Original Question: Anyone have good recommendations on partitioning to make best use of the card? I know I read on several threads about copying the contents of the current card, including any hidden files/folders, to the computer and then back to the new card, but what about partitioning ahead of time?
Updated Answer
Several potential answers, including malybru's answer below. After some time, I have found that the best way is to format the SD card in the phone. As malybru pointed out below, no other partitions are necessary. This is for any size SD.
So the steps would be:
Power your phone off.
Take your current SD out and plug it into a computer.
Copy all files from it, including any hidden files to a temp folder on your hard drive.
Note: If you aren't sure if Windows is showing you the hidden files, open up Windows Explorer or My Computer, for Windows 7, then Organize, Folder and search options, View, Show Hidden files, folders, and drives.
Insert your new SD into the phone.
Hold the Volume Down and Power buttons until it boots into bootloader. Use volume down to navigate down to boot into recovery and hit the Power button.
4EXT-------------------CWM
Format----------------Mounts and Storage
Format SD-----------Format SD card
After the SD is finished formatting power the phone down.
Remove the SD from the phone and put it in the computer and copy every folder/file from the temp folder back to it.
Put the SD in the phone, boot up normally, profit :victory:
Yank555 has documented a method to create and utilize a swap partition on your SD card. There are pros and cons to this, so you might want to read his thread and consider it carefully before making a decision.
[MOD] How to make and use a swap partition on the SD-card
Enjoy the extra space!
mf2112 said:
Anyone have good recommendations on partitioning to make best use of the card? I know I read on several threads about copying the contents of the current card, including any hidden files/folders, to the computer and then back to the new card, but what about partitioning ahead of time?
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Hi,
I have found "G-Parted Live"the best partitioning and formatting tool.(google it)
Any recommendations on which partition types are good?
malybru said:
Hi,
I have found "G-Parted Live"the best partitioning and formatting tool.(google it)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, your reply is most appreciated. I wish we weren't limited to 5 per day sometimes. Do you have any suggestions on which types of partitions to create that might make better use of the card than a single 32g partition? Thanks!
mf2112 said:
Thanks, your reply is most appreciated. I wish we weren't limited to 5 per day sometimes. Do you have any suggestions on which types of partitions to create that might make better use of the card than a single 32g partition? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
I have no partitions on my 32 GB card .
It's not like the old HD2 I had ,which needed an ext4 partition.
I've just got 32 GB of lovely,lovely space for all the crap i like to carry around with me...
updated old question into a guide
While trying to play around and learn Android, I ran a "partition sd card" via SafeStrap. I was thinking I could create a 4gb partition and use it to test ROM's. After I partitioned, I noticed that it appears all data that was on the SD card is gone. Every picture that I ever took of my lovely 4 year old twin daughters is now completely MIA. Have I totally blown them away or is there anyway I can get them back ? I had a 16gb SD card and after I did the partition, I only show a little over 10gb total space of the card.
Please help if you can.
Thanks,
You can try recovery softwares like undelete 360.
No you won't be able to recover them...
Same had happened to me back in the days...
That's why there is a warning that you back up your sd data before you proceed..
Typed using a small touchscreen
Just moved from a 8 GB to a 32GB card. And cannot use it...
First I unmounted the old SD card on the phone, and put in the new, unformatted 32GB. I then choose to format it in the phone. Its a Galaxy S GT-9003i with firmware I9003XXKPN v2.3.5
It formated fine. Then I unmounted the new card, plonked in the old card and connected the phone in USB mode to the Macbook. I also connected the newly formatted SD card via a card reader, and it promptly showed up, with the correct free space (although there was a directory on it already called LOST.DIR)
I then copied all apps from the phones 8GB SD to the 32GB card, using the laptop (drag and drop). This also went fine and without a glitch. I then shut down the phone, swapped out the SD cards and booted the phone on again. As expected, it went to do the usual Scanning USB memory. It completed. The space appears to be taken up, but all apps that are on that USB are inaccesible. Their icons grey Androids with a small SD logo in the bottom right corner.
All other apps (the ones on the phone) work fine. The SD card can be used to copy files to on the computer and to take pictures...
Phone is not rooted.
PLease help, if you have a solution to this...
Many tHanks
oranabana said:
Just moved from a 8 GB to a 32GB card. And cannot use it...
First I unmounted the old SD card on the phone, and put in the new, unformatted 32GB. I then choose to format it in the phone. Its a Galaxy S GT-9003i with firmware I9003XXKPN v2.3.5
It formated fine. Then I unmounted the new card, plonked in the old card and connected the phone in USB mode to the Macbook. I also connected the newly formatted SD card via a card reader, and it promptly showed up, with the correct free space (although there was a directory on it already called LOST.DIR)
I then copied all apps from the phones 8GB SD to the 32GB card, using the laptop (drag and drop). This also went fine and without a glitch. I then shut down the phone, swapped out the SD cards and booted the phone on again. As expected, it went to do the usual Scanning USB memory. It completed. The space appears to be taken up, but all apps that are on that USB are inaccesible. Their icons grey Androids with a small SD logo in the bottom right corner.
All other apps (the ones on the phone) work fine. The SD card can be used to copy files to on the computer and to take pictures...
Phone is not rooted.
PLease help, if you have a solution to this...
Many tHanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried rebooting your phone? If it still does not work, try to unmount your SD Card via settings and then wait for it to successfully unmount and then mount again
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
Application not installed on your phone
saywhatt said:
Have you tried rebooting your phone? If it still does not work, try to unmount your SD Card via settings and then wait for it to successfully unmount and then mount again
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, yes tried this one. No luck.... Its a Samsung mirco SD card (Model: MB-MSBGA) class 10
Anyone else..!?
Did u done app2sd in ur phone with the 8 gig 1
Sent from my GT-I9003 using xda premium
No not much.
DONT FORGET TO PRESS THE THANKS BUTTON IF HELPED YOU IN ANY WAY
ah ha
So, I cannot even find the app2sd app under My Apps on the Google Play store... weird. Its also not listing under Manage Applications. Would this really be the cause of the problem!?
Anyone else have any ideas, why the phone cannot load the apps copied from the other SD card...!?!
First of all u have to move all apps from the old sd card to the phone. Or while inserting ur new sd, the apps you moved to your old sd will not work
DONT FORGET TO PRESS THE THANKS BUTTON IF HELPED YOU IN ANY WAY
Mebin Robin said:
First of all u have to move all apps from the old sd card to the phone. Or while inserting ur new sd, the apps you moved to your old sd will not work
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Thanks, but I canot make sense of this. Firstly all apps on the old SD card will never fit onto the phone (8GB, vs 2GB space), and secondly elsewhere online they always talk about copying files to the new card and then inserting that instead of the old one....
mmmh...!? Whilst I apprecite your post - its not working for me
When apps are moved to the SD card, it isn't entirely moved to the SD card. Only part of it is, that's why when installing apps the space for apps still decreases. Therefore you should use titanium backup or similar backup programs to move the applications.
bscraze said:
Therefore you should use titanium backup or similar backup programs to move the applications.
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Thanks,I had a look at titanium backup, but it requires root access (my phone has not been rooted). I really dont think one should need to root their phone to move from a small to a larger SD card without having to re-install all apps from scratch...!?
oranabana said:
Thanks,I had a look at titanium backup, but it requires root access (my phone has not been rooted). I really dont think one should need to root their phone to move from a small to a larger SD card without having to re-install all apps from scratch...!?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Without root you will not be able to backup data(AFAIK)
bscraze said:
...Therefore you should use titanium backup or similar backup programs to move the applications.
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Click to collapse
OK, so I rooted the phone and used Titanium Backup. It created a backup file on the phone memory. I thought, voila, I am good then, popped in the new SD card, formatted it, and did the restore from Titanium Backup... but:
still getting a lot of greyed out files in the application folder and on the home screens... I really cannot believe all this work is needed to swap out SD cards from a smaller to larger capacity! what a pain in the •••
I have the same problem on my new samsung 32gb 10 class micro sd card and still searching for the solution. If anyone have a solution, please, share it for us. Thanks!
martynas393 said:
I have the same problem on my new samsung 32gb 10 class micro sd card and still searching for the solution. If anyone have a solution, please, share it for us. Thanks!
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I have the same problem to, just backed up my old 16gb card to my pc, installed and formatted a new 32gb card in my S4 and copied the data back over and all the apps that are on the sd card are showing up grey.
Ok, after a quick google, i've found that making a clone of the card and then copying the clone to the new card works
you can use HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool to do this (you'll have to google it as I don't have enough posts to post external links)
heathen666 said:
Ok, after a quick google, i've found that making a clone of the card and then copying the clone to the new card works
you can use HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool to do this (you'll have to google it as I don't have enough posts to post external links)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! Yeah that works perfectly! (Apparently there are some "secure" folders in the SD card that start with a period, and the contents do not get copied at all. Those hold the apps and data.) However after using HDD-Raw-Copy it will create an exact replica of the smaller SD card on the larger one and the larger one will appear to be small too, so you must resize your partition or you won't gain anything, your new card will be exactly the same as the old one! You can use MiniTool Partition Wizard home edition which is free to do this: partitionwizard.com :good:
I had the same problem but I was able to fix without extra software. Took old card out of my phone and installed both externally via flash readers to my pc and copied files from one to the other. View hidden files is turned on just in case any hidden items is also copied. This work great for me all apps are accessible now. Hope this helpped
Here is the step-by-step solution: http://www.tomsguide.com/forum/id-2545604/move-data-card-samsung-galaxy.html
There are two ways described to do it successfully:
METHOD 1 uses the xcopy (or xcopy32) command in a Cmd Prompt windown on Windows. The /h switch used on the command allows the hidden and system files to be copied!
METHOD 2 uses a straight copy from old SD card to the new SD card (or from old SD card to folder on computer, then from folder on computer to new SD card) using the simple drag and drop on Windows. BUT YOU MUST HAVE WINDOWS EXPLORER CONFIGURED TO SHOW SYSTEM AND HIDDEN FILES!
Just to be clear, the solution to the problem is trivial. You are simply copying ALL the files from one SD card to another. There is absolutely no reason that copying ALL files from one SD card, including the complete file structure, to another SD card should not work. Your phone can't tell that you switched SD cards. It only knows the files and file structure it can see on the SD card and if they are EXACTLY the same as they were before the switch, your phone should work exactly like it did before the switch except now it will see more free storage space on your larger SD card (which was probably your goal in the first place) AND your phone may possibly even run faster by accessing the data much faster if your new SD card is a faster class of storage media.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO ROOT YOUR PHONE OR INSTALL ALL KINDS OF CRAZY APPS ON YOUR PHONE OR SOFTWARE ON YOUR COMPUTER TO DO THIS!!!
BUT, the key is that YOU MUST ALSO COPY ALL THE HIDDEN FILES and there are lots of them on Android! Everytime I hear of someone having a problem with switchinging to a new SD card, it is because they did NOT copy the hidden files OR their SD card was not properly formatted (FAT32) for the phone.
Please click the Thanks button if this has helped you!
Hi, Still very new to all this. Was wanting to use link2sd app. Upon loading up the app and finding out more. It states "second partition not found, no sd card present"? So i'm reading all these threads on how to partition. Concern is, this guide for dummies writes that they want me to unmount sd and put in computer via usb or sd card reader? I don't have a sd card reader on laptop. Am i not able to leave it mounted in my phone while partitioning? This sd is internal and i don't see anything else under my sim card. Looks empty as if nothing is there. Is that where the external would go? Under sim card? Anyways, aside from that. I can't use CWM. Has no option for format sd card in 6.0.4.7. So was told to use Minitool partition wizard. Is this free? Says freeware. I'm guessing yes, though someone said it asked for license after partition. Shrugs.
My biggest concern is that even if i figure this out and get a second partition going..... What is going to be lost after format? My guess is everything right? So when i do a factory reset, will i still be flashed with beanstalk rom...Or wiill i have to start from stock again and update back to beanstalk? Sorry to sound stupid. Only been playing around with this phone a couple days. First smartphone and still very new to flashing, etc.
come on....60 views and not one helpful answer? surely someone has knowledge on this discussion. Please help! Does this phone ship with a sd card internally or no? I swore i used app2sd on earlier build before i return phone for a replacement. Why does it not work no longer? is there a specific build/rom that would allow me doing this? new to smartphones. be nice to the newb. thx.
I'm not a developer by any stretch of the imagination, but this Linux cell phone has ignited my inner geek, and I must bend it to my will.
My basic question is, with the current state of development, how much is it possible to move from the internal storage of an LG Optimus Fuel phone (L34C/KitKat) and onto the external SD card?
I blow stuff up a lot because I'm an inveterate tinkerer, too adventurous for my own good/skill level. I'm an Android noob, but an old hand at Linux, which means I think I know a lot more about what I'm doing with KitKat than I actually do. But at least I do have a fetish for backups, which is all that makes my misadventures endurable.
So I did a Nandroid backup on my L34C after modding it only enough to support the TWRP backup. But the phone's internal storage is puny, and TWRP manager will only write to the internal SD, so I could only install about 300MB more in apps before there no longer was enough space for another Nandroid backup. Which means I've either got to tone down my tweaking (figure the odds!) or find another way to do Nandroids.
Yes, I could do an initial Nandroid, followed by Titanium backups, but where's the fun in that? Same with doing online Nandroid backups. No self-respecting geek every would let someone else be in charge of maintaining his backups (IMHO). And bonus points if I can relieve internal SD overcrowding by installing/moving apps and whatnot to the external storage.
So I'm thinking this is going to require linking, but the OE FAT32 partition on the external SD card won't support it. The OE 4GB SD card was too small to be slicing up, so I bought a 16GB cat4 SD card, formatted half in FAT32 and half in Ext3, but I could never get the Ext3 partition to mount. I wasn't able to find anything definitive, but I did come across information (of unknown validity) that the L34C's lack of init.d support was the reason it wouldn't mount.
So is this true? If I install a kernel with init.d support in my L34C, will I then be able to mount additional partition(s) on the external SD card?
As for the specifics of the partitioning, I found one mention in another forum in a post dated almost three years ago stating partitions on an Android external SD card had to be no more than 2GB in size, and preferably only 1GB. Is this true? Does it still pertain to KitKat? And what is/was the cause of this partition size limitation?
If the 2GB limit is true, what about creating and mounting multiple 2GB partitions? Say, one exclusively for writing the Nandroid backup to, and a second for moving files out of internal storage?
And what of my overall objective? In the current state of development, is writing Nandroid backups to the external SD card of an L34C (or even better, to the USB) known to be possible? Or im-possible?
If not, and presuming I can manage to get an Ext-formatted partition on the external SD card to mount, which of the many <something>2SD apps should I look to to move as much material as possible off of the internals storage?
I did try installing Link2SD, even though there wasn't an external partition available that supported linking. When I tried to move an app with it, one that Link2SD itself had labeled 'movable,' it failed with:
!Failure
App2SD is not supported by your device. Because your device has a primary external storage which is emulated from the internal storage. You can link the app in order to move its files to the SD card.
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Dunno why it's blaming Apps2SD unless Link2 is built around Apps2.
But the advice was no help because I can't link to a partition that won't mount. And for all I know, the fact that the L34C uses emulated storage might be a show-stopper.
I've asked these same questions at other Android forums, but got no answers. I initially didn't want to even join XDA because you guys are too far above my pay grade. But I don't think I have any other choice, not if I ever want to get to the bottom of this.
Thank you for taking the time to red my long-winded post.
Hi there,
What you may wish to do is transfer them to your pc for safe keeping and not have to worry about it. You could also try inserting your sd card into your PC and manually transferring the nandroids from your pc to your sd card afterwards.
Also regards to the sd card write protection issue, I could not find anything relevant for your device in particular but you can ask your question here and someone may be able to help you.
Good luck