt (that is a script I modified for my own needs which you may find useful)
Feel free to adjust any of the scripts according to your needs. Just note that if I update the construct, that your changes may be undone if you use it, so back them up in that scenario.
Also, I include my mount.ak.sh script which make use of a loopfs to accomplish the roughly the same thing, but in a single partition environment (intended as proof of concept).
**There is NO booting into recovery and wiping of the phone for this mod!**
Thanks to JesusFreak for the roms and saurik for the Debian info!
Cheers!

Wow! Nice, Going to try it out. Thanks

is that mean after running data2sd the phone's completely running on sd? and so much faster?

Hi,
To followup on xnycen's question, why would we do this? Is the benefit only in providing more space, or is there also a performance increase (or decrease)?

hate to see the sdcard fail with this change

well...
Yes, after the install you are running complete on sd,
but because of the method used, if you reboot, and take out the sdcard before the boot starts, you will be running as you were before the data2sd aka normal; put the sdcard back in, reboot and you are in data2sd mode again.
This effectively gives you two android run modes: "normal" and data2sd. If the SDCore can not be located the Android will boot in normal mode. You can of course try to keep them sync'd, but if you do the data2sd from a clean slate you can effectively have a "safemode" and if you have an issue with some app, go into this "safemode" and do some investigations or adjustments as the SDCore will mount if you put the sdcard in after the system is in "safemode" but the apps and such will not be loaded until you reboot.
The size expansion is the primary benefit of the construct. As far as speed goes, I haven't checked to see if there are any speed gains in moving /data to the sd... Can someone who's interested check that out and let us know?

Darkstrumn said:
Yes, after the install you are running complete on sd,
but because of the method used, if you reboot, and take out the sdcard before the boot starts, you will be running as you were before the data2sd aka normal; put the sdcard back in, reboot and you are in data2sd mode again.
This effectively gives you two android run modes: "normal" and data2sd. If the SDCore can not be located the Android will boot in normal mode. You can of course try to keep them sync'd, but if you do the data2sd from a clean slate you can effectively have a "safemode" and if you have an issue with some app, go into this "safemode" and do some investigations or adjustments as the SDCore will mount if you put the sdcard in after the system is in "safemode" but the apps and such will not be loaded until you reboot.
The size expansion is the primary benefit of the construct. As far as speed goes, I haven't checked to see if there are any speed gains in moving /data to the sd... Can someone who's interested check that out and let us know?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Speed is all I'm interested in If it speeds the device up, why not?

Anyone have anything to report about the speed? I am very interested in this

wow having this "dual boot" seems like an incredible idea... can anyone report on this?

can someone please give a more noob friendly instructions? from what I understand as of now is:
1) boot into recovery and wipe the phone (I'm assuming we can keep whatever ROM we had before)
2) place data2sd.img in root of SDcard (fat32)
3) and this is where I get lost... how exactly do I move the sh file to that location? how do I chmod it? how do I run it? what are the adb commands? thanks!

Hmmnm I thought we weren't doing this because of inheriant security risks?
Not to mention what happens when you mount your fat32 partition....are the apps no longer (as well as your data) available?

NO booting into recovery and wiping of the phone!
Hold up people!
**There is NO booting into recovery and wiping of the phone!**
My bad for not being clear on the wipe instructions!
1) (optional) If you are to wipe it (your choice it is not required), then press menu->settings->SD card & phone storage->scroll to bottom of screen and select "Factory data reset". This will wipe the /data partition only removing all apps and settings. BACKUP YOUR /data dir to sd, First or you will need to down load all your apps again to include paid apps!!
2) place data2sd.img in root of SDcard (fat32)
3) terminal in or adb shell in.
4) cp /sdcard/data2sd.sh to /data/local/bin - to copy the script to your user-space
5) chmod 0750 /data/local/bin/data2sd.sh - to make it executable
6) /data/local/bin/data2sd.sh or data2sd.sh may work to run the script
7) once the install is done it should tell you to reboot. If you had the ddms debugger running, you can observer the log as it is working.
8) done. It may boot a little longer if you clean-slate installed and then restored your apps by copying them back into /data/app and /data/app-private which has the affect of reinstalling everything, and thus the boot will take a while if you have alot of apps like I do. Again you can observe this as the Android boots if you have the debugger running.

thanks a lot man, will give this a shot in a few hours! not at my comp right now

security risks and (u)mounting /sdcard
TheDudeOfLife said:
Hmmnm I thought we weren't doing this because of inheriant security risks?
Not to mention what happens when you mount your fat32 partition....are the apps no longer (as well as your data) available?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure why there would be any security issues, the Android is already rooted. If someone can steal the sdcard, they can steal the entire Android, and if the sdcard is left lying about, then yes it can be strolen then too.
The construction of the SDCore assumes all the original permissions, so nothing has access to things it shouldn't save the scripts that use the cache as a backup mount point, but it is given the same permissions as /data, so no worries.
With this construct in place, you can't physically remove the sdcard without first powering off the Android, or rebooting it and removing the sdcard first thing. But while the system is operational, you can mount the sdcard to usb and umount it from usb without issue as long as any mounts to the sdcard are released (loopfs, etc) prior to trying. vold will give 10 tries to umount /sdcard to include attempting to kill the processes with file locks on /sdcard when it tries to umount the volume to attach it to usb.
A a matter of fact, if you observe via teh ddms debugger during boot, the vold service is busy checking the sdcard and mounting it well after the system has already mounted the sdcp2 and begun initializing apps from the sd /data.
So, as long as "sdcard partition2" (sdcp2) remains mounted and all, you can mount the sdcard to the connected Host and back and still have access to your apps and data all you want. I reckon this is how the app2sd and dalvik2sd constructs also perform.
The only thing to really note is that the first partition must be vfat (fat32) and the second either ext2 or ext3 (currently as they support file permissions). vold only cares about the first partition which it expects to be a vfat volume. So as long as p1 is vfat and p2 is posix compliant, we're golden!
The only real question I don't have a good answer for is the speed gains question. My card is a 8GB class6 and things seem fairly responsive. I don't know how much different it would be with a class 4 or 2, or the real speed difference with the built in storage. Honestly it feels a little more responsive, but I haven't really done things that make it feel sluggish.

Oh, I saw the .img and assumed you just mounted the .img from fat32. My bad for not reading all the instructions.
Any problems with apps crashing? I have had a lot of quirky issues in the past with merging the entire partition.
Thanks for the response. I like what you've done here. I'll have to try it out for sure.

TheDudeOfLife said:
Oh, I saw the .img and assumed you just mounted the .img from fat32. My bad for not reading all the instructions.
Any problems with apps crashing? I have had a lot of quirky issues in the past with merging the entire partition.
Thanks for the response. I like what you've done here. I'll have to try it out for sure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No worries; the .img file can be thought of as an install cdrom it is only used the one time during install.
As far as apps crashing, no problems!
During my experimentation building the construct, permission mangling happens if apps are moved out of /data/app, /data/app-private but /data/data and maybe /data/dalvik-cache are not cleaned up prior to copying apps back into their respective app dirs.
What happens is the app dirs are monitored. if you move an apk into the dirs android will install the app. Likewise if you delete an app from those dirs PackageManager will uninstall the app. If /data/data already has the dir for the app, it will use it. if the /data/system/packages.xml and /data/data don't have the same id assigned to that app, you get a permissions\\id conflict; the PackageManager will not manipulate the dir if the id's don't match.
The app /data/local/bin/archiveApps.sh, /data/local/bin/softWIPE.sh and /data/local/bin/restoreApps.sh scripts allow one to backup thier apps to the new /data/app-archive and /data/app-private-archive dirs, clean out /data/data/ /data/dalvik-cache, and restore the apps to their app dirs. As the apps are copied into their dirs, the PackageManager will update /data/system/packages.xml proper and rebuild /data/data and the dalvikVM will build the /dalvik-cahce proper.
Someone made a seemingly nice script (I've not used it yet) called fix_permissions.sh that will parse the /data/system/packages.xml and update the ownership id of the apps /data/data sub dir proper and thus is more scalpel like in operation, but that process doesn't make a backup of the apps; so using both may be the most effective replacing the softWIPE.sh part of the process with the fix_permissions.sh instead.
The only time you should run into issues is if say you have 10 apps installed in teh SDCore /data and 6 in Android /data and then attempt to sync them (because the 6 are different than the 10) by copying\\merging Android /data with SDCore /data the SDCore /data/data /data/dalvik-cache and /data/system/packages.xml will now be mangled.
/data/system/packages.xml will now no longer know about the 10 apps that were installed prior, and on boot PackageManager will "install" them, but /data/data will have dirs inside with now different id's from what was newly assigned them in /data/system/packages.xml, and the 10 apps will now not work correctly but the 6 will as dirs with matching id's were created when they were "installed" new.
To fix, either the softWIPE.sh process outlined above, or the fix_permissions.sh process also mentioned above.

So did anyone try this at all?

Can this be done after doing the apps2sd by marcusmaximus? I tried it but when trying to chmod 0750 /data/local/bin/data2sd.sh it said "No such file or directory" so i tried mkdir /data/local/bin and got "File Exists" so i proceeded with copying data2sd.sh to /data/local/bin again which went without showing any errors and when trying to chmod 0750 /data/local/bin/data2sd.sh again i got the same error so i tried to ls /data/local/bin and just got # what am i doing wrong?

looks interesting! might try this during the weekends ill give an update if i encounter any issues or not

interesting. I'll be looking into this!

partition sd card

I reverted back to cinni bell froyo from 6.3 R3
I would like to get link2sd card to work. I got it semi working but it would use 10% of what I allocated and then say it was full so I couldnt install anything from there on.
I partitioned it using gparted... 15g and 1g for the ext2.
open recovery checking with sdcard utiilites. errors and says it fixes it.
check with the froyo sd card util and do not see the added space... says around 100meg
download and install link2sd.. crashes and pull battery... odd time I get it to install and when i select to move a program to sd it has a container error.
I can use the link feature tho.
Sometimes I get the memory is full and other times I get get a crash when I attempt to install either from apk or from market... (i have gotten different results between attempts to get the sd card partition properly from googling all sorts of threads)
I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Would the sd card util say the added space if the partition worked properly?

I don't think the cincinnati bell froyo supports Link2SD without changing the boot scripts (because it does automatic app2ext). How did you try to add Link2SD support?

I guess thats why I am having so much trouble. The Cinni keeps changing it on me?
I either installed the link2sd from sd card or from the market.

You're going to have to edit the /system/oc file. First copy the original to /system/oc.bak then edit /system/oc. At the end of /system/oc you will see:
Code:
# enable sd-ext
if [ -e /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 ] ; then
insmod /system/lib/modules/ext2.ko
insmod /system/lib/modules/jbd.ko
insmod /system/lib/modules/ext3.ko
[B] mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 /sd-ext
if [ $? -eq 0 ] ; then
mkdir /sd-ext/app ; chmod 777 /sd-ext/app
[[ -d /data/app ]] && cp -a /data/app/* /sd-ext/app/
[[ -d /data/app ]] && rm -R /data/app
ln -s /sd-ext/app /data/app
fi
[/B] fi
Delete the bolded lines.
Honestly, I strongly recommend RusMod 1.19 over the CBW if you really want to run a Dexter13 ROM. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1118575

I nandroided an image without link2sd.
I edited the OC file as suggested.
Restarted device. Installed Link2sd.
Rebooted again.
Tried to move a program and it is still getting the container error.
Went back to open recovery and checked with the sd utilities and it said
ext2 was ok.
So I guess I will try that russianmod and see how that goes.
I'll have to wait till it downloads. Its really slow...
Does that one still give full camera function?

xtwister6 said:
I nandroided an image without link2sd.
I edited the OC file as suggested.
Restarted device. Installed Link2sd.
Rebooted again.
Tried to move a program and it is still getting the container error.
Went back to open recovery and checked with the sd utilities and it said
ext2 was ok.
So I guess I will try that russianmod and see how that goes.
I'll have to wait till it downloads. Its really slow...
Does that one still give full camera function?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i'd try khalpower's v4 rom. it was my favourite before cm6 arrived. it has full camera functionality. get the one thats themed with steelepicblue. everyone's favourite. hehe

eejin2 said:
i'd try khalpower's v4 rom. it was my favourite before cm6 arrived. it has full camera functionality. get the one thats themed with steelepicblue. everyone's favourite. hehe
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 on that. Too bad it isn't being worked on anymore, but it still works plenty good enough and stable too. I miss the radio but I have managed w/o it and moved on to Tune-in, Jango and Iheart.
I am always harking on this but ext partitions don't have to be sooo big. A good size is 350-400mb and even sometimes that is too big. 1GB imho is way too much wasted space that could be used for music, movies, pix,...
Figure that an average app is on the heavy side (like Flash or something like that) not usually more that 15-20mb. Like I said, on the heavy side. I have 60+/- apps and only about 125mb taken up in my partition. My /cache partition will fill up faster than my ext partition.
Look at it like this
8 bits = 1 Byte
1024 Bytes = 1 Kilo Byte
1024 Kilo Bytes = 1 Mega Byte
1024 Mega Bytes = 1 Giga Byte
1024 Giga Bytes = 1 Tera Byte
You would have to have a crapload of moster MBs (like Flash/ Moboplayer/ Angry Birds) to take up that whole 1gb partition. And even then your dalvik-cache will be too full to take that many apps and you'll have to start deleting some to make space.

xtwister6 said:
download and install link2sd.. crashes and pull battery... odd time I get it to install and when i select to move a program to sd it has a container error.
I can use the link feature tho.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I may have misunderstood what you wrote. So, Link2SD is working, it's the native froyo App2SD that doesn't work? You may have to delete the /sdcard/.android_secure directory.

So I thought I would start from scratch.
Put Bright 2.1 rom
Put steel blue v4 as suggested.
Install the link2sd 1.9.1
When I try to put an app on the SD it gives me an error
Failure
pkg: /data/app/ (filename.apk)
Then it says its on the sd. So I check the sd-ext directory and nope..
So I thought I could just create the directories data/app/
but still get the above failure
I tried changing the ext2.ko file to the 840kb but that doesn't do anything.
This os version doesnt have the OC file as stated above.
I think I'm close and don't know what else to try.
I appreciate the help.
-- I also redid the sdcard with gpart
formatted the whole card to fat32
-resized and created the ext2 partition
formatted to 500 meg using ext2

Woodrube said:
Figure that an average app is on the heavy side (like Flash or something like that) not usually more that 15-20mb. Like I said, on the heavy side. I have 60+/- apps and only about 125mb taken up in my partition. My /cache partition will fill up faster than my ext partition.
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
does link2sd not create use the ext2 if you link it? That's why I am trying to get this to work so that it doesn't touch too much of the internal memory?

Mioze7Ae
I am attaching the sd-card diagnotics like it says in your sig.
It does say fix me but I've run the util and it seems to go back to needing
repair each time after starting up?

Thanks for posting the sdcard-info.txt. You need to create an empty /sd-ext/link2sd directory and reboot.

I tried that and I am still getting the same error. Do I have to add sub directories into the link2sd directory such as data/app ?

No, you shouldn't have to touch /data at all and you don't need to do create any directories other than /sd-ext/link2sd. Can you rerun the diagnostics?

attached is the diagnostics.
Again thanks for your help!

Ate you putting your app folder on /sdext/link2sd and not /data/lunk2sd? Remember if you are using link2sd you name your folder link2sd. If you are using app2ext you name it app. It also kind of looks from the txt file that your ext partition is an ext4. Might be reading that wrong bit I definitely see ext4 in there and kahls v4 doesn't support that.
Edit: quick question. How are you trying to "put" your apps on ext? Hopefully you aren't going to settings>apps>manage>move to SD.

Oh, sorry I didn't also catch this the first time... only our most recent ROMs support ext4 (CM6, XDAspecial, Bravo). ext3 should work and ext2 will definitely work. You can use nandroid to backup your sd-ext partition (I think it's called SD data in the nandroid menus), Then just nandroid restore it and your /sd-ext will be reformatted as ext2.

It should be ext2. Thats how I formatted the partition.
I had both folders /data/app and link2sd on the card. I deleted the /data/app folder and rebooted.... still getting the error.
it seems to keep pointing to data/app folder in the error message

Oh, you're right. I was misreading my own diagnostic log. *facepalm* Hmm. Nothing looks wrong...

Here Mz, this is for you. Found it on another thread.
Do you have this folder, sd-ext/link2sd? What error do you get when you launch the link2sd apk? IIRC /data/app is only symbolic links.
Might want to reformat and start over by just putting folder in SD-ext/link2sd and wiping out all the previous issues. Am usually against reformatting, but in this case might be best option.

[Workaround/Mod]Download Large Apps From Market(Over 25MB)(CM7/MIUI/STOCK)(Cache2SD).

I had a problem recently when trying to download SummitX Snowboarding (49.7 MB) from the Android Market. Did try several methods like Apps2SD, Wipe Cache, dalvik, etc. But none of them could solve my problem. DID A LOT OF SEARCHING and found the method that worked for me. So i thought i could share it with you guys.
P.S.- I am not an advanced user of android. I just did some searching around and found this script. Therefore, i cannot provide any further assistance or answer your advanced queries
Things you will need -
1. Terminal Emulator.
2. Root Access.
Lets Start -
1. Install and open terminal emulator (if you don't see the keyboard, press menu and then toggle soft keyboard on).
2. Type 'su' (without quotes). and grant the application superuser permission. After giving it permission, type 'su' again (because the permission was denied on the first time).
3. Now You Have 2 options. Click on the one you want and then get back to the OP -
Option 1 :- Use External memory card for cache, if you don't want to use internal memory. But the downloads will/may fail if the SDcard gets removed. Not recommended.
Option 2 :- Use the internal memory card for cache, if you are already using external memory card (CM7 Users) for your apps and don't want to waste any more space. Recommended.
4. If you didn't receive any error, its now done !! Be sure to type 'exit' and close the terminal (just to be on safer side).
5. Reboot the phone (Although it works without rebooting, its better to reboot just to let the cache partition take effect).
6. Download large games without any trouble.
NOTE - I have Not Used SDCard Swap mod yet. So i don't know the path of the internal and external memory card in that mod. If someone can tell me the location of internal and external sdcard in that mod, i will surely make the mod to work with SDCard Swap Mod.
I have personally tested it on MIUI and CM7. MIUI's SDcard mounting is same as Stock, so i guess it would work with stock.
I think this method would work for every Rom and even on any phone. I may be wrong
Credits -
I don't know who is the author of Original script because i just searched it like crazy and can't find the link to the post in the mess. If i find, i will surely add it to the OP.

this should be stickied
thanks

Tried and worked flawlessly. Great find.
PS: I cancelled the download after few bars as i am out of wifi. But it's downloading..
Thanks.

After typing mkdir /mnt/sdcard/cache-download in terminal emulator it shows me error like this mkdir /mnt/sdcard/cache-download: not found

sharp87 said:
After typing mkdir /mnt/sdcard/cache-download in terminal emulator it shows me error like this mkdir /mnt/sdcard/cache-download: not found
it is better you can use Int-Ext SD CARD swap mod
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you on MIUI or CM7 ??
Strange error. From what i know, mkdir is used for creating a new directory. I suppose you are either using CM7 (which already has swap mod built in, i suppose) or the SD Card swap mod.
I'll try to make correct script for every rom and add it to the OP. Although its gonna be tough for me untill i don't sort out my confusion between sdcard and external_sd

Use External Memory for Cache Partition.
Method 1 : Use external memory for cache partition.
Type this in Terminal Emulator -
For MIUI/Stock Users -
Code:
mkdir /mnt/sdcard/external_sd/cache-download
cd /sdcard/external_sd/cache-download
mkdir download
rm -rf /cache/download
ln -s /mnt/sdcard/external_sd/cache-download/download /cache/download
For CM7 Users -
Code:
cd /cache/
rm -R download
mkdir /mnt/sdcard/cache-download
ln -s /mnt/sdcard/cache-download download
Note - Be sure to hit enter After every line.
Go Back to OP.

Use Internal Memory for Cache Partition.
Method 2 : Use internal memory for cache partition.
Type this in Terminal Emulator -
For MIUI/Stock Users -
Code:
mkdir /mnt/sdcard/cache-download
cd /sdcard/cache-download
mkdir download
rm -rf /cache/download
ln -s /mnt/sdcard/cache-download/download /cache/download
For CM7 Users -
Code:
cd /cache/
rm -R download
mkdir /mnt/emmc/cache-download
ln -s /mnt/emmc/cache-download download
Note - Be sure to hit enter After every line.
Go Back to OP.

thankkkkkkkkkkks *___* finally i was able to download WMW DDDDD
just one question:
in miui external and internal are swapped, so if I use internal script cache goes to sd card, isn't it?

Siso93 said:
thankkkkkkkkkkks *___* finally i was able to download WMW DDDDD
just one question:
in miui external and internal are swapped, so if I use internal script cache goes to sd card, isn't it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am running MIUI v8 and the SD cards aren't swapped in it by default.
If you are running miui with no sd-card swap mod of any sort, the cache will go into the desired place (in this case, internal memory). But if you are using sd-card swap mod (i don't know if it exists in MIUI), the cache will go into external sd card.
EDIT - My bad, the sd card swap mod is there for MIUI. If you use it, the methods would work the opposite way. Internal for external, external for internal.

Man,
This is great! Thank you!
Sent from my HTC Desire using xda premium

how to do this for cm 10? looks like asphalt 7 can't be downloaded, it stays stuck in downloading