Database Info

[Q] Cannot upgrade from Cyanogenmod 7.0.3 to 7.1: Can't mount /dev/block/mmcblk01

Hello,
First I'd like to tell that I've already searched the forum using Google for my problem, but I'm really new to Android and almost all posts are using lots of acronyms that I don't understand. Eventually I found myself with so many tabs opened in my browser that I almost lost what I was looking for at first.
I have a rooted (with Unrevoked) HTC Desire (Clockworkmod Recovery is in place), on which I managed to install Cyangenmod 7.0.3 a few months ago. I can't recall how I get to this result unfortunately. At the time, I only remember that I fiddled a lot because although there are plenty of howtos for many different things, they look all different and/or specific to one device, and the newbie user is not warned about the potential differences he could face.
Now I would like to upgrade to Cyanogenmod 7.1 (for bug fixes) and install DarkTremor App2SD (because I've created an ext4 partition long ago on my SD-card, naively thinkg it would be used, but it stays desperately empty; and the phone internal memory is almost full despite my strenuous attempts to move as much apps as possible to the SD card using, as far as I can tell, CyanogenMod's Apps2SD).
I stumbled on a nice video explaining "how to upgrade Cyanogenmod 7" (search this exact string on Youtube): basically, it uses ROM Manager to install the new Cyanogenmod without wiping (this is probably something that the ROM supports between minor versions). As I understand it, I should be able to use this method to install DarkTremor App2SD as well.
So I've download the Cyanogenmod 7.1 zip file and even copied in as "update.zip" in the root of my FAT32 partition of my SD card. Unfortunately, Clockwordmod Recovery spits the following message:
Code:
Waiting for SD Card to mount (12s)
E: Can't mount /dev/block/mmcblk0 (or /dev/block/mmcblk0p1)
(Invalid Argument)
Waiting for SD Card to mount (11s)
E: Can't mount /dev/block/mmcblk0 (or /dev/block/mmcblk0p1)
(Invalid Argument)
[...]
Timed out waiting for SD Card...
and then goes back to the recovery menu.
My SD card is partitioned with the following scheme (output is from Linux parted on /dev/sdb, which is accessed through an USB cable with USB storage activated on the phone):
Code:
(parted) p
Model: HTC Desire (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 16.0GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 16.4kB 67.1MB 67.1MB primary
2 67.1MB 537MB 470MB primary ext4
3 537MB 16.0GB 15.5GB primary fat32 lba
As you can see, the first partition is a swap partition (not sure it has been ever used though), the second one in my ext4 partition where I want to move my apps and the third one in the FAT32 partition which contains update.zip.
Thus my understanding it that /dev/block/mmcblk0(p1) points at best to the swap partition. Am I correct?
I could use another temporary SD card to perform the update, but this is unwieldy and given this partitioning scheme looks pretty common among the Android community, I wonder there's an easier way and/or if I missed something.
Please, avoid "me too" replies . And you would be nice if you avoided using acronyms as much as possible when replying (or at least, give a definition upon first use).
Thanks a lot for your help.
Cheers,
-- Tatazou

tatazou said:
Hello,
My SD card is partitioned with the following scheme (output is from Linux parted on /dev/sdb, which is accessed through an USB cable with USB storage activated on the phone):
Code:
(parted) p
Model: HTC Desire (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 16.0GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 16.4kB 67.1MB 67.1MB primary
2 67.1MB 537MB 470MB primary ext4
3 537MB 16.0GB 15.5GB primary fat32 lba
As you can see, the first partition is a swap partition (not sure it has been ever used though), the second one in my ext4 partition where I want to move my apps and the third one in the FAT32 partition which contains update.zip.
Thus my understanding it that /dev/block/mmcblk0(p1) points at best to the swap partition. Am I correct?
-- Tatazou
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I got this more or less confirmed: I got into the phone with "adb shell" and checked /proc/partitions:
Code:
major minor #blocks name
31 0 640 mtdblock0
31 1 5120 mtdblock1
31 2 2560 mtdblock2
31 3 256000 mtdblock3
31 4 40960 mtdblock4
31 5 151168 mtdblock5
179 0 15637504 mmcblk0
179 1 65520 mmcblk0p1
179 2 458752 mmcblk0p2
179 3 15113216 mmcblk0p3
Apart from the internal storage, you can see the mmcblk0 device and its partitions whose sizes match the parted output above.

How to know and check in what file system the /data partition is formatted ?

Hi !
So...that's my questition. My phone is SGS and i want to check in what file system the /data partition is formatted. Is there any way to do it ?
Thanks in advance, guys !

Open a shell (either install a terminal app or connect via USB and run "adb shell" on your computer) and run the command "mount". This will give you a list of all mounted filesystems. Look for the one mounted to /data.
For example, for my I9505, it reads:
Code:
/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/userdata /data ext4 rw,seclabel,nosuid,nodev,noatime,journal_checksum,journal_async_commit,noauto_da_alloc,data=ordered 0 0
This means my /data is an Ext4 partition.

Open the terminal and run the command
Code:
mount
you will see how and where all partitions are mounted.
For data partition, in my phone, it shows up
Code:
/dev/block/mmcblk0p9 /data ext4 rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,barrier=1,data=ordered 0 0
that means /data is mounted as ext4

[Q] Cannot format mounted filesystem but filesystem is not mounted.

I've just rebooted my phone after creating a new partition table on my external sdcard following this guide.
Now I'm attempting to format the single partition I've created to ext4 but mke2fs says that it can't format mounted filesystem.
I've looked through the output of mount but nowhere does the external sdcard appear.
Also, I'm doing this so I can symlink folders from my external sdcard to the internal sdcard. I've already tried Directory Binder but it does not work on Android Lollipop.

Can't mount storage on sony xperia L. Hard brick Xperia L during repartition.

here is what i did in my sony xperia L and now i anything that can help kindly let me know
I rooted my device and then i officially unlocked my bootloader but after unlocking bootloader the phone was stuck in bootlooop so i installed stock recovery in the phone using flashtool and phone was just fine then. I did all this in order to change the partition of my phone.
Now i installed cwm recovery and after that phone i did the following commands
Open a command window: CMD, then get into shell:
adb shell
Once in shell, type:
umount /storage
parted /dev/block/mmcblk0
print
This prints out the partition information of your phone's memory chip
You will see the partition numbers in the first column, partition names in the last one,
in between you have the start/end memory index and the partition size
------start---end---size
...
31---1795---3506---1711---userdata
32---3506---7818---4312---sdcard
In the above output, consider the values indicated in italic as not to be changed !
Now calculate (open a spreadsheed if you like) the new value for the end of the userdata partition,
and use the same value for the start of the sdcard partition
On your sheet it should look something like this if you added 2048 to the userdata size
------start---end---size
31---1795---5554---3759---userdata
32---5554---7818---2264---sdcard
Remove userdata and sdcard partitions:
rm 31
rm 32
Create the new userdata and sdcard partitions:
mkpartfs logical ext2 1795 5554
name 31 userdata
mkpartfs logical fat32 5554 7818
name 32 sdcard
Exit parted to go to the adb shell again:
quit
userdata partition (31) needs to have ext4 file system
The following will do the ext2->ext4 conversion:
cd /storage/sdcard1/fs-utils
tune2fs -j /dev/block/mmcblk0p31
tune2fs -O extents,uninit_bg,dir_index /dev/block/mmcblk0p31
e2fsck -fpDC0 /dev/block/mmcblk0p31
Now when i restart my phone or even open the phone in cwm recovery it says cannot mount storage.
I tried installing the Rom again using flashtool it does not work and device gets disconnected probably coz now i am not able to mount my storage.
I tried to start adb shell and revert the changes i made in the above command in order to bring phone back to normal but now adb says no device is found.
I went to the customer service centre of sony they said they will change the motherboard.
Now my question is there any way i can fix my phone kindly tell me. I will really appreciate it Since i am not a software developer so i do not know any commands. Is there any way i can change my storage settings so they can be mounted again kindly let me know.

py.puneet said:
here is what i did in my sony xperia L and now i anything that can help kindly let me know
I rooted my device and then i officially unlocked my bootloader but after unlocking bootloader the phone was stuck in bootlooop so i installed stock recovery in the phone using flashtool and phone was just fine then. I did all this in order to change the partition of my phone.
Now i installed cwm recovery and after that phone i did the following commands
Open a command window: CMD, then get into shell:
adb shell
Once in shell, type:
umount /storage
parted /dev/block/mmcblk0
print
This prints out the partition information of your phone's memory chip
You will see the partition numbers in the first column, partition names in the last one,
in between you have the start/end memory index and the partition size
------start---end---size
...
31---1795---3506---1711---userdata
32---3506---7818---4312---sdcard
In the above output, consider the values indicated in italic as not to be changed !
Now calculate (open a spreadsheed if you like) the new value for the end of the userdata partition,
and use the same value for the start of the sdcard partition
On your sheet it should look something like this if you added 2048 to the userdata size
------start---end---size
31---1795---5554---3759---userdata
32---5554---7818---2264---sdcard
Remove userdata and sdcard partitions:
rm 31
rm 32
Create the new userdata and sdcard partitions:
mkpartfs logical ext2 1795 5554
name 31 userdata
mkpartfs logical fat32 5554 7818
name 32 sdcard
Exit parted to go to the adb shell again:
quit
userdata partition (31) needs to have ext4 file system
The following will do the ext2->ext4 conversion:
cd /storage/sdcard1/fs-utils
tune2fs -j /dev/block/mmcblk0p31
tune2fs -O extents,uninit_bg,dir_index /dev/block/mmcblk0p31
e2fsck -fpDC0 /dev/block/mmcblk0p31
Now when i restart my phone or even open the phone in cwm recovery it says cannot mount storage.
I tried installing the Rom again using flashtool it does not work and device gets disconnected probably coz now i am not able to mount my storage.
I tried to start adb shell and revert the changes i made in the above command in order to bring phone back to normal but now adb says no device is found.
I went to the customer service centre of sony they said they will change the motherboard.
Now my question is there any way i can fix my phone kindly tell me. I will really appreciate it Since i am not a software developer so i do not know any commands. Is there any way i can change my storage settings so they can be mounted again kindly let me know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just a question here, why did you want to change the partition of your phone?_? And no there isnt a way to revert thats a hard brick

Changing the motherboard will be the quickest method for Sony, which will not cause any trouble for them. You could ask the price for doing a low level format and restoring the partitions etc. Though I don't if they can do this in this case.

SD Card access

I've made this mistake before, and it drives me nuts. I changed phones and put my old phones sd card in my new phone (Nokia 8.3). I was just going to see if it could read it. It couldn't and asked me if I wanted to format. I selected no, and removed the card. I put the card in my linux computer and I can't mount it. I did get a replacement for my old phone through warranty (teracube) and tried putting it in that, and it wouldn't read it either. I've had this problem before. I think even having the sdcard in a phone does something to it even if you don't format it. I think I formatted the card initially as ext2 but I could be mistaken.
Any help would be appreciated. I really want to recover the data.
mount:
Code:
[3630 21-01-23 7:06][email protected]/home/larry%sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/tmp
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/sda2': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sda2' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?
[3630 21-01-23 7:06][email protected]/home/larry%sudo mount -tvfat /dev/sda2 /mnt/tmp
mount: /mnt/tmp: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda2, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.
fdisk:
Code:
[3630 21-01-23 7:06][email protected]/home/larry%sudo fdisk /dev/sda
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 119.1 GiB, 127865454592 bytes, 249737216 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: C8FBA780-1A1F-4B71-8D9D-D623A671C61D
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 34815 32768 16M unknown
/dev/sda2 34816 249737182 249702367 119.1G unknown

An SD-card ( from Android's point of view it's a portable USB-device ) usually is FAT32 formatted, AFAIK, but I may err as always ...