I came from a device that had an external SD card. I just finished unlocking my bootloader and rooting my device. However, I have no idea how to safely flash a rom. I know how to access my recovery (TWRP), but wonder if I wipe the system if it will delete the rom that I have saved in a folder on my phone. Any help would be appreciated and sorry for the noob question.
On phones without external memory, you have an emulated SD card for user storage.
This partition is not touched by the recovery when flashing a ROM, so you don't have to worry as long as you do the normal full wipe. There is an option to wipe/format external storage, but you should NEVER have to do that.
Just drag and drop your ROM to your phone like you normally would and flash away!
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I assume that i had rooted the phone
i wanted to install a custom rom.
i did the One-Click-G2x-recovery-flasher-09-23
well at this phone i downloaded the rom i dod this steps
Wipe data/factory reset
then i did
ount and storage = format/system
now when i need to go to install from zip card.
none of the roms show up in my sd card.
and when i reboot the phone it goes into a black screen .
i can only get to the CWM screen
is there anything i can do?
thank you ahead of time
Did u install the latest cwm?
Go back in your sd card and make sure the rom files are there. Its possible that u placed them in the internal memory so check both
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Hey hi thanks i was using Flash CWM 4.0.1.5
but then i try
Flash CWM 5.0.2.0 and i was able to flash it.
thanks for the reply.
Did you download the rom using your phone or PC... reason I ask is if you used your phone to download the rom its saved in the download folder... I use my phone to download my roms...also if your promise on the external SD just choose install from SD, if its on your internal SD then you would choose install from internal SD... there's also a download folder on internal SD .. you can check there also...
crazerico said:
Hey hi thanks i was using Flash CWM 4.0.1.5
but then i try
Flash CWM 5.0.2.0 and i was able to flash it.
thanks for the reply.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
4.0.1.5 is set up to use the internal memory. You can only flash from the internal pseudo "sdcard" and any CWM backups will be stored in the same internal memory.
5.0.2.0 lets you flash from either the pseudo internal "sdcard" of the "external sdcard." But when you do backups of your rom they will only be stored on the external sd card.
Use 5.0.2.0. It is better and more versatile in my opinion but you need an external sd card to fully utilize it.
Also, I wish people would stop misusing the term bricked. A true brick is a phone that does NOTHING when you press the power button. I did this once to an A71 variant phone and the phone was very dead. The condition you have is more like you "borked" your phone. The phone powers on so it is not dead, so it is not bricked. Plus as long as you can get into recovery I would not even consider your condition a "soft brick." A soft brick is when the phone is borked and takes extraordinary measures to revive it, but it is still fixable. A better post would have been "My phone is messed up. Need help reviving it."
Your title is fine, is has the word "maybe" in it. He's just one of those people..
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Hello guys,
I am trying to update to ICS on my WiFi Xoom MZ604.
Did a full wipe and cache wipe on clockworkmod, but it won't find my sdcard so I can flash it with ICS, instead it will show me the content of /sdcard and won't find anything on any directories, since I wiped it.
What should I do??
Thank you.
I'm assuming you are using the Tiamat recovery. Idk if it supports external SD or not. However, rogue recovery 1.3 supports both SD cards and adds a few other features. Not to mention it looks a lot cleaner.
I would suggest putting the rogue recovery on your SD card and flashing it.
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info
thanks 4 the info
How would I flash it from the SD card?
yeah, still don't know what to do :-/
Plug you Xoom into your computer. Some kernels are sometimes problematic so put you CWM flash file on both the external card and internal flash. These can be distinguished in my computer. Be sure you have the latest drivers or you may have trouble finding your Xoom. http://www.motorola.com/Support/US-...tware_and_Drivers/USB-and-PC-Charging-Drivers
After that you go to install zip from sd and choose accordingly. Might I also recommend rebooting into recovery from the CWM app as I know in my case, I cannot access the recovery menu from the boot screen.
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I have titan backup pro and it doesn't see my 32gig ext SD card. Any suggestions?
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It does, but not how you'd think. What are you trying to do? Use your external as titaniums storage?
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Yes so I don't have to move the backups it makes before wiping and flashing. Forgive me still learning the android system.
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You actually do not need to store them on the external sd. Titanium stores the backups by default on the root directory of the internal sd card (memory) and are safe from being wiped when wiping data/resetting to flash a rom. People do choose to change that location to the external for swapping backup to a different phone and for extra security in case of a brick or some other issue that could arise, but it is not required to do for general flashing of different roms.
If you do want to change the location, go into preferences and select storage location, the back button will navigate to different locations available. Choose external sd and make your batch backup..that's it. If you already made a backup on your internal before switching to external, you'll need to use a file explorer (I like ES, but others are just fine too) to move the entire Titanium folder to the external card. Then go back into preferences and be sure to select the titanium folder you just moved as the backup location.
annoyingduck said:
You actually do not need to store them on the external sd. Titanium stores the backups by default on the root directory of the internal sd card (memory) and are safe from being wiped when wiping data/resetting to flash a rom. People do choose to change that location to the external for swapping backup to a different phone and for extra security in case of a brick or some other issue that could arise, but it is not required to do for general flashing of different roms.
If you do want to change the location, go into preferences and select storage location, the back button will navigate to different locations available. Choose external sd and make your batch backup..that's it. If you already made a backup on your internal before switching to external, you'll need to use a file explorer (I like ES, but others are just fine too) to move the entire Titanium folder to the external card. Then go back into preferences and be sure to select the titanium folder you just moved as the backup location.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
NONONO DO NOT DO THIS!!!
Well you can if you don't then move your backups to your ext or a computer.
I believe TWRP wipes the WHOLE internal card when doing a factory reset as the Samsung Recovery does. ClockworkMod I believe is the only one that doesn't.
You probably need to format your 32gb ext to Fat32 instead of exFat that it comes with. See HERE It doesn't hurt to do this either way, unless you plan on putting files that are larger than 4gb each onto your card.
I don't use twrp, I use cwm with zero titanium issues on internal card. I find it unlikely that twrp would wipe the entire root directory bank of files because that would also wipe its own file including backups made. I'd like some verification on this, though I don't not use twrp, nor have seen any reference to not using the default location in any of titaniums guides.
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---------- Post added at 12:53 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:22 AM ----------
Quick note: I hate speculation. Please someone else chime in on some verification so that the op is getting accurate correct information.
My directions above ARE 100% correct if using cwm as your recovery. Titanium makes no mention or warning that you should change titaniums built in default storage location based on various recovery options. But again, I do not have any intimate knowledge of the workings of twrp, but certainly want to know so that my help is verifiable and accurate in the future.
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annoyingduck said:
I don't use twrp, I use cwm with zero titanium issues on internal card. I find it unlikely that twrp would wipe the entire root directory bank of files because that would also wipe its own file including backups made. I'd like some verification on this, though I don't not use twrp, nor have seen any reference to not using the default location in any of titaniums guides.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, if TWRP CANNOT wipe the internal card cuz of it's own files, then how the hell does the stock version do the same thing???
DUH!!! recovery is on a DIFFERENT partition! Know your phone!
Let's put this into basics. Do you know for a fact that twrp will erase a titanium backup stored in the default titanium storage location on the internal card, or do you need to change the storage location to external when using twrp recovery risk losing the backups?
All I got from you is telling the op to not use titaniums default location based on a speculation you had on twrps possibility to wipe it without any definitive info to back it.
My cwm based info is un-arguably accurate. So let's not confuse the original op's question here, and be sure your not rewriting the book on titanium.
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First make sure your SD Card is formatted correctly (as FAT32, not NTFS)
Then make sure your TB is actually backing up to that drive. Meaning, go into a file explorer and make sure that the Titanium files are there.
If those don't work, try using a different Recovery.
Annoyingduck thank you for always answering my questions.
I would gladly read any info I could on the android system. I admit I don't "know" my phone. I haven't been able to find info to get intimate knowledge of my phone. I just assumed the entire phone was wiped when I told it to in recovery. I can see where the storage drive can get rather cluttered over time then. Is there a way to do a full wipe to kinda clean things up in the future?
I'm going to have to buy the book android for dummies.
My mem card is stock 32gigs sandisk class 10. Straight out the package. The phone reads it. File manager sees it. Idk if I would need files greater than 4gigs. Didn't realize there was issues with the 32. Thought it was just the 64. That's why I got the 32 and not the 64.
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That's what these forums are for, and hopefully getting the RIGHT info!
Your correct, the 32 should have no issues, the problems come along with the 64's. My SanDisk 32 class ten has no problems with files over 4 gig. Appreciate the support!
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annoyingduck said:
Let's put this into basics. Do you know for a fact that twrp will erase a titanium backup stored in the default titanium storage location on the internal card, or do you need to change the storage location to external when using twrp recovery risk losing the backups?
All I got from you is telling the op to not use titaniums default location based on a speculation you had on twrps possibility to wipe it without any definitive info to back it.
My cwm based info is un-arguably accurate. So let's not confuse the original op's question here, and be sure your not rewriting the book on titanium.
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know for a fact that TWRP will wipe everything or not... I was meaning that the OP should copy his backups to his ext manually or to a computer JUST IN CASE. I thought I had read that the TWRP Factory reset/wipe did the same thing as the Stock's Factory Reset/wipe(Which erases ALL app data from the internal SD including TB's backups!
JB_orchidguy said:
Annoyingduck thank you for always answering my questions.
I would gladly read any info I could on the android system. I admit I don't "know" my phone. I haven't been able to find info to get intimate knowledge of my phone. I just assumed the entire phone was wiped when I told it to in recovery. I can see where the storage drive can get rather cluttered over time then. Is there a way to do a full wipe to kinda clean things up in the future?
I'm going to have to buy the book android for dummies.
My mem card is stock 32gigs sandisk class 10. Straight out the package. The phone reads it. File manager sees it. Idk if I would need files greater than 4gigs. Didn't realize there was issues with the 32. Thought it was just the 64. That's why I got the 32 and not the 64.
Sent from my Paranoid Galaxy S3 using Tapatalk.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@OP: The problem with the 64gb cards that I was referring to is their format. I know for a fact that 64gb cards are exFAT. I "think" that 32gb cards are doing the same thing. I dunno for sure. The problem with these cards is that the phone will read them, any file explorer will read them, but Recovery's have an issue reading them. Along with AOSP ROM's from what I've been told(I dunno for sure because I've always fixed my cards before going to AOSP).
If you dont see yourself using any files over 4gb(which usually are just bluray rips) then you might as well just format your card to FAT32 just to be safe. Go to and follow the GUI option of this THREAD. This is how I did my card and it's caused me no problems. Like I said the only downfall to formatting it this way won't allow you to use files that are over 4gb in size.
Now, there has been other problems with 64gb cards as far as stability. This is all speculative since I have not experienced it first hand, but I guess a lot of people were having their cards fail period. Meaning they were un-readable in any format on any device. Like I said, I have not experienced this.
I definitely would like to know more, especially about whether twrp does a full format. And just so I know, for cwm to erase root files, you would have to choose the format system option as opposed to wipe data/factory reset (which does not erase those files)?
Thanks man for the clarification
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TWRP does not wipe /data/media which is the default save location for titanium, this location is the main directory of your internal storage. I have used TWRP on my SGS3 and my transformer prime and it has never erased this directory when doing a factory reset.
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Wish that was posted many posts ago...... Would have saved some headaches!
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I might have to do this because my files are everywhere, and possibly to have a clean start. I'm backing things up, but if I wipe internal storage, will it give me an issue if I try to flash a rom and gapps?
I believe this will delete your recovery too so you will have to push your recovery back on to your phone using adb.
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Recon0212 said:
I might have to do this because my files are everywhere, and possibly to have a clean start. I'm backing things up, but if I wipe internal storage, will it give me an issue if I try to flash a rom and gapps?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you wipe data in twrp it wipes the internal card now.
Learned this the hard way that they fixed it. Thankfully I don't keep anything important on their and keep it on my external card.
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I accidently wiped my internal storage on my S3 and don't have an SD card. Can I flash a new ROM using my PC? Or am I ****ed?
DroidNewbcake said:
I accidently wiped my internal storage on my S3 and don't have an SD card. Can I flash a new ROM using my PC? Or am I ****ed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, you can side load a ROM that's downloaded on your PC, or you can push a ROM to your internal storage with ADB. There's definitely a few guides on how to do it in this forum.
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Yeah. Wiping and formatting your /system or any internal directories is lovely for a fresh and stable start... just need to have a ROM on your eternal SD card, haha. I've done this several time, forgetting about having a ROM to flash afterwards. LOL.
Just get an external card, have the ROM and flash it from there. Makes everything way easier!
OK... I searched on this one.. and probably someone will point me RIGHT to the thread as soon as I post this...
Keep in mind that I am a NOOOOOOOb.... and probably don't belong in here... but hey.... everybody has to learn
so... I downloaded and flashed the SD/ Internal Memory swap... and was thinking of flashing an updated ROM to play with some more... my question is... do I copy the ROM zip to my SD card which NOW reads as my internal storage? OR do I copy it to the Internal Storage because that now shows as my SD card??
Or... should I scrap the whole thing, and flash it back to nothing, fresh install on ROM, and then reflash the SD card / Internal storage swap?
Thx for any help
I'm assuming you flashed the swap that @InkSlinger420 graciously provided for us? If so, it's my understanding that the recovery doesn't recognize the swap, just the rom. So if you put it on internal (which WAS external) when you go into recovery it'll be external again, if that makes sense. I would say put the rom on your now internal, then go into recovery and see where it is placed. Either way, recovery will flash it regardless of where it is. Just make sure (and always make sure) you have a backup of what you have now just in case. I can't stress that enough. I working backup is critical when doing the modding game! Also, are you using Philz recovery? If so, for the love of pete, backup your efs partition. Also very, VERY, important!
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Wholeheartedly agree...backup or kick yourself later..?
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njstein said:
I'm assuming you flashed the swap that @InkSlinger420 graciously provided for us? If so, it's my understanding that the recovery doesn't recognize the swap, just the rom. So if you put it on internal (which WAS external) when you go into recovery it'll be external again, if that makes sense. I would say put the rom on your now internal, then go into recovery and see where it is placed. Either way, recovery will flash it regardless of where it is. Just make sure (and always make sure) you have a backup of what you have now just in case. I can't stress that enough. I working backup is critical when doing the modding game! Also, are you using Philz recovery? If so, for the love of pete, backup your efs partition. Also very, VERY, important!
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Philz recovery ... no... I guess I should back up? It's kind of a spare phone that I have been tinkering with just to try and learn... so I figured worst case scenario, I could reformat, and start fresh I'm probably wrong about that too?
Anyway, I went ahead and loaded the swap that yes @InkSlinger420 very graciously gave out.... so... here is what happened...
I loaded the new ROM onto the SD card (which showed as internal memory) Flashed it... and it ran perfect, it UNDID the Swap, so I had to reflash that file as well... now we are back to where we were, with a new ROM, and no backup maybe I will go check out Philz...
Philz is wise as @njstein had said backs up your efs partition that holds all the identifiers for your device to receive service and such.and, yes, if you flash a new ROM, you will need to reflash the swap zip, but as I have been messing with it,it still keeps your apps and such so after you flash ROM,gapps,and swap, your app data will still be there for apps/games..just need to re get them from play store manually or automatically, also may want to get a good cleaner for your device such as SD maid or clean master to help keep up with removing residual leftovers as well..
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