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How to back up the ext2 partion on sd card?

Hi,
I have sucessfully moved my apps and caches to my 1.6gb ext2 partiton on my 8gb sd card.
I would like to back up the ext2 partition in case my sdcard fails.
How do I do this in windows xp?
Thanks

I'd love to find out how to do something similar. I just got an 8 GB card that I'd like to replace my 2 GB card with, basically, I'd like to clone the whole thing over.
Anyone have any ideas? I can do XP or Linux, just curious what software would be able to do the best job of replicating the card from one to the other.

Attach the card to your computer with an adapter (not the phone as it will be mounted by android). Download and install ext2ifs from here. You will now be able to see the files on the ext2 partition and can copy/paste them to where ever you would like.

Thanks, but I've had no luck with ext2ifs and memory cards. They even address it in their troubleshooting section:
I have a device with a removable media, for example a USB memory stick, a Compact Flash Card, a magneto-optical drive etc., which has a partitioned format and has more than one partition. When I insert that media, a drive letter appears for the first partition, but not for all the remaining partitions of the media. When I open "IFS Drives" of the control panel, the considered device appears as a hard disk drive, but there is no partitioning scheme shown for it. How can I create drive letters for the remaining partitions of that removable media? (USB hard disk drives are not affected.)
There is an unsatisfactory answer only: it is not possible.
Windows creates (and deletes) all the drive letters for pure removable devices or removable medias itself. Because the Ext2 IFS software need not to create them, it intentionally does not show any partition scheme for that drive.
Windows creates a drive letter for the first partition of the considered media, but not for the remaining ones. (Windows NT4, 2000 and even XP behave the same way in that regard).
You will run into the same problem if you have a removable media partitioned with two partitions of the FAT type on a computer, which has not installed the Ext2 IFS software! So there is one straight advice only: do not use removable media with more than one partition with Windows.

I'm guessing (someone else could correct if wrong) that if I were to just do the basic copy from one card to another - that would suffice?
If I just took the card, created two partitions (FAT32 and EXT2FS) on the larger card, then copied over all the files in both - that would work just fine?

Strange, I've never experienced any issues with ext2ifs, but yes a simple copy paste of both partitions has been all i needed. Just make sure to copy any hidden files as well.

Can we back it up using Ubuntu Live CD and just upload them to a new sd cards ext2 partition?

yes, but you would need multiple card readers.

andonnguyen said:
yes, but you would need multiple card readers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why can't you save it to the hard drive, replace the sd card, access the ext2 partition and upload the files that you backed up?
Although I'm not very familiar with Ubuntu, when I tried it last time it didn't even allow me to have access to the app and app-private folders within the partition.
What do I need to do to be able to back it up to the hard drive so I can try to upload it to another SD?

Hi,
Thanks for the suggestion.
But when I installed the driver, I can still see just the fat32 partition not the ext2 partition.
I am using a sdhc usb card reader so it is not connected to the g1.
It is like the ext2 partition does not exist through windows xp.
But when I put the card back in the g1 the files are taking up space through ternminal emulator. So the ext2 partiton does exist but still not accessable through windows.
Any other ideas?
jsunkist146 said:
Attach the card to your computer with an adapter (not the phone as it will be mounted by android). Download and install ext2ifs from here. You will now be able to see the files on the ext2 partition and can copy/paste them to where ever you would like.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

bestwebs said:
Hi,
Thanks for the suggestion.
But when I installed the driver, I can still see just the fat32 partition not the ext2 partition.
I am using a sdhc usb card reader so it is not connected to the g1.
It is like the ext2 partition does not exist through windows xp.
But when I put the card back in the g1 the files are taking up space through ternminal emulator. So the ext2 partiton does exist but still not accessable through windows.
Any other ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what comes up when you use
"busybox df -h" in the terminal emulator?
make sure you see something like "/dev/mmcblk0p2 (partition size) (used) (available) (used %) "/system/sd"
If not then that's the problem.

Hi,
In my phone , I do have that ext2 line /dev/mmcblk0p2
size 1.4gb - used 49 meg - free 1.3 gb
sdcard line /dev/mmcblk0p1
size 6.2 gb - used 5.2gb - free 981 meg
Thanks for the reply.
Binary100100 said:
what comes up when you use
"busybox df -h" in the terminal emulator?
make sure you see something like "/dev/mmcblk0p2 (partition size) (used) (available) (used %) "/system/sd"
If not then that's the problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

If you're on Linux it is trivial to get the files off, if you'd like to make an exact image you can use the dd command. I suggest grabbing a live CD, as it will be a much easier process than making windows see ext partitions.

crater said:
If you're on Linux it is trivial to get the files off, if you'd like to make an exact image you can use the dd command. I suggest grabbing a live CD, as it will be a much easier process than making windows see ext partitions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the Live CD, but can you elaborate on the "dd command" exactly. I'm a Linux noob and wouldn't mind backing up the partition. Last time I tried, I couldn't even get permissions to open the files no less copy them.
Thanks.

Insert the two SD cards into USB SDHC card readers. Launch the free MiniTool Partition Wizard program. Copy the ext2 partition you want to transfer on the first SD card to an unallocated area on the second SD card. MiniTool Partition Wizard under Windows does "see" multiple partitions on a USB drive even though Windows doesn't assign letters to those drives and they are invisible in Windows Explorer.
To increase the size of the ext2 partition on either SD card, use the Linux program GParted. Boot up with the GParted Live CD/USB iso file. Run GParted to resize the ext2 partition. (MiniTool Partition Wizard can move but not resize an ext2 partition.)

Apps onto SD - problems ive had and things that have helped [for noobs]

Ok, so since I went from my nice name brand 4GB class4 to a patriot 4GB class6 I have had all kinds of issues trying to get my apps to my SD. When ever I tried to reformat the card through windows vista or win7 it would disconnect, and when trying to launch computer management it would freeze until the phone was disconnected. I would also connect it, right click to format, i would get the popup asking if Im sure I want to format the card, and then when you click format it would fail immediately and the phone would disconnect as external media. So nothing I could do could reformat the card even tho at the time there was a 3.5GB FAT32/.4GB ext2 so I stuck it in Ubuntu. Same weird issues trying to format with GPartition. So I tried Partition manager which would only allow me to delete all the partitions and create ext2 but whenever I would create a FAT32 it would fail at the last 90% of the job and the phone would disconnect form the comptuer, I could then reconnect it and complete the job. I tried this about 20 times after number reboots in Vista and Win7 to no avail. I tried every updated ROM with every type of Apps2sd conversion and nothing is working, everything keeps installing to the phone even after all the commands are successful in the terminal. Finally this morning I got to work and tried with XP and it formatted first try, and now I am midway through resetting everything up. My major issue is that once I install a new build it will work until I setup the apps on the sd card, once I do that I hang on the second slpash screen.
In short I dont know what is going on but I wanted to report my issues incase anyone else was having similar problems. It would seem XP is my savior but that seems really odd.

I have the same issue in Vista. If I need to format the card I just use a reader instead.

Symptoms:
- SD card not recognized by Windows Vista or Windows 7
- If SD card is detected if you right click > format, that operation will instantly fail and the SD card will become disconnected.
- Opening Admin Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management will hang until you disconnect the SD card
- SD comes up as unallocated and needing a format but any attempt to format it will fail
- After installing Apps2sd it hangs on second splash screen
- After installing Apps2sd it hangs on android logo
- Cyclic Redundancy Check error when copying files to SD
- Phone and computer both not recognizing the SD card
Attempted fixes:
- Installing JFv1.5
- Installing 1.5Hr3Apps2sd
- Installing Dudes Apps2sd
- Installing everything imaginable from radios to RC29 and re-rooting
Chain of events that worked:
- Installed JFv1.5 - get a fresh download, install and wipe. You can do this by using another SD card, putting your SD card in another computer, or using a combo of adb or fastboot. Depending on how I messed up my phone determined which of those ways I could do it.
- Format your whole SD card to FAT32 - Same as above, depending on your situation you may need to use a card reader or a computer with linux or Paragon partition manager. I had more issues in Vista and Win7 than XP just FYI incase thats an option to you.
- Split your partition into FAT32/Ext2 - Take your total card size formatted to FAT32, mine was 3.8GB and I wanted .4GB (400MB) so in the below coding where it says "size" I used 3400M, make sure you use a capital M, for more info on this topic click here. Then, with an internet connection open up your terminal emulator and type each line and then enter:
su
cd /data
wget http://64.105.21.209/bin/lib/droid/sdsplit
chmod 555 sdsplit
/data/sdsplit -fs size -nc
reboot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
- NOTE - The above 2 steps can be skipped if done in Paragon Partition Manager (which I owe thanks for saving my SD card when the Disk Management in all versions of windows and Gpartition in ubuntu failed to see the card, but not PPM)
- Part 1 of 2 for setting up Apps2sd - First step is to download this file. Extract those 2 files onto the FAT32 (windows visible) partition of your SD card. Then open up your terminal emulator and type out each line and hit enter:
su
mount -o remount,rw /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
cp /sdcard/init.rc /data/
cp /runme.sh /data/
cp /sdcard/a2sd.sh /data/
reboot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
- Part 2 of 2 for setting up Apps2sd - Once fully rebooted download this file and copy the AppstoSD2.apk to your SD card. With a file manager program (ASTRO for me) install AppstoSD2 off of your SD card. When it is done launch the program and select, Copy Apps to SD. Once that is done your phone will reboot. Once its back up and running choose the second option, Copy dalvik-cache to SD. Once that is done you will need to manually reboot.
- DONE!!! - Once I was done rebooting my phone now reports as having ~400MB of internal storage and it feels much snappier. I hope this guide helps someone.
Huge props to Stericson and MarcusMaximus for their help in fixing my phone. I suspect others may run into similar issues not knowing you need to split the sd card, then create those links with init.rc and a2sd.sh, and THEN install the appstosd program so maybe this will help someone else.

Update: Phone froze during a call, I pulled the battery, and it hung at the second splash screen, and the JF1.5 update.zip file on the SD card could not be found. I went and found my old reliable SanDisk 2GB, put the update on it from my computer, flashed, wiped, and once everything was good to go I tried to put the 4GB class 6 card I have been using but now the phone, linux, xp, vista, win7 all fail to recognize the card at all. I dont know what happened but my issues started when I got that card. I am taking the new Patriot 4GB class 6 card back to fry's and Im running my 4GB class 4 that I had before I upgraded. Everything is setup now and working fine so hopefully I just had a bad SD card.

I wouldnt use the phone to format your sd card. I had no issues formating on vista, winxp, win7 when using a sd card reader. I think it has something to do with the fact that you dont have direct access to the sd card when formating from the phone. I think Android just mounts the /sdcard partition and makes it writable through the usb. if that is the case then you dont have access to the partition tables on the card. Not a linux or android guru, just a theory.

1: Don't try to format the sd card using your computer when it's in your phone, if you need to format it, use a card reader.
2: ext2 isn't readable by Windows, so if your ext2 partition isn't showing up on the computer, that's normal.

i had haykuro adp 1.5 but flashed jf 1.5 to put apps on sd and its stuck on tmobile g1 screen.

Yes! The easiest way for me was throwing the card into my Ubuntu laptop and both the FAT and Ext2 partitions pop up on the desktop so you can backup or partition them easily.
And when my card crapped out last night and I put the class 4 back in I was not recognized on any computer but I could at least format it from the phone. From there Partition manager could see the drive and partition but the format was invalid. I then ran the SDSplit method and was able to get the partitions visible in Ubuntu (but not in Windows). From there I copied files (wallpaper, ringtones, etc.) to the SD card and rebooted and when it came back up Windows was able to see the files on the SD and now everything is setup again and good to go.

I have had 2 Patriot 4gb Class 6 cards that both have bad sectors within the first month...as well as randomly getting "bad_removal" from my phone with them. And then it finally losing the filesystem!
I am now using a Kingston 4GB Class 4 card and havent had any issues in 2 weeks.
Patriot isn't all that bad but I think these cards are duds.

Hi,
Just wanted to add:
I purchased a kingston 16 gb class 2 from ebay - working apps to sd no problems. I used it for 1 month.
Then I upgraded to an Adata 16 gb class 6 from newegg.com. Using it for 2 weeks now with no problems. Apps to sd and dalvik-cache to sd.
My firmware Haykuro 5.02H r4.
These 2 brands seem to be reliable.

I just ordered the A-Data 16GB cl6 card off newegg.com. When I get it I will see what happens and report back.

Partitioning - I'm baffled

I've looked through all the tutorials and read an obscene amount of how-to's, yet I can't figure out partitioning. Tried it from the SDK on a mac and pc and got some sort of path error right from the start. I've tried disk utility on a mac but I am confused on what entries I need to make. Same goes with disk manager on a PC. I've also tried Ubuntu with no luck (got an error). You name it, I've tried it and now I'm exhausted. All I am trying to do it partition a 4GB card to get a linux-swap of 128MB for one of the hero ROMs I want to try...If someone could show me the entries I'd need to make for size for the 3 partitions, that would be great. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Boot into recovery, create a partition.
Boot ubuntu, get the gnome partition editor
Resize the partitions as you need them.
Done.

If you were to flash Amon Ra's recovery it has an option to partition your sd card for you. I'm not exactly sure how much it would set the swap at, but I'm sure you could find it with a little searching. Here's the link to the recovery http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=530492

This is for a 8gb
adb shell
# parted /dev/block/mmcblk0
print
rm 1 (make sure you back up sdcard)
rm 2
rm 3
mkpartfs primary fat32 0 7599
mkpartfs primary ext2 7599 7604
mkpartfs primary linux-swap 7668 7732
quit
# reboot recovery
this is making the linux swap 128mb.

I use the method mentioned above:
adb shell
# parted /dev/block/mmcblk0
print
rm 1 (make sure you back up sdcard)
rm 2
rm 3
mkpartfs primary fat32 0 7599
mkpartfs primary ext2 7599 7604
mkpartfs primary linux-swap 7668 7732
quit
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here are some tips though on how to get these numbers...
1. You MUST have the SDK installed correctly with the drivers so you can initiate the adb command and communicate with the device.
2. Partition in Recovery mode. Either Cyanogen or Amon_Ra... I use Cyanogen, so I can't speculate as to how to do this with Amon_Ra
3. BACK-UP YOUR SD CARD, this WILL WIPE YOUR CARD!!
Ok, once you are in recovery, go into the shell:
adb shell
Once there, mount the card with parted:
parted /dev/block/mmcblk0
Once there, get your SD Card Information:
print
This will give you the size of your SD Card and list the partitions that currently exist on it. The number is gives you for SIZE is what you need to go off of, NOT ALL SD CARDS ARE THE SAME!!!
Be sure to remove any parititions that are there already (use the rm # command (# being the partition number you want to remove)).
The 8MB card above stops at 7732 where my 8GB card stops at 8053, so keep an eye on the numbers!!
Ok, now you have to work backwards... If you wanted to make 3 partitions, you work from back to front with the numbers:
For my card, since it ENDS at 8053, and I want a 128MB linux-swap partition, I simply take 8053 - 128 = 7925, so the THRID partion will be:
mkpartfs primary linux-swap 7925 8053
Now I have a 500MB ext3 parition so I take 7925 - 500 = 7425 which makes the SECOND partition:
mkpartfs primary ext2 7425 7925
And then the remaining space is for FAT32:
mkpartfs primary fat32 0 7425
So you will actually run them in the reverse order:
FAT32 > ext2 > linux-swap:
mkpartfs primary fat32 0 7425
mkpartfs primary ext2 7425 7925
mkpartfs primary linux-swap 7925 8053
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can adjust the numbers however you want for space assignment.
Once you are done, you should (unless the ROM dev states otherwise) upgrade the ext2 partition to ext 3.
In parted type:
quit
This will drop you to the shell and then type:
upgrade_fs
Wait for this to complete and you now have FAT32 + ext3 + linux-swap
Hope this helps explain it some!

this android and me how to is the best ive seen has pictures and step by step, made partitioning a breeze http://androidandme.com/2009/08/news/how-to-manually-partition-your-sd-card-for-android-apps2sd/

Thanks for the help guys. I'll keep trying but I haven't been able to get the ADB working via the SDK. I know I am doing something wrong with the path because its not even letting me get past the initial command. By the way, I have the Amon Ra recovery and I believe it auto-partitioned 32MB. I need 98, possibly 128.
On the bright side, I just received a replacement phone because my first mytouch was defective and giving me horrible reception (BEFORE I ever tried messing around with it). So, now I have two phones, one of which I can mess around with.

staunty said:
I've looked through all the tutorials and read an obscene amount of how-to's, yet I can't figure out partitioning. Tried it from the SDK on a mac and pc and got some sort of path error right from the start. I've tried disk utility on a mac but I am confused on what entries I need to make. Same goes with disk manager on a PC. I've also tried Ubuntu with no luck (got an error). You name it, I've tried it and now I'm exhausted. All I am trying to do it partition a 4GB card to get a linux-swap of 128MB for one of the hero ROMs I want to try...If someone could show me the entries I'd need to make for size for the 3 partitions, that would be great. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
staunty said:
Thanks for the help guys. I'll keep trying but I haven't been able to get the ADB working via the SDK. I know I am doing something wrong with the path because its not even letting me get past the initial command. By the way, I have the Amon Ra recovery and I believe it auto-partitioned 32MB. I need 98, possibly 128.
On the bright side, I just received a replacement phone because my first mytouch was defective and giving me horrible reception (BEFORE I ever tried messing around with it). So, now I have two phones, one of which I can mess around with.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Staunty: I was in your position yesterday. I'm thinking about making a write up for noobs solely about partitioning, simply because until you do it, the language and way to do it was extremely hard to find. Here is how I did it:
I could not get ADB to work at all, not sure why but I get an error every time I try to mount or find my device in console, I've heard of ADB problems on windows 7 and even tried a fix to no avail. Realizing ADB was out of the question, I needed to format the SD card outside the phone. I did not have a card reader, so I drove to best buy and for 19.99 purchased a card reader for my pc. It is by rocketfish and comes in a red box in case you go my route. Thankfully it reads micro SD cards WITHOUT a converter to normal SD. If you have all the materials, time to format the card.
Because Android needs a linux-swap and EXT2 or EXT3 partition for what we're doing, windows can't format the card correctly without using ADB. The workaround is to use linux. You don't have to install linux, you can just burn it onto a CD and boot up with it for a 1 time use to format your SD card. If you don't have a CD burner like myself, you can use a USB drive. I went to www.linuxmint.com and downloaded linux mint for free. Mint is like ubuntu but extremely user friendly. It comes with Gparted, the partition editor. In mint, there is a search bar right in the program menu. Search for partition or Gparted and it will show up. Put your card into the card reader. Select your SD card from the drop down window in Gparted. Look for the "device" with 3.69gb of available space, thats your 4GB SD card. Right click each partition and select "unmount". Once your entire SD card is "unallocated" you're ready to divide up your memory card into partitions.
You stated that you have a 4 gig card. I'm assuming it's the stock class2 mytouch card. Thats the card I'm using as well, so I'll give you my numbers. Just an FYI, I decided to use a very large EXT3 and very large swap as I've heard not having enough swap can lead to lag so I decided to be overly generous, you can change these numbers to whatever you want. I also left some space unpartitioned just to be on the safe side since this was my first time partitioning the card.
Right click on Unallocated and select new at the top. We're going to do your FAT32 first. In the middle box on the left that says "Size" type 2900, I believe it asks you for the # in mb. If it asks for GB just type 2.9. On the lower right hand side, select FAT32 and then less ok. The second partition we'll make is an EXT3 partition. Most other methods can't directly create an EXT3 partition, however Gparted does let us do this. Lets take advantage while we can. Right click again on unallocated and fill in 575 for size. This time select EXT3 from the drop down menu. Hit create. Last and certainly not least, our Linux-Swap partition. Create a new partition again, fill in 225 for the size and select Linux-Swap for the partition. After you've created all 3, click the green check mark above the white partitioning area. You will get a message that all data on the card will be lost. Click yes. Wait for the computer to create the new partitions on the card and then viola, you've partitioned your SD card without ADB. I apologize if any of this seemed long winded or condescending, however I simply wanted to write out every possible step because I know at one point I really wanted to see something as step by step as this.

Mr. Nefarious said:
Staunty: I was in your position yesterday. I'm thinking about making a write up for noobs solely about partitioning, simply because until you do it, the language and way to do it was extremely hard to find. Here is how I did it:
I could not get ADB to work at all, not sure why but I get an error every time I try to mount or find my device in console, I've heard of ADB problems on windows 7 and even tried a fix to no avail. Realizing ADB was out of the question, I needed to format the SD card outside the phone. I did not have a card reader, so I drove to best buy and for 19.99 purchased a card reader for my pc. It is by rocketfish and comes in a red box in case you go my route. Thankfully it reads micro SD cards WITHOUT a converter to normal SD. If you have all the materials, time to format the card.
Because Android needs a linux-swap and EXT2 or EXT3 partition for what we're doing, windows can't format the card correctly without using ADB. The workaround is to use linux. You don't have to install linux, you can just burn it onto a CD and boot up with it for a 1 time use to format your SD card. If you don't have a CD burner like myself, you can use a USB drive. I went to www.linuxmint.com and downloaded linux mint for free. Mint is like ubuntu but extremely user friendly. It comes with Gparted, the partition editor. In mint, there is a search bar right in the program menu. Search for partition or Gparted and it will show up. Put your card into the card reader. Select your SD card from the drop down window in Gparted. Look for the "device" with 3.69gb of available space, thats your 4GB SD card. Right click each partition and select "unmount". Once your entire SD card is "unallocated" you're ready to divide up your memory card into partitions.
You stated that you have a 4 gig card. I'm assuming it's the stock class2 mytouch card. Thats the card I'm using as well, so I'll give you my numbers. Just an FYI, I decided to use a very large EXT3 and very large swap as I've heard not having enough swap can lead to lag so I decided to be overly generous, you can change these numbers to whatever you want. I also left some space unpartitioned just to be on the safe side since this was my first time partitioning the card.
Right click on Unallocated and select new at the top. We're going to do your FAT32 first. In the middle box on the left that says "Size" type 2900, I believe it asks you for the # in mb. If it asks for GB just type 2.9. On the lower right hand side, select FAT32 and then less ok. The second partition we'll make is an EXT3 partition. Most other methods can't directly create an EXT3 partition, however Gparted does let us do this. Lets take advantage while we can. Right click again on unallocated and fill in 575 for size. This time select EXT3 from the drop down menu. Hit create. Last and certainly not least, our Linux-Swap partition. Create a new partition again, fill in 225 for the size and select Linux-Swap for the partition. After you've created all 3, click the green check mark above the white partitioning area. You will get a message that all data on the card will be lost. Click yes. Wait for the computer to create the new partitions on the card and then viola, you've partitioned your SD card without ADB. I apologize if any of this seemed long winded or condescending, however I simply wanted to write out every possible step because I know at one point I really wanted to see something as step by step as this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dude, thanks for the detailed info. However, I finally figured out what was happening with the SDK...Maybe you're having a similar issue. First of all, I went with the 2.0 initially but was having some sort of error that I found others to be having. I scrapped the 2.0 and went with the 1.6 SDK. Dropped it on C:\ and renamed it (rename it whatever you want). That solved issue 1 and my command prompt found the right path. Issue 2 was needing to delete any and all HTC drivers in my system. After I did that, I plugged the phone back in an reinstalled the drivers that popped up with plug and play. Problems solved. Only problem I now have is remembering which ROM for which I was doing all this. Seriously, I've looked at and read about so many that they all sound the same. We should collaborate on this noob tutorial, I knew nothing whatsoever about 2 days ago and have spent countless hours figuring out stuff that is relatively simple in hindsight.

or try amon ra's preview of his new recovery, it has dynamic partitioning http://bit.ly/aXCh8

I am in the same boat. I have used Gpartition Live CD, Amon RA's Recovery 1.2.3. After partitioning the SD (4GB Class 4), when I put it in Windows XP via a SD adapter, it says the SD is not formated. The same happens when I use my phone. They phone sees the SD memory as "Blank Media".
Anyone have any ideas what I am getting wrong?

themetatron said:
or try amon ra's preview of his new recovery, it has dynamic partitioning http://bit.ly/aXCh8
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what I use and it works best for me.

Strange case of a self-renaming block partition

Hi,
I've been lurking and searching for a while here on the forums and have been Googling for solutions to my problem as well. I have Debian Kit (can't post URLs as of now so you'll have to Google it) set up on my TF101, because I needed the GNU Toolkit as Busybox is lacking and I'm doing some LaTeX editing on the command line as well. I've actually successfully set up Debian Kit in the past, though I just resorted to installing everything in a ~2GB loopdisk file inside my internal storage. I've recently recovered my TF101 from a soft brick and when I was setting up Debian Kit again I thought of installing it on an external microSD instead since 2GB seems a little too small for my needs.
So I partitioned a 16GB microSD as follows: I created a 12GB ext3 partition (this is where Debian will go) and the rest as a FAT32 partition (I never thought of using around 16GB for a small Debian install residing inside Android anyway).
I set up Debian, but I noticed that everytime the tablet went to sleep, either automatically or through my intervention, all the inactive USB storages and external SD cards get unmounted by the tablet. Since my ROM (ARHD, which is based off the stock ASUS ROM) only "natively" recognizes FAT32 and NTFS partitions, my ~4GB FAT32 partition was affected by the annoying auto-umount/remount. However, I noticed that whenever it does, my 12GB partition appears to be affected as well, and for some reason I couldn't find my Debian install anymore (partition seems to be missing), though a reboot fixes the problem.
I got tired of this so I repartitioned the microSD such that its entirety will be formatted as an ext3 partition. I installed Debian again and now I noted that whenever my tablet goes to sleep the ext3 partition no longer gets unmounted.
The problem is not solved however. After an unspecified and probably random period of time in inactivity, the block partition of the external SD where Debian is installed somehow "renames" itself into the next available label for it in /dev/block. I can't clearly describe it through words without using too many paragraphs so here's a couple of outputs (I can't post screenshots because of the 10-post rule):
During normal usage (block device of the external SD card is boxed):
Code:
[email protected]: /dev/block $ ls
*
*
*
mmcblk0 <- this is my internal storage
mmcblk0p1
*
*
*
mmcblk0p7
mmcblk1 <- my external microSD
mmcblk1p1 <- the 16GB ext3 partition
*
*
*
And here's an ls of /dev/block when Debian suddenly goes MIA:
Code:
[email protected]: /dev/block $ ls
*
*
*
mmcblk0 <- this is my internal storage
mmcblk0p1
*
*
*
mmcblk0p7
mmcblk2 <- my external microSD
mmcblk2p1 <- the 16GB ext3 partition
*
*
*
Whenever my microSD goes by another block device Debian goes haywire (it's now just running of my RAM), and even if I restart it, it doesn't fix the problem, so I have to reboot everytime this happens. It doesn't happen as frequently as it did before I repartitioned the microSD such that the entirety of it is now an ext3 partition, but it's still quite annoying to have to reboot every few hours or so.
I'm not exactly looking for a solution here, I'm just trying to find out what's going on so that I can look for the solution on my own. I'm hoping that this is just an annoying problem (ASUS actually calls them "features") with my ROM, and if that's true I'm just going to move to a ROM that isn't based off the stock ASUS ROMs.
Any help and insights would be appreciated.

The reason for this is fairly simple, as far as the os is concerned the sdcard should be removable, so when it goes to sleep it tells the kernel "hey, that device can sleep too and save some more power" but because debian was still mounted, and running from that partition the mmcblk1 marker is effectively unavailable, same thing happens if you unplug a usb drive from your computer and replug it quickly under linux without safely unmounting it first, it will start jumping up the lettering from sdb->c->d etc

Is there a way to stop making the kernel automatically unmount the sdcard? Because constantly unmounting and remounting Debian sounds like a terrible chore.

[Question] Using 2 SD cards in Android

Hi, all! I've been trying to figure out how to simultaneously use 2 SD cards on an Android device.
The device itself is FiiO M11 running Android 7 (non-rooted).
There are 2 SD cards used in the device and they are mounted as internal storage.
What's been established/discovered so far via ADB connection (I have attached the relevant screenshots):
both cards are successfully mounted on the system (on /mnt/expand/...) [screen1]
one of them is mounted by the system to /storage/emulated and can be accessed/written to by the apps on the device
it's possible to see the root contents of the 2nd SD card [screen2], but when trying to read 'media' folder (where I would assume the files are supposed to be stored) via ADB, I get 'Permission denied' error
So the main questions I have:
how to access/write to the 'media' folder on 2nd SD card via apps?
would a bind mount of 'media' to a location inside /storage/emulated solve the issue (access+permissions) and if yes, how to create it?
is there an Android app that can manage this or can it be done via ADB?
I'm aware that rooting might help solving the permission "ailments", but preferably I'd like to achieve this without rooting the device.
I might be developing PTSD from the way Android's been handling external storage and permissions over the years, so thanks in advance for any advice/help.

How'd you get the second SD card mounted? I'm running an RFinder B1+ (14) which has an emulated SD card and two SD card slots. What I've read is that since Honeycomb or so there's been a way to have apps scan a second physical SD card but they couldn't write to it.
I suspect Runbo or RFinder is going to use this to put stuff related to the RF module on that second SD card like DMR ID database, ROM updates, etc.
My second SD card needs wiped/restored but with it in the TF2 slot it doesn't show up at all. I'd like to use it for copying and backing up SD cards from the device itself.