Is it possible on the surface pro? Im a developer/student. Windows 8 is great for in class stuff but when it comes to developing, linux takes the win. I'd love to be able to install linux on a microSD card and boot to that (yeah, I know it will be slow but it can be left in the surface without protruding too much). Anyway is this possible? I can't find anything on this beyond removing win 8 and loading linux on it.
Meh, kids these days... when I was in college, I tri-booted on a 60GB hard disk.
But, if the internal storage isn't good enough for you, yes of course you can install Linux to the microSD card. You'll need to disable Secure Boot as usual for installing Linux at all. Beyond that, it's the same as any other Linux install except instead of reformatting the system partition, you reformat the microSD card and install there. People have been installing Linux to removable storage for years; it's no different on the Surface Pro and a microSD card than on a desktop with an external HDD or a laptop with a flashdrive or ... you get the idea.
Great, Thanks. I was just unsure since no one has seemed to do it (or at least posted it on the internet).
And don't get me wrong, I remember installing linux/windows on my first laptop with 20GB. These days, however, files are larger than CD's and the remaing space on the pro just does not cut it anymore, unless I want to delete all my downloads after using them.
Thanks again!
YOu need to go into charms > settings > Change PC Settings > General > Advanced startup to be able to boot from a usb or sd
can I install MAC OS? if I can I will order right away
seesunmoon said:
can I install MAC OS? if I can I will order right away
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you asked the wrong question here.
Honestly, it does not matter if you can install MAC OS on the Pro.
The question you need answered is: Are there MAC OS Drivers for the Pro's Hardware? If not, then there is no point in seeing if the OS installs.
right, right, i guess apple will make something like surface pro, tablet with full max os
If history is any indication, they will do so 5-10 years after somebody else (typically Microsoft) has a similar OS/device, call it "revolutionary" and "innovative", and people will think they invented it...
Seriously though, I'm sure you could Hackintosh the Surface Pro, but hardware support may be lacking. The basic stuff (video, storage, sound, probably USB) and possibly some other things like WiFi and webcam will probably work. Touch and stylus are highly questionable. Normally I'd say that there's no chance of the covers working, but apparently they're fine under Linux so maybe they use an electrically standard interface through that funny docking connector.
There's something very weird about buying a (primarily) software company's hardware to put a (primarily) hardware company's software on it, though...
I have no doubt the Hackintosh guys will be all over this once a few of them get an S-Pro, I had an XE700 and there were people running it on them so I cant see the Pro taking much time for them to jump on to it.
Cool Dude
GoodDayToDie said:
Meh, kids these days... when I was in college, I tri-booted on a 60GB hard disk.
But, if the internal storage isn't good enough for you, yes of course you can install Linux to the microSD card. You'll need to disable Secure Boot as usual for installing Linux at all. Beyond that, it's the same as any other Linux install except instead of reformatting the system partition, you reformat the microSD card and install there. People have been installing Linux to removable storage for years; it's no different on the Surface Pro and a microSD card than on a desktop with an external HDD or a laptop with a flashdrive or ... you get the idea.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This does really answer the question at hand,
I haven't yet been able to boot from an MicroSD card I have used a USB drive to boot into Ubuntu 14 Trusty Thar, using instructions that are all over the web, however I haven't found any documentation of successfully boot from a MicroSD card. I will be trying this afternoon and will post what I find. Installing linux to the microSD card I'm sure will be straight forward, its the booting that will be an issue I'm sure.
Follow up coming soon
n4m4st3 said:
This does really answer the question at hand,
I haven't yet been able to boot from an MicroSD card I have used a USB drive to boot into Ubuntu 14 Trusty Thar, using instructions that are all over the web, however I haven't found any documentation of successfully boot from a MicroSD card. I will be trying this afternoon and will post what I find. Installing linux to the microSD card I'm sure will be straight forward, its the booting that will be an issue I'm sure.
Follow up coming soon
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got this to work. You need to use:
rufus.akeo.ie
And then just choose USB boot from the menu advanced start up options menu. Which is funny because it doesn't actually show the micro sd as an option to boot, but it automatically finds it somehow.
Pretty sure the uSD slot is attached via USB, so it's basically just "boot from USB external storage".
Another way you could have done it is to install the Linux bootloader (GRUB stage 1) to the internal storage, and then have that chainload to the uSD card. That should work even if for some reason the firmware doesn't want to boot off uSD normally.
I just got a Surface Pro 2 and started playing with the idea of booting Linux off the SD card. I haven't done an actual installation yet, but I was just playing with the idea of making a bootable USB device preferably without having to change the internal SSD. (Especially since I have the 64GB base model and that's really barely enough for a comfortable use of Windows. I also wanted to leave the recovery partition intact as a good just-in-case.)
So first I made a bootable generic USB flash drive using UNetbootin and a stock Ubuntu 14.04 desktop installation image. Works as expected, can go into the "Advanced Startup" screen and boot from USB device. Nothing special, was able to launch the live session.
Then I used UNetbootin again, this time on an 8GB microSD I had laying around. The Surface would NOT boot off the microSD card through "Advanced Startup."
Then I tried it using the Rufus tool linked above -- this worked. You can go through "Advanced Startup" or hold volume down when powering on the Surface. Either way will launch the Live session. Very cool.
So then I went back and tried to figure out what was different. Same card, same base ISO... what I noticed was that Rufus was setting the "lba" flag on the SD card's FAT32 partition. So I formatted and recreated the card with UNetbootin again, verified it was unbootable, then used gparted to set the "lba" flag. After that, it booted. So this is something to note.
I'll have to actually try installing to the card and seeing if the Surface will boot from it or not. But this is something at least.
EDIT:
It seems like Surface will never boot the SD card if it isn't exactly a single FAT32 partition consuming the entire microSD card.
I'll just wrap up my last bit of contribution to this for now. I used a virtual machine with an EFI install of Windows 8 to stage this at first...
So the short end is, it seems the Surface Pro's firmware is strict about what it will boot from USB, and it seems to be a device that must be a single FAT32 partition with the "boot" and "lba" flags set, or else it won't work. If anyone knows of another combination, great, but this is what I determined through my limited experimentation.
Basically the most minimally invasive Ubuntu (or other Linux) install I could think to do that generally leaves the Surface a Surface and a Linux device second was this procedure (using Ubuntu 14.04):
Create an Ubuntu USB install device (use the aforementioned Rufus tool for best results or else be aware of the partitioning specifics.)
Use "Advanced Startup" or "Vol -" at power on to boot the USB key
When installing and prompted about disk installation, do "Something Else" (Careful! Very easy to obliterate the internal Windows or reduce space on less-equipped Surfaces to useless levels!)
Use "/dev/sda" as the place to install the boot loader (GRUB)
Resize the Surface's main Windows partition back by a small amount (e.g. 512MB)
Create an ext4 partition in this space and set this as the "/boot" mount point (exercise to the reader to look up making a /boot partition for GRUB and deciding on the amount they want to allocate)
Partition your SD Card in the Surface however you like, but you'll need some kind of ext4 partition for the Ubuntu installation, of course! (e.g. I split mine into NTFS, ext4, and swap space, but you can do whatever suits you)
Set your root mount point on the SD Card's ext4 partition.
And that's pretty much it -- the Ubuntu installer is smart enough to take care of the rest.
Major point here, regarding step 4 -- you CAN have the "/boot" on your SD card if you like, but what will happen is that you will be unable to properly boot from GRUB if you don't have that specific SD card inserted. If you never plan to remove your SD card, you can avoid changing the internal memory partitions at all.
Installing GRUB to the SD card through the Ubuntu installer will do no good since, again, the Surface seems adamant about only booting a device with a single FAT32 partition occupying the full space. Obviously the installer USB device you make IS a bootable Linux image on a FAT32 partition, so you CAN pull it off if you have all the know-how -- i.e. setting up GRUB and booting an ".img" file from the FAT32 partition -- pretty sure the Ubuntu installer doesn't support this in a straightforward manner.
In any case, I'm happy with GRUB and "/boot" being on /dev/sda. I can remove the card and simply be unable to boot Ubuntu, but still use Windows. If you follow this installation, I highly recommend setting GRUB to boot Windows by default just in case you do remove the SD card and don't have your touch cover connected. Further, I recommend setting up GRUB so that it always times out (on the default Windows selection) even if the previous boot failed (which, by Ubuntu default, GRUB will not timeout on a failed boot.) But of course this is all user preference and what kind of situations you expect yourself to be in.
Hopefully this is at least one adequate answer to the OP, even though it is over a year old.
Footnote: Haven't gotten the built-in WiFi / Bluetooth working, even with putting the firmware in place. (The mwiflex driver is complaining about a command timeout as soon as it loads and does not progress.) Tried a newer kernel, still doesn't work. I'm mostly interested in the WiFi, but as yet, still no good. But that's beyond what the OP was strictly asking.
UPDATE: Firmware update fixed WiFi. (Info from https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=64111) -- Basically clone git git://git.marvell.com/mwifiex-firmware.git and copy /mwifiex-firmware/mrvl/usb8797_uapsta.bin to /lib/firmware/mrvl and reboot. Not sure if newer kernel needed. Was running kernel 3.15.0-999-generic from Ubuntu's mainline.
why install grub? the only reason is if you want to default boot into windows
since you're installing a second os on the microsd, you can access it directly with power+vol down
anyways, i was brought here because i was thinking of getting an sd card with a fully independent os for my surface pro
if i burn a ubuntu iso onto the microsd, you wouldnt actually be installing the os onto the sd card right? every time you boot, it would be the live-cd ubuntu
is there a way to install the full os onto the microsd?
anonxlg said:
why install grub? the only reason is if you want to default boot into windows
since you're installing a second os on the microsd, you can access it directly with power+vol down
anyways, i was brought here because i was thinking of getting an sd card with a fully independent os for my surface pro
if i burn a ubuntu iso onto the microsd, you wouldnt actually be installing the os onto the sd card right? every time you boot, it would be the live-cd ubuntu
is there a way to install the full os onto the microsd?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just install ubuntu onto the microsd...
anonxlg said:
why install grub? the only reason is if you want to default boot into windows
since you're installing a second os on the microsd, you can access it directly with power+vol down
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With power+vol down, I was only able to boot a USB device or microSD that was partitioned exactly as a single FAT32 partition occupying the entire device, which is also what you get from making a bootable Ubuntu key using tools usually. Even if all I did was shortchange the FAT32 partition, the Surface would no longer try to boot from it. It would not boot an SD card I installed Ubuntu to, and I tried it as a non-EFI and EFI install. If you have different results, go ahead and post about it. It seems to me that the firmware was being extremely particular about what kind of drive it was booting from. I'm not sure why Microsoft would make it so particular except to perhaps limit was sort of "recovery" devices you might be trying to load. Logically speaking, it only needs to boot a FAT32 partitioned device since that's the only thing generated by the recovery software in Windows 8, so they have no reason to support anything else.
Thank you southbird! Works great on my Surface Pro 2, BUT ....
Partitioned my micro SD (using gparted) as your instructions: two partitions - first partition ext4 and the other NTFS. Added small partition on internal HDD for /boot. I installed kubuntu 14.01. Made Windows the default boot, and everything works except Windows 8.1 will not recognize the partition for data (the partition that is formatted NTFS). It "sees" it as a broken drive and wants to format the whole micro SD card and I know it will delete the ext4 part (where / resides) because it doesn't "see" the card as being partitioned. Your instructions sound like you got the data partition to work (it is "seen" and usable in kubuntu). Did you do something else to get Windows to "see" it as a separate data partition? :fingers-crossed::fingers-crossed:
southbird said:
I'll just wrap up my last bit of contribution to this for now. I used a virtual machine with an EFI install of Windows 8 to stage this at first...
So the short end is, it seems the Surface Pro's firmware is strict about what it will boot from USB, and it seems to be a device that must be a single FAT32 partition with the "boot" and "lba" flags set, or else it won't work. If anyone knows of another combination, great, but this is what I determined through my limited experimentation.
Basically the most minimally invasive Ubuntu (or other Linux) install I could think to do that generally leaves the Surface a Surface and a Linux device second was this procedure (using Ubuntu 14.04):
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello Guys!
I have another question to add here!
Next week i'll get my Surface Pro 2 with 256GB
The last days my mind played with some ideas to have a dualboot option in the surface.
Is it possible to install Android Lollipop (or Kitkat) x86 on the micro sd (64GB) and boot from it?
I have read the whole thread but its a lil bit complicated.
Would be nice if anyons can show this in a step by step process, or guide me to a tutorial.
thanks!!
Methisfaction said:
Hello Guys!
I have another question to add here!
Next week i'll get my Surface Pro 2 with 256GB
The last days my mind played with some ideas to have a dualboot option in the surface.
Is it possible to install Android Lollipop (or Kitkat) x86 on the micro sd (64GB) and boot from it?
I have read the whole thread but its a lil bit complicated.
Would be nice if anyons can show this in a step by step process, or guide me to a tutorial.
thanks!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed you can, however:
1. The microSD will need to be formatted with GPT partition scheme, and the boot partition must be FAT32;
2. The January 2015 UEFI update removes ability to boot from microSD. Skip that and you're golden!
Related
*I've spent a lot of time searching...all the answers I come up with involve copy and paste the folders...which is what I did...but windows doesn't show me my ext3 partition.*
I recently rooted my G1, formatted my 2 gig SD with a 32mb swap and 500mb ext3 and flashed cyanogen 4.0.1. I quickly realized that a 2 gig card was just not enough (now that I'm left with 1.1 gig...) so I purchased a class 6, 8 gig card
I plugged the phone in to my computer, copied all my files, put cyanogen recovery 1.4 on the 8 gig and booted to console, formatted the card to my 7200, 500 and 32mb partitions. Shut the phone down, stuck the card in my card reader and moved all the files that were on the 2 gig onto the 8 gig. Booted the phone...damn it...no apps!
Took a few minutes of head scratching before I remembered that cyanogen 4.0.1 does the apps to the ext3 partition! all my apps are on the 2 gig! *arg*
Is there a way to clone the 2 gig card to the 8 gig without messing up the partitions? or just copy everything from my ext3 to the new ext3?? I really don't want to go through and download all the apps I had again
I found some SD card clone software (sprite? IIRC) but that looks like its specifically for WM devices.
As I understand your SD are formatted to ext3. Best solution is download any live linux distribution (live = run from cd into ram without installing and changing anything) and copy files normally.
yeah all ubuntu iso's include a live os you can boot up in without it installing anything to your harddisk there you should be able to read ext3
Hadn't considered that...
Thanks for the help
unfortunately, even just sticking the 2gig card back in the phone none of the apps work the phone boots and I get a long list of "xxxxx encountered an error and must force close"
looks like its off to the market for me...
*sigh*
tsiah said:
unfortunately, even just sticking the 2gig card back in the phone none of the apps work the phone boots and I get a long list of "xxxxx encountered an error and must force close"
looks like its off to the market for me...
*sigh*
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just for future reference....how does one go about backing up the ext partition of the SD card so if your current card has an issue you can stick the backup card in and keep running without having to download all your apps again??? I mean...if removing the original card, then turning the phone on with a new card in there caused it to "forget" the location of all the apps when the original card was installed...how does a backup card do you any good??
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=4397141#post4397141
This thread appears to be the answer...If I ever have to get another card, I'll give this a try.
I use HDD Raw Copy, just use a partition manager to resize old partitions
http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool/
Greetings
I've used GParted from Live USB Linux (I use PuppyLinux, but any other Live Linux with GParted would do) to copy partitions between sdcards / usb drives / hard disks. It's GUI based, very simple and does the job.
Just plug both the sdcards into your computer before opening GParted,
Once open, GParted would ask option to use only one device or all devices - make sure you select all devices.
After it loads all the devices, you can select the 2GB card, right click each partition, copy and select 8GB card and paste the partition there.
Please follow the partition order so that you don't change the order in the 8GB card.
Once all the partitions are done, you can resize the partition you want to make bigger on the 8GB to fill the card.
After configuring everything, click Apply and wait for GParted to do all the magic!
Hello All,
I have a tablet here that I haven't been able to fix (yet!)
It's a mid vimicro vortex vc0882, armv7, grh55 with android 2.3 November 2011 firmware (resistive 7'') 512mb ram, 4 gb sandisk class 4 internal memory.
Although since getting this one, I now have several other much faster ones to choose from, I really like this tablet with it's chunky yet smooth navigation and so far no pc, laptop, netbook or tablet has beaten me!
Some time around early December 2012 this device experienced a system crash (freeze) that left several apps and games crashing on next boot.
This had happened once before. At which time I performed a simple factory reset from settings\privacy menu and all was well. Not the case after this more recent crash!
The device is stuck with all data as of the crash date. It will install and uninstall apps cleanly within the session, it will write to the internal sd card, yet next time the machine is started, everything is back as it was. The external sd card seems fine and unaffected (moving apps to this doesn't improve the situation, as in still not writing current configuration correctly).
ADB will push basic requests incl installation of apps, but that's as far as it goes. Any clockwork mod based tools don't help. Recovery menu has been tried with every combination. Any recovery / update from zip has been rejected due to e signature error. Tried flash tools and nothing has got through. Once the machine restarts, all is back to crash date groundhog day!
The machine is rooted (has been for most of it's life) and this didn't seem to create any problems.
I have contacted the suppliers for any firmware / recovery that they have, no joy there yet.
Sorry about the long post!
As I have root access does anyone have ideas about a system file workaround / mod or a forced clockwork mod to enable update from zip that bypasses the e-signature verification?
Permissions have been checked and system cleaned on a regular basis.
This tablet is very close to the wopad one just different buttons/button locations, with power/menu/home and back buttons.
Thanks for any positive input!
Bob
Update... Anyone out there?
After removing the internal sd card and exploring the fat 32 partition via windows, I deleted a few non essential local files (one or two of them I had to change the permissions to do so). Refreshed the disk (sd card) and the files were back. So it appears that there is an error in the sd card. Based on this idea, I tried to copy the fat 32 + full linux partitions with contents from the original 4gb sandisk to a 4gb kingston card. All appeared correct via linux type explorer software on windows, but it doesn't work for the device. Attached are the details from the partitioning software and another program that questioned the partitioning setup.
Any tips on the best software for the job + which key (possibly hidden elements) need to be included?
Thanks
Bob
3rd time lucky....
In summary, is it realistic to copy an android's internal micro sd card (system) to another blank card including correct formatting of partitions and get it to operate when inserting the copied / cloned internal memory card into the device?
A while back I asked a question regarding a different tablet, which fell on deaf ears, after a bit I sorted it myself.
Considering the nature of this forum, if this one goes "unsuggested" I will be somewhat disappointed.
With a touch of faith?
Bob
bob_mac said:
Update... Anyone out there?
After removing the internal sd card and exploring the fat 32 partition via windows, I deleted a few non essential local files (one or two of them I had to change the permissions to do so). Refreshed the disk (sd card) and the files were back. So it appears that there is an error in the sd card. Based on this idea, I tried to copy the fat 32 + full linux partitions with contents from the original 4gb sandisk to a 4gb kingston card. All appeared correct via linux type explorer software on windows, but it doesn't work for the device. Attached are the details from the partitioning software and another program that questioned the partitioning setup.
Any tips on the best software for the job + which key (possibly hidden elements) need to be included?
Thanks
Bob
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey,
I just sold a HTC Desire phones and had previously partitioned the Micro SD cards from within the recovery tool on the phone to allow for 1GB of the 4GB sd card to be used as part of the system. Now when I want to reuse the card as a regular card, I can only see 2.67GB available. I've tried Easus and MIniTool partition software as well as SDformatter, none of them see the full 4gb. I can't remember now correctly whether I was seeing 2.66gb primary and 1gb unallocated in the windows device manager after having messed around trying to merge them, but now I can only see 2.66 in every program I tried.
Would appreciate any help on how I can see and use the rest of the card
cormie said:
Hey,
I just sold a HTC Desire phones and had previously partitioned the Micro SD cards from within the recovery tool on the phone to allow for 1GB of the 4GB sd card to be used as part of the system. Now when I want to reuse the card as a regular card, I can only see 2.67GB available. I've tried Easus and MIniTool partition software as well as SDformatter, none of them see the full 4gb. I can't remember now correctly whether I was seeing 2.66gb primary and 1gb unallocated in the windows device manager after having messed around trying to merge them, but now I can only see 2.66 in every program I tried.
Would appreciate any help on how I can see and use the rest of the card
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you can get your hands on a Linux Machine, a card reader and most importantly gParted. You might be abled to fix it. I have seen mem cards, usb drives etc which cant be recovered on Windows getting rescued by gParted. If you can get gparted, these steps usually work.
1) Select partition [Careful]
2) Goto Device then create partition table.
3) Then format.
Hopefully it should work. Otherwise you might have to use dd.
gr1m.r34p3r said:
If you can get your hands on a Linux Machine, a card reader and most importantly gParted. You might be abled to fix it. I have seen mem cards, usb drives etc which cant be recovered on Windows getting rescued by gParted. If you can get gparted, these steps usually work.
1) Select partition [Careful]
2) Goto Device then create partition table.
3) Then format.
Hopefully it should work. Otherwise you might have to use dd.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply, what's DD?
Would I not be able to do this on a windows machine and it would have to be linux?
cormie said:
Thanks for the reply, what's DD?
Would I not be able to do this on a windows machine and it would have to be linux?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
bump
cormie said:
Thanks for the reply, what's DD?
Would I not be able to do this on a windows machine and it would have to be linux?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
dd is a tool (again) on Linux which can clone disks etc. And gParted is a tool which I've heard works on Linux, Windows and Mac. But I've personally never tried it. But getting a copy of linux is pretty easy. Just download the iso (I recommemd Ubuntu, burn it onto a USB or CD and boot it. You can do a live session (Dosen't need to be installed, runs of RAM) then use gparted directly or install it ( 'sudo apt-get install gparted' in a Ubuntu Terminal).
gr1m.r34p3r said:
dd is a tool (again) on Linux which can clone disks etc. And gParted is a tool which I've heard works on Linux, Windows and Mac. But I've personally never tried it. But getting a copy of linux is pretty easy. Just download the iso (I recommemd Ubuntu, burn it onto a USB or CD and boot it. You can do a live session (Dosen't need to be installed, runs of RAM) then use gparted directly or install it ( 'sudo apt-get install gparted' in a Ubuntu Terminal).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey thanks a lot for such a helpful post, if that's what I have to do, I think it will be a bit too much effort just for the sake of 1gb extra on cards that are only a few euro anyway in the first place. Thanks again anyway but I might just have to leave it
Hi - I have a galaxy s3 mini (GT-I8190N) and rooted about a year ago following instructions on a thread at XDA and it has worked perfectly with 16 Gig SD with about 3 Gig partitioned for Link2SD. So now I am attempting to go with a 32 Gig with a bigger SD partition as my old memory is pretty full. I hit a problem and cant fix it.
I managed to back up all the data to the computer running on windows 7. I couldn't get Ext2 Volume Manager to mount the partition so I used a read only program called Disk Internals.
The new 32 Gig is partitioned about 20/10 Gig (FAT32/Ext2) both as primary (Used minitool partition wizard). Got the back up data to the FAT32 side now I can not mount the partition again using Ext2 Volume Manager. I tried another program called Ext2IFS but it doesn't work on windows 7. I tried another computer also windows 7 and it is the same problem.
Specifically what happens is the Linux partition is recognized as PARTITION 2. When I double click on it to activate the mount points, the status indicates STOPPED. I also tried this on a old windows XP and have the same problem, also I cannot get Ext2IFS to work on the XP either.
As you can see this is becoming a painful exercise and if anyone can point me in the right direction I would be grateful. I only now need to copy the old data onto the new Ext2 partition to complete the task.
Cheers
Simon
You busy bots aren't answering
Howabout I create a linux partition on the comp and figure out the basics of linux. I reckon that would work. What you think please?
Just in case anyone has a mount problem with Ext2 FSD in the future. This is how I fixed it.
I am using an old dell laptop with windows 7
I was going to make a fresh partition for Linux but decided to use a virtual machine.
Oracle VM VirtualBox didn't work for me so I tried VMware Player and it worked fine. Loads of tutorials around just try to find one with a decent count and good reviews. Make sure 10 to 20 GIG free space available.
Get the Linux flavor from from the developer as an ISO.. Loads of tutorials again out there. Once it is in and working the file transfer is simple apart from you may need root /elevated permission level to move some of the files.
Hi All,
I'm trying to get my new 4tb drive to work with my android device. I know that out of the box it requires FAT32 to be read, and no I am not interested in rooting my device to install drivers to support other options. I already have another 4tb working :
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HXAV0X6/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
this drive formatted just fine using the guiformat tool to fat32.
however the recent drive does not accept a fat32 format:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0196J3UZ2/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
gives me a format error and restricts me to a 2tb volume.
I believe the problem for this is that the first drive is a raid0 format with 2 drives built in. The second drive is a single 4tb, slower but more "dependable" (and also $70 cheaper).
I'm sure my success with the first drive is that the fat32 partition is able to create > 2tb because the physical devices are split between 2 2tb drives, though this does not make a ton of sense to me.
Regardless, what are my options here for the second drive? Again, i'm not interested in rooting my device. 2 partitions are ok, but i've experimented w/that and found that the second partition is ignored in the android file system. Did some reading and found that part1 needs to be vfat, and part2 needs to be fat32, AND you need to possibly be on root and run a special script to even mount that setup. I'm not interested in all that, i just want to be able to turn my device on and have the drive mounted w/o root.
All that said, what is the simplest solution for me to set up this drive to be read on my Samsung and s2 tablet devices w/o root? Is FAT32 the only solution, and if so, can i some how FORCE this partition style on my 4tb drive? I read somewhere that a Linux boot can handle this, though i don't even know where to begin with that being a windows man.
Please help!
anyone have an idea? dont want to spend an extra 70 bucks just because i cant format a drive to fat32 ;/
p64impp said:
Hi All,
I'm trying to get my new 4tb drive to work with my android device. I know that out of the box it requires FAT32 to be read, and no I am not interested in rooting my device to install drivers to support other options. I already have another 4tb working :
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HXAV0X6/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
this drive formatted just fine using the guiformat tool to fat32.
however the recent drive does not accept a fat32 format:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0196J3UZ2/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
gives me a format error and restricts me to a 2tb volume.
I believe the problem for this is that the first drive is a raid0 format with 2 drives built in. The second drive is a single 4tb, slower but more "dependable" (and also $70 cheaper).
I'm sure my success with the first drive is that the fat32 partition is able to create > 2tb because the physical devices are split between 2 2tb drives, though this does not make a ton of sense to me.
Regardless, what are my options here for the second drive? Again, i'm not interested in rooting my device. 2 partitions are ok, but i've experimented w/that and found that the second partition is ignored in the android file system. Did some reading and found that part1 needs to be vfat, and part2 needs to be fat32, AND you need to possibly be on root and run a special script to even mount that setup. I'm not interested in all that, i just want to be able to turn my device on and have the drive mounted w/o root.
All that said, what is the simplest solution for me to set up this drive to be read on my Samsung and s2 tablet devices w/o root? Is FAT32 the only solution, and if so, can i some how FORCE this partition style on my 4tb drive? I read somewhere that a Linux boot can handle this, though i don't even know where to begin with that being a windows man.
Please help!
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Android likes ext4 more than fat32. You should try with it, but it is a bit problematic as windows does not support ext4 at all. You need to get a live Ubuntu USB or something and you should be running linux in a matter of minutes (it won't uninstall Linux unless you explicitly tell it to)
From what I understand if your drive has mbr it is limited to 2 TB. Whereas gpt can exceed 2 TB. You will want to convert to gpt. If you search google there are articles that go step by step. I experienced a similar issue with my 4 TB Seagate external usb 3.0 drive. I deleted my partitions using a Windows computer and reinitialized the drive for gpt. Afterwards I formatted it in exfat.