[Q] Reformat data partition as ext4 - Captivate General

Rather than making a loopback filesystem, I've been trying to reformat the data partition as ext4, but haven't been able get past the galaxy "S" screen yet (the big S on boot). Here's what I did
* Compile a kernel with ext4 and modified init.rc to mount /data as ext4.
* Reboot into recovery and format /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 as ext4.
* Reboot into download and flash the custom kernel.
It was stuck at "S" for a while, then the screen went dark, and the only thing I could do was to pull out the battery. Then I went into recovery mode and found the partition was trashed, i.e. I couldn't mount it as ext4 again. I had to format it back to rfs and restore the stock kernel to get it to boot. I have to believe that there's something other than init.rc that assumes data partition to be in a certain format. Has anyone had success on a similar task?
BTW, the same process DID work for /dbdata, but I see no visible improvement in Quadrant score...

I has a similar thing occur on my first attempt with nilfs2. Did you remove anything that would attempt to mount as rfs? I think the rfs driver will claim pretty much anything that might be rfs, so if your format left the backup FAT intact, that might be your problem. By the way, the nilfs2+user_init kernel I posted in the mimocan fix thread does support ext4 as well, and allows you to customize the mount without rebuilding your kernel.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

Related

[Q] SD Card will not mount after ext4 part.

Attempting to partition sd card with ext4 -a process I completed multiple times successfully on a Nexus One, the process appeared to complete but now the phone will not mount the sd card. I've tried a wipe/reset, to no avail. I can still access and partition the sd card through adb, but the phone cannot mount it to format/partition, restore from recovery, partition sd-card from within ClockWork Recovery, nothing. I've re-partitioned the sd card through adb, which indicated a successful completion, but the phone still refuses to mount the sd card. If this weren't a Nexus S with it's cursed internal sd-card I would simply swap out the sd card with another or format it externally like all the google topics I pull up on the subject suggest.
Is this fixable or has the fused sd-card scenario become a liability?
Common Error messages:
Can't mount /sdcard
Can't mount /sdcard/.android_secure
Phone: Nexus S (US, T-Mobile, manufactured Dec. '10)
Recovery Img: ClockworkMod Recovery 3.0.2.4
Rom: CM 7.0.3 (now wiped, cannot put back on since sd card won't mount)
fstab:
/dev/block/mtdblock4 /cache yaffs2 rw
/dev/block/platform/s3c-sdhci.0/by-name/userdata /data ext4 rw
/dev/block/platform/s3c-sdhci.0/by-name/system /system ext4 rw
/dev/block/platform/s3c-sdhci.0/by-name/media /sdcard vfat rw
Can mount everything except the last one, /sdcard.
I've tried all the recommended procedures garnered from the first 10 or so pages in google, xda, cyanogem forum, etc:
Restore from nandroid: Not possible, can't mount the SD,
Wipe/Reset: can't wipe /media as sd card won't mount,
partition sd card from within Clockwork: indicates success but does nothing,
format from within clockwork: unable to mount,
repartition using adb: works, parted can see them, I can move files to from, but the phone will not mount,
clearing fstab: no effect,
Fastboot works, but I don't have the proper images. ADB works, as do the installed utilities. Have not tried ODIN as again, I don't have the proper images. Should I attempt to compile my own images from source?
Update: SOLVED, Microsoft Windows. To whom it may concern: I was able to mount the /dev/block/platform/s3c-sdhci.0/by-name/media from two different laptops running OSX and Fedora/Ubuntu then successfully been able to partition them with fat32 as the ClockworkMod (and maybe Cyanogen?) expect with 0 progress. Then I pulled out an old Windows machine, installed the JDK/ADK's +tools and performed the same procedure and that time it worked. I'm uncertain as to what particular quality a 'genuine' Windows formatting provides, but either this phone or the particular software combination I'm running require it. I was able to mount & re-partition the /sdcard in Clockwork, then manually remove rebuild them and upgrade to ext4 using tune2fs as usual. In the interim for work and such, I had to find a surrogate (for the SIM) and could only find and old k750i (which still had a full charge and worked flawlessly all day, btw). Wow phones used to be small.
I think I was missing something about the way ClockworkMod handles fstab, because everytime I would modify it specifically to the specs I passed to parted while creating the partitions with mkpartfs, it would either ignore or overwrite them. So be careful messing with the sd-card, the S's aren't like the One's in the sense that if you screw it (the sd-card) up or it goes bad you can't just take it out and format it in another machine/phone, you have to appeal to ClockworkMod. ODIN $ucks by the way, I found fastboot to be much more effective.
If you format the sd partition ext4, then you should change the fstab too.
from
Code:
/dev/block/platform/s3c-sdhci.0/by-name/media /sdcard vfat rw
to from
Code:
/dev/block/platform/s3c-sdhci.0/by-name/media /sdcard ext4 rw
or from
Code:
/dev/block/platform/s3c-sdhci.0/by-name/media /sdcard auto rw
The 2nd last entry there is the file system type.
Likely, this would have solved your problem.
Of course, I don't know, whether the recovery has the vfat type in fstab. You might have to change it there too. On my linux box auto works very well in fstab.
Of course, if you partition your sd partition ext4, you won't be able to use it as usb memory from windows. (At least I am pretty sure you can't, haven't tried)
Well of course I couldn't let it die, I went back and started tinkering again now that I have a way back. I can't change the fstab it seems, whatever I change it to gets over written everytime either Clockwork or the Rom starts. It's weird, I know I'm missing something and I don't know much about CWMod. (had Amon_Ra on the N1, which had the nifty fsupgrade script)
The 2nd last entry there is the file system type.
Likely, this would have solved your problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm quite familiar with unix style fs and fstab, it's the stubbornness I'm not used to. I'm also spoiled by vi and nano. CW has some nice scripts built in as well though.

Need FS Block Size: Bad Magic Block Error

SHORT: I need the filesystem block size (location would be nice too; however, I can guess that) so I can use e2fsck to restore my super-block.
LONG: I have been having issues for the past several days where I cannot umount /system. I thought it may have been a bad conversion going to/from or from/to rfs and ext4 and thought doing the conversion again had fixed it. But alas...it didn't.
I cannot umount the files system from adb ("device is busy" error) or CWMR ("Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock" in the log) on any version of ROM or using any kernel that I can find. Voodoo can seem to convert the filesystem (back/forth), but it only seem to work if I tell it to from the Voodoo Control and then reboot, which is odd. Still cannot umount.
When I try and use Navenedrob's Ext4 Formatter, it fails for /system. CWMR's log shows:
/tmp/tune2fs: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/block/stl10
Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock
Should be fixable with e2fsck, if I can get the correct information from tune2fs.
Typically, the command should be:tune2fs -l /dev/block/stl10 OR tune2fs -l -L /system
That said, tune2fs is tell me "-l" is an unknown option.
Can someone who is familiar with tune2fs (or other filesystem tools) in the Android/BusyBox environment please post either the correct command or a list of the contents of the filesystem super-block? Please be sure to include if your /system is in EXT4 or RFS.
Man, I haven't see this **** in years. Even then, it was pretty exclusive to virtual/networked file system (e.g. LVM).
Any-who, much appreciated....
So, after sleeping on it, I came to realize an error in my thinking...
I cannot use e2fsck to fix an RFS filesystem. Even more upsetting is that I cannot seem to find anything on The Google about command line RFS tools. Guess I could try a conversion and EXT filesystem, then change the superblock, then convert back to RFS, but that seems awfully convoluted.
Suggestions?
I suggest you odin with pit and check repartition. That *usually* fixes everything.
Sent from my debloated ep1q charge......bro.
Thanks for the tip...I probably should have mention that I've used Pit+ED1 numerous times in a effort to fix this. It goes through successfully; however, it doesn't actually wipe the partition and I've found old files in /system.
UPDATE:
Last thing I tried is manually wiping everything from /system (in CWMR + adb shell). Also, wiped everything I could find having anything to do with voodoo or EXT4 (just in case). After power off then back to recovery, I found I could umount /system. Created a new partition, formatted, then wacked the partition.
I just (successfully) ran ED1+pit from the Samsung Flashing Utility (which I have NOT tried using before) and I am now in the process of upgrading. Once I have root back, I'll go see if the fix for /system was permanent.

[Q] ext4 optimizations

Now, i know there are a *few* places in the dev section that have ext4 optimizations. But these "optimizations" are for the conversion from ext3 to ext4 without having the reformat and everything.
I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to change some of the ext4 mount flags for better speed. My problem is, everything i do in making a CWM flashable with a ext4 optimize sh script errors out with a Status 0. it doesn't even run.
But this time, i though i'd try a few things using adb shell. I got some tune2fs stuff working, so i thought i'd run an fsck on it. There isn't any fsck located on the phone. So i copied over a fsck.ext4, ran it but then got this error (and it also left my rom unuseable, but luckily i had a nandroid):
Code:
***file system was modified*** invalid argument passed to ext2 library while rewriting block inode bitmaps
.
And when doing an ls of /sbin, there isn't anything in there related to ext4, let alone ext3. So i'm wondering, why is our phone supports ext4 partitions, but doesn't actually have anything to support them?
EDIT: running just the tune2fs seems to have worked, just need to test out any differences found first.

[Q] Create EXT3 Partition in Nexus S

Hello,
I was wondering if someone could guide me with how to create a ext3 partition in Nexus S.
I tried creating a partition in sdcard using recovery and gparted. recovery keeps failing. says i am not using parted v1.8. etc. And gparted is rendering sdcard corrupted.
Any pointers?
ANB
Why would you want ext3 over the faster default ext4? As for the sd partitioning problem, I would leave it alone in gparted. It does the same thing for me, but shows up un-formatted. I wouldn't dare format it with a partition manager. I did that to a Droid Incredible once and soft bricked it. Took me days how to figure out how to re-partition the partitions. Just a word of advice.
Partition
Sorry,
I want to make a ext4 partition. We have paritions for boot, data, system, sdcard, misc etc.
I was trying to boot into debian in android with chroot. I was wondering if its possible to boot debian natively in Android. Right now, the display and frame buffer is not accessible when i chroot. I just need a partition, to put the debian image into. I dont know how to make this happen.
Any suggestions?
Thank you,
ANB

[Q] [ZTE V970M] Formatting [email protected] as ext4 and moving /data to it. Possible?

Hey guys
Recently I've got a ZTE V970M (MT6577) phone and so far it's awesome. However, some people have been asking for a way to extend the /data partition because some games are heavy 'n stuff. That's alright.
There is a method which resizes the partitions by altering the MBR on the EMMC and that way the /data partition ends up with 2GB (from [email protected]) + 512MB (the assigned for /data), but I want to do something different, without having to edit the MBR that way. Dunno, it's fishy imo.
My idea was to format [email protected] (which comes in vfat) as ext4 and then editing init.rc and change the partition mount points from [email protected] to [email protected]
If I do that without formatting, the phone boots but it asks for an encryption key. Reading on the net, it's not asking for an encryption key, it's the fallback mode for when it can't mount the /data partition and then it believes it's encrypted, but it isn't.
If I format the [email protected] to ext4 (mke2fs -T ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p6), parted shows it's on ext4 and all that shiz, but the phone seems to disconnect itself from ADB once it finishes booting, and hangs in bootloop. Since I can't ADB it, I don't know wtf is going on with the phone. Something tells me I'm close to reaching the goal though.
Looking on the net I found this useful link -> http://blog.kangkang.org/index.php/archives/242 which talks about extending /data the way I want to do (for the Tegra2 one, but it shouldn't matter). However, Chinese isn't my main or secondary language (lol) and google translate does an horrible job at translating it.
So, anyone got ideas on how to extend such partition? I just want to swap the normal /data partition with the internal SDcard partition, so in theory if I format it to ext4 and swap the mount points it should work, it's just a swap, but why it isn't?
Any ideas are greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance!
- DARKGuy
I hate bumping but, nobody yet? I've seen this being done in other phones... any ideas?
I can't believe no one has an idea yet... come on, this is XDA... wtf is up?
Yeah, I wanna know this too. If formatting the EMMC on my Note1 to anything other that the FAT32 will help?

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