Database Info

Reformatting the SD card

Ok, so i did search before i posted this and i even looked through all 5 of the similar threads that popped up when i wrote the title for this one but none of them answers my question so i'm posting...
Background:
I'm pretty new to Android, got a Dell Streak back in Oct '10, and loved it. Rooted, put DJ_Steve's StreakDroid on yada yada... Broke my streaks screen and got an Inspire from my Best Buy warranty.
Now, to root this Inspire it seems its a LOT more involved... Making a gold card etc.
My question:
When you reformat the SD card, what happens to all the folders that are on it? Do they get recreated or are they gone for good? Are they even that important? I noticed some Adobe, Yahoo folders, which i assume can be re-created easily once the apps are reinstalled/opened back up but others on there like dcim, Android, Data, etc etc that look to be more important. Do i need to do anything special or just hit reformat? I'm looking at making my included SD card the gold card and taking my Streaks old 16GB card and using it for day-to-day use. So i guess i'm just looking for any "gotchas".
Thanks in advance to anyone who offers their help.
-D

MN_Evolution said:
Ok, so i did search before i posted this and i even looked through all 5 of the similar threads that popped up when i wrote the title for this one but none of them answers my question so i'm posting...
Background:
I'm pretty new to Android, got a Dell Streak back in Oct '10, and loved it. Rooted, put DJ_Steve's StreakDroid on yada yada... Broke my streaks screen and got an Inspire from my Best Buy warranty.
Now, to root this Inspire it seems its a LOT more involved... Making a gold card etc.
My question:
When you reformat the SD card, what happens to all the folders that are on it? Do they get recreated or are they gone for good? Are they even that important? I noticed some Adobe, Yahoo folders, which i assume can be re-created easily once the apps are reinstalled/opened back up but others on there like dcim, Android, Data, etc etc that look to be more important. Do i need to do anything special or just hit reformat? I'm looking at making my included SD card the gold card and taking my Streaks old 16GB card and using it for day-to-day use. So i guess i'm just looking for any "gotchas".
Thanks in advance to anyone who offers their help.
-D
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If any important data is in those folders, you should save them on your computer. For example, pictures in DCIM folder, music, videos.... or documents that you created..
While creating the gold card, the sd card will be formatted and you will lose all data.
After the phone is rooted, you can then format the card using the phone's "Format SD card" tool, and then use the card as normal.
All those folders will be recreated once those apps are installed.
Edit: Also, if you look in the Dev's section, there are tools that will help you with the whole process of rooting your phone.

Thanks Kirk! Yeah i've been reading up on the SuperOne Click and the Hacker Kit. Just trying to read and reread the stuff so i know what to expect. I'd like to watch the tutorial video for Super One Click but i'm at work and Youtube is blocked so i'll watch it at home tonight.
Just looking to see what one is easier and would give me the best chance of not royally screwing up my phone. I kinda get the gold card thing and what it does but seems so silly at the same time that i have to use an SD card and then put it away to use it for later if i decide i wanna go back to stock...
I guess the ease of hacking the Streak kinda spoiled me. Especially for my first Android phone

MN_Evolution said:
Thanks Kirk! Yeah i've been reading up on the SuperOne Click and the Hacker Kit. Just trying to read and reread the stuff so i know what to expect. I'd like to watch the tutorial video for Super One Click but i'm at work and Youtube is blocked so i'll watch it at home tonight.
Just looking to see what one is easier and would give me the best chance of not royally screwing up my phone. I kinda get the gold card thing and what it does but seems so silly at the same time that i have to use an SD card and then put it away to use it for later if i decide i wanna go back to stock...
I guess the ease of hacking the Streak kinda spoiled me. Especially for my first Android phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use a proxy site to be able to watch the video at your work place. Something like this --> http://www.proxeasy.com/webclient.aspx EDIT: Scratch that... This proxy site doesn't allow flash content unless you subscribe. Sorry. You can try other proxy sites
The inspire is my second android phone. I had the captivate and it was very easy to root. Prior to the captivate, I had the eyephone. So glad I went with an android phone. Sick and tired of the same UI with iphones.
Although the entire rooting process for the inspire seems overwhelming, it's actually pretty straight forward when you follow the instructions.
I haven't heard anyone "bricking" their inspire yet and if you get stuck in the rooting process, search the forums and you will most likely find your solution.

What route did you decide to use? The Hacker Kit or SuperOneClick?
Yeah i had a Captivate for about a month, it was just a loaner from AT&T until the Streak Come out. Previous to that i had the iPhone 3g as well. Hated playing in Steve's sandbox... and i abhor iTunes. I can't think of a bigger POS software.
I guess the Streak had its moments trying to root. I used the QDL tool which needed to be run through Fastboot with a couple commands. It was getting the damn Dell ABD driver running correctly on the PC which took the longest time.
Anyway, thanks for the info Kirk. I'll see if i can't get this thing cooked up tonight. I really wanna try CoreDroid, and get the battery life on this phone to a respectable level. If its just sitting in standby its ok, but as soon as you use it the percentages just tick away quite quickly.

MN_Evolution said:
What route did you decide to use? The Hacker Kit or SuperOneClick?
Yeah i had a Captivate for about a month, it was just a loaner from AT&T until the Streak Come out. Previous to that i had the iPhone 3g as well. Hated playing in Steve's sandbox... and i abhor iTunes. I can't think of a bigger POS software.
I guess the Streak had its moments trying to root. I used the QDL tool which needed to be run through Fastboot with a couple commands. It was getting the damn Dell ABD driver running correctly on the PC which took the longest time.
Anyway, thanks for the info Kirk. I'll see if i can't get this thing cooked up tonight. I really wanna try CoreDroid, and get the battery life on this phone to a respectable level. If its just sitting in standby its ok, but as soon as you use it the percentages just tick away quite quickly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used the hack kit. Went ok. Had some slight issue when i tried to use a 1GB SD card that apparently is too small for a gold card. So, then I decided to just use the SD card that came with the phone and all went well!
I also have to agree with hating itunes... They keep cramming useless features and just makes the whole user experience a little less interesting.
Im glad that with android devices, you don't need any specific program to sync your stuff to the phone... Just plug in and done!

[Q] Keep on my SD?

I just recently rooted my Inspire and have been trying out some different roms. My question is what do I need to keep on my SD card? There is a lot of stuff on it and it is almost full.

Easy keep what you want, pictures, music and your clockwork mod folder with your ROM back ups.
But first you said you been flashing a lot of roms, did you delete the downloads? Some roms are over 300 Meg.
Sent from my Desire HD using xda premium

Thats good to know. I have moved all my pictures and music to my PC. So I should just be able to remove everything from the SD card than, correct? I was a little worried about removing certain folders like the .android and other ones that sounded like system files. But I guess all the important ones are stored on the phone not the SD.
Also, thanks for letting me know about the rom sizes. Did not realize that they where so big. I have 6 different ones on there that I am trying out, to find the one I like.

digi-t said:
Thats good to know. I have moved all my pictures and music to my PC. So I should just be able to remove everything from the SD card than, correct? I was a little worried about removing certain folders like the .android and other ones that sounded like system files. But I guess all the important ones are stored on the phone not the SD.
Also, thanks for letting me know about the rom sizes. Did not realize that they where so big. I have 6 different ones on there that I am trying out, to find the one I like.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I've made it a habit to delete items such as roms,rils,mods and the like off my SD card for space and for the fear I'll mess up and pick the wrong item and flash something I didn't want to. Also, while on the topic, if you do plan on flashing radios in the future always delete the radio PD98IMG off your sd card after you flash it. It will make dealing with bootloader if you softbrick a little easier. Just food for thought!

I only have a 2gb SD card right now and just finished doing a nandroid backup that is about 900mb. So that plus the stuff I already have the card has left me with only 94mb and I want to test the new MIUI rom.
Can I save the nandroid backup to my computer and if something goes wrong take out the sd card plug it in to the computer put the backup back on and restore it?
Or is there a way to reduce the size of the nandroid backup somehow?

Dude, how do you only have a 2 gig SD card? The inspire came with an 8 gig. I have a 32 gig, and it's almost half full. You should get at least an 8, they're pretty cheap.

See the thing is I got it from this guy on the street called satellite jack. Haha just kidding I accidentally messed up my 8gb reversing the cid number on my first time rooting my phone.
Anyway is there some way to solve my problem for right now (I plan on getting a 16gb later) but want to try out the MIUI rom.
P.S. How much was your 32gb SD card?

mudcat242000 said:
See the thing is I got it from this guy on the street called satellite jack. Haha just kidding I accidentally messed up my 8gb reversing the cid number on my first time rooting my phone.
Anyway is there some way to solve my problem for right now (I plan on getting a 16gb later) but want to try out the MIUI rom.
P.S. How much was your 32gb SD card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes you can save the nandroid to your PC while you flash the new rom. Just make sure what ever size SD you get that you get a class 4 or better. I have heard and had issues with class 2 cards not wanting to work right like when flashing a radio

Ok thanks!
Why is the nandroid backup so big though? I mean I understand the system backup being 450+ mb because that's about how big the virtuous rom is. But why is my data backup 450+ mb as well. What does the data.ext4 backup?

mudcat242000 said:
Ok thanks!
Why is the nandroid backup so big though? I mean I understand the system backup being 450+ mb because that's about how big the virtuous rom is. But why is my data backup 450+ mb as well. What does the data.ext4 backup?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is so big because it backs up all your apps and settings for the apps you have installed and the apps themselfs along with any and all needed resources for the apps. Not sure what the ext4 backup does other then allow back ups for a data partition that is formatted to ext4

I always delete backups after about a week of sticking with a ROM. It saves space and stops me from picking the wrong backup.
Sent from my HTC Inspire

HTC Amaze VS HTC One S

Is it really worth upgrading from the amaze to the one s??!!

Probably not unless you REALLY have to have ICS right away and the upgraded camera hardware. I'd say wait until you're upgrade eligible, unless you are now, in which case I'd probably upgrade cause I really like this phone.

Veras1996 said:
Is it really worth upgrading from the amaze to the one s??!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you call it an UPGRADE then yes it's worth it

It's a lot more future proof than the Amaze IMO, probably going to have a lot more development as well.

How can a such high caliber HTC One S lacks a microSD slot? Don't know about you guys but the available ~12Gb or so just AIN'T enough.

xxxman999 said:
How can a such high caliber HTC One S lacks a microSD slot? Don't know about you guys but the available ~12Gb or so just AIN'T enough.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
why should u bet all your music collection in your phone, when u wont listen to all of it anyway?
ATM I have 8gb sdcard, and still 1gb left + alot of music I dont even listen to. I could easy free up even more space...
Just dont take "all the ****s" with you, Change music in your phone time by time instead of taking it all with you and just "skip -> skip -> skip -> 5x skip -> ok this is nice song"

if you bought premium navigation, 16GB is not enough.

fallenwout said:
if you bought premium navigation, 16GB is not enough.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
from name I understand its some kind of GPS where maps are saved on your sdcard?
If so, Im using mapdroyid which also saved maps on my sdcard, still have free space.

Im wondering, with no sd card, how will rooting and installing roms/backups and what not work now.
I mean, when you have to wipe the phone, youre gonna have to copy all that stuff on the phone to a PC and then move it back later?
Thats one of the things that made me iffy on the one s.

Storage isnt an issue... it comes with 25gb drobox space, You can take all your stuff with you..
And are you really gunna need 12gb worth of pics and music and whatever on your phone ?? As said above its easy to just swap stuff over, Load it back to dropbox and download something else. Keep it fresh
And i think its silly they dont have an SD slot, But look how thin this device is ! its soo slim, compromises had to be made..
And when you do a wipe, Unless you wipe internal SD card, (which you dont need to when doing a 'wipe') all your media will remain, Only the partition that keeps apps and data will be wiped. So again, Its no big deal..
Look at the potential this phone has, when development starts, nothing is gonna keep this bad boy down

No

azzledazzle is wright, but you can also wipe the sd partition and then mount usb storage to copy files on it (rom...gapps) from cwm recovery. I did that on Nexus S last night.
azzledazzle said:
And when you do a wipe, Unless you wipe internal SD card, (which you dont need to when doing a 'wipe') all your media will remain, Only the partition that keeps apps and data will be wiped. So again, Its no big deal..
Look at the potential this phone has, when development starts, nothing is gonna keep this bad boy down
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
potentdro said:
Im wondering, with no sd card, how will rooting and installing roms/backups and what not work now.
I mean, when you have to wipe the phone, youre gonna have to copy all that stuff on the phone to a PC and then move it back later?
Thats one of the things that made me iffy on the one s.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I think people are getting too much of a hard on for Krait. Yes, the S4 soc is amazing. But there are plenty of downers to this phone already.
1) HTC's amazing track record with batteries... Don't get me wrong, love HTC... but omg I've had to replace batteries on several phones after a year. Much nicer when you can just pay $20 for a chinese battery off amazon that works wonders as opposed to having to get the phone serviced.
I mean, honestly, why couldn't the phone have been build like the Sensation/Amaze and lift off that awesome aluminum back?
2) T-Mobile's coverage and the 25 GB of cloud storage - Depending on where you live, this 25gb is gonna SUCK because you can't access it worth a damn.
Though to be fare, everyone who's said "Just swap out your data" is completely right. You don't NEED 32gb of storage on your phone unless you want to be all "Hey, look at all the **** I've got." Which is something the cult of Apple has nurtured in a lot of people through iTunes.
3) Bottleneck - The parts are better than the software they run on. Honestly, this isn't a gaming PC. This isn't a PC at all. You can't just keep throwing higher and higher end parts into a phone expecting it to work better, you hit a performance plateau. Beyond benchmarks, we are starting to see android's limits at this point in standard use. I honestly feel that the HTC Sensation and Amaze are the best Gingerbread and ICS will offer in phones. Everything else is just stylish masturbation.
4) The Micro Arc Oxidation treatment has been shown to not be as durable on some phones as it should be. I've seen a couple blogs and several owners attest to this. If I can't have my HTC One S with that kickass plasma treatment and red accents without it flaking off I don't want it at all
Really guys, the Amaze (and it's lil bro the Sensation) are both great phones. If you don't mind taking the time to upgrade the sensation to a sensation xe rom you can get a very stable 1.5-1.7 ghz overclock and the Amaze battery fits in it, leaving you with one very very nice piece of machine. I got one to replace a busted Amaze and it runs very nice and I almost don't want to use my Amaze again now that it's fixed...
But back on to the One S... It's pretty, but it's really just HTC's one up of the Galaxy Nexus and Razr MAXX. Don't give in to the stylistic oneupmanship, just hold off and get the next monster they put out. I guarantee you we will see a monster of a phone in a few months that will basically be the next Amaze.

It's small and stylish. Feels great to hold in the hand as opposed to the other giants HTC has released during the years. Why all so called "flagship" models must have ridiculous screen sizes is beyond my understanding - the One S fits right in where it belongs and I think the upgrade is more on the aesthetic side than anything...
Like the above poster, I don't think that the storage space is an issue at all. (Coming previously from a Galaxy S 8gb model which I never really maxed out) and use the cloud if you need the space, hell it's even recommended why wouldn't you want your stuff sync'd all the time? I don't really see the point in having on board storage that I can't backup 24/7 anyway and with today's free data plans, most of us don't care for storing things locally.
But that's just my 2c.

azzledazzle said:
Storage isnt an issue... it comes with 25gb drobox space, You can take all your stuff with you..
And are you really gunna need 12gb worth of pics and music and whatever on your phone ?? As said above its easy to just swap stuff over, Load it back to dropbox and download something else. Keep it fresh
And i think its silly they dont have an SD slot, But look how thin this device is ! its soo slim, compromises had to be made..
And when you do a wipe, Unless you wipe internal SD card, (which you dont need to when doing a 'wipe') all your media will remain, Only the partition that keeps apps and data will be wiped. So again, Its no big deal..
Look at the potential this phone has, when development starts, nothing is gonna keep this bad boy down
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What about when you're somewhere where theres no service or limited service. Viewing, transferring or downloading from dropbox will be impossible.
Or how about this senerio, starting to have to start saving our best, most intimate photos, important files to dropbox because you're already out of space in internal storage and dropbox crashes. Everything lost, forever.
No SD card slot for expandable storage is ridiculous.

For me it makes perfect sense. All my music is streamed through our Subsonic server, pictures auto update to a private G+ album, docs are on Gdocs.
If I'm going to the mountains I just preload some music and I'm good to go.
Physical storage is dying; long live the cloud
coupetastic-droid said:
What about when you're somewhere where theres no service or limited service. Viewing, transferring or downloading from dropbox will be impossible.
Or how about this senerio, starting to have to start saving our best, most intimate photos, important files to dropbox because you're already out of space in internal storage and dropbox crashes. Everything lost, forever.
No SD card slot for expandable storage is ridiculous.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

familiarstranger said:
For me it makes perfect sense. All my music is streamed through our Subsonic server, pictures auto update to a private G+ album, docs are on Gdocs.
If I'm going to the mountains I just preload some music and I'm good to go.
Physical storage is dying; long live the cloud
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree wholeheartedly. I get why people don't like the cloud but I have never had any issues with cloud storage. I also use Subsonic to stream my music and it works great. The Subsonic app also caches music on my phone so if I have a bad connection I still have tunes. Also, I have no problem uploading my pictures and everything to Dropbox. Honestly, the lack of storage doesn't concern me at all.

coupetastic-droid said:
What about when you're somewhere where theres no service or limited service. Viewing, transferring or downloading from dropbox will be impossible.
Or how about this senerio, starting to have to start saving our best, most intimate photos, important files to dropbox because you're already out of space in internal storage and dropbox crashes. Everything lost, forever.
No SD card slot for expandable storage is ridiculous.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
surely you wont need 8GB+ storage for one day ?? you must have access to a computer where you can swap files and remove some stuff you wont be using ?
if the storage is such a problem for you... dont get the One S.. get something else

azzledazzle said:
surely you wont need 8GB+ storage for one day ?? you must have access to a computer where you can swap files and remove some stuff you wont be using ?
if the storage is such a problem for you... dont get the One S.. get something else
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My device is my computer. Why would I need to be around a PC to swap files back and forth. Why go through that hassle with a mobile device? Then what would be that point of a mobile device?
Yea, you're right. I won't be going for the one s for sure. Amaze will be a better choice.

Mobile devices suppost to help by having data with you, but it cannot replace PC if u want all ur things with u then it wont be so mobile anymore, thats why ppl make cloud storage and cloud computing
Sent from my HTC One S using xda premium

What's the point of my SD Card? (ExtSD)

So, I got a 32gb Class 10 card for my phone assuming that as with my old phone I'd use it for apps as well as some music and things. But with this phone Samsung gave it an "internal" SD Card which gets used for all the things my external card did on my Dinc. And there seems to be no way to change this.
So aside from Videos and Mps3 and some pics, is there really any use for the SD card on this phone?
FYI - not rooted or anything as of yet. I was rooted & running custom roms on my Dinc, but haven't seen much of a need on this phone.

hollywoodfrodo said:
So, I got a 32gb Class 10 card for my phone assuming that as with my old phone I'd use it for apps as well as some music and things. But with this phone Samsung gave it an "internal" SD Card which gets used for all the things my external card did on my Dinc. And there seems to be no way to change this.
So aside from Videos and Mps3 and some pics, is there really any use for the SD card on this phone?
FYI - not rooted or anything as of yet. I was rooted & running custom roms on my Dinc, but haven't seen much of a need on this phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Aside from being able to back up all your stuff and store ALL the media you could want, no..
Supposedly there is a way to force apps onto extsd but I don't know much about it.

Thanks!
Thank you!

hollywoodfrodo said:
So, I got a 32gb Class 10 card for my phone assuming that as with my old phone I'd use it for apps as well as some music and things. But with this phone Samsung gave it an "internal" SD Card which gets used for all the things my external card did on my Dinc. And there seems to be no way to change this.
So aside from Videos and Mps3 and some pics, is there really any use for the SD card on this phone?
FYI - not rooted or anything as of yet. I was rooted & running custom roms on my Dinc, but haven't seen much of a need on this phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I recently upgraded from a "tricked out, custom ROM" Dinc as well. I didn't root the SIII for the first couple weeks, but them little things, like the sdcard vs extsdcard for apps, no google wallet, no titanium backup, etc got the best of me and I rooted. You can certainly ulock the potential of your extsdcard by rooting.

Is there a guide available for forcing apps onto extSD?
Sent from Galaxy S III on Verizon (Unlocked Bootloader)

Set Titanium Backup to backup to ext-sd. Make your NANDROIDs save to sd-ext as well. If your phone is ever damaged (fall in water, fall on ground, etc) then at least you still are able to salvage the sdcard with your precious information.

hollywoodfrodo said:
So aside from Videos and Mps3 and some pics, is there really any use for the SD card on this phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
32 gigs in the device native, 64 in the slot. 96 gigs of space ( - a bit ) I can't think of any reasons why almost 100 gigs of interactively accessable storage is bad.

What sucks is Instagram won't save to external, I've even contacted them about it and they still haven't done anything about it.
= sent from my Unlocked VZW S3 =

I put everything on my SD card, (64gb), and really only use internal (16gb) for apps and stuff. So that its always backed up on a removable card

Full / Total Erasure

A little background...
I got the S3 a couple months ago and went a little crazy flashing any / every ROM that looked even the slightest bit interesting - all without thought or knowledge of the differences between 4.2.1 & 4.2.2. With 4.2.3 (?) coming out soon, I want to be able to have a totally clean install.
I'm interested in a totally clean wipe BUT not having to re-root, flash CWM, etc... Looking to get rid of the multiple emulated SDs (I think I've got 3 and they are empty when I look @ them in ROM Toolbox), all the other data from apps and start over from (mostly) scratch.
I've got a 64gb external SD that I want to keep intact and am not opposed to backing things up to there. When I had my old OG Moto Droid and with my Charge, I was pretty comfortable doing things like what I'm planning but with this whole "internal" SD, I'm afraid I might screw things up royally.
Anyone have ideas or a thread you can point me to that will allow me to do this safely and start over without all the clutter that I've developed recently?
Any / all help is appreciated! Thanks!
"You live & you learn. Or you don't live long..." - LL