Attempting to partition sd card with ext4 -a process I completed multiple times successfully on a Nexus One, the process appeared to complete but now the phone will not mount the sd card. I've tried a wipe/reset, to no avail. I can still access and partition the sd card through adb, but the phone cannot mount it to format/partition, restore from recovery, partition sd-card from within ClockWork Recovery, nothing. I've re-partitioned the sd card through adb, which indicated a successful completion, but the phone still refuses to mount the sd card. If this weren't a Nexus S with it's cursed internal sd-card I would simply swap out the sd card with another or format it externally like all the google topics I pull up on the subject suggest.
Is this fixable or has the fused sd-card scenario become a liability?
Common Error messages:
Can't mount /sdcard
Can't mount /sdcard/.android_secure
Phone: Nexus S (US, T-Mobile, manufactured Dec. '10)
Recovery Img: ClockworkMod Recovery 3.0.2.4
Rom: CM 7.0.3 (now wiped, cannot put back on since sd card won't mount)
fstab:
/dev/block/mtdblock4 /cache yaffs2 rw
/dev/block/platform/s3c-sdhci.0/by-name/userdata /data ext4 rw
/dev/block/platform/s3c-sdhci.0/by-name/system /system ext4 rw
/dev/block/platform/s3c-sdhci.0/by-name/media /sdcard vfat rw
Can mount everything except the last one, /sdcard.
I've tried all the recommended procedures garnered from the first 10 or so pages in google, xda, cyanogem forum, etc:
Restore from nandroid: Not possible, can't mount the SD,
Wipe/Reset: can't wipe /media as sd card won't mount,
partition sd card from within Clockwork: indicates success but does nothing,
format from within clockwork: unable to mount,
repartition using adb: works, parted can see them, I can move files to from, but the phone will not mount,
clearing fstab: no effect,
Fastboot works, but I don't have the proper images. ADB works, as do the installed utilities. Have not tried ODIN as again, I don't have the proper images. Should I attempt to compile my own images from source?
Update: SOLVED, Microsoft Windows. To whom it may concern: I was able to mount the /dev/block/platform/s3c-sdhci.0/by-name/media from two different laptops running OSX and Fedora/Ubuntu then successfully been able to partition them with fat32 as the ClockworkMod (and maybe Cyanogen?) expect with 0 progress. Then I pulled out an old Windows machine, installed the JDK/ADK's +tools and performed the same procedure and that time it worked. I'm uncertain as to what particular quality a 'genuine' Windows formatting provides, but either this phone or the particular software combination I'm running require it. I was able to mount & re-partition the /sdcard in Clockwork, then manually remove rebuild them and upgrade to ext4 using tune2fs as usual. In the interim for work and such, I had to find a surrogate (for the SIM) and could only find and old k750i (which still had a full charge and worked flawlessly all day, btw). Wow phones used to be small.
I think I was missing something about the way ClockworkMod handles fstab, because everytime I would modify it specifically to the specs I passed to parted while creating the partitions with mkpartfs, it would either ignore or overwrite them. So be careful messing with the sd-card, the S's aren't like the One's in the sense that if you screw it (the sd-card) up or it goes bad you can't just take it out and format it in another machine/phone, you have to appeal to ClockworkMod. ODIN $ucks by the way, I found fastboot to be much more effective.
If you format the sd partition ext4, then you should change the fstab too.
from
Code:
/dev/block/platform/s3c-sdhci.0/by-name/media /sdcard vfat rw
to from
Code:
/dev/block/platform/s3c-sdhci.0/by-name/media /sdcard ext4 rw
or from
Code:
/dev/block/platform/s3c-sdhci.0/by-name/media /sdcard auto rw
The 2nd last entry there is the file system type.
Likely, this would have solved your problem.
Of course, I don't know, whether the recovery has the vfat type in fstab. You might have to change it there too. On my linux box auto works very well in fstab.
Of course, if you partition your sd partition ext4, you won't be able to use it as usb memory from windows. (At least I am pretty sure you can't, haven't tried)
Well of course I couldn't let it die, I went back and started tinkering again now that I have a way back. I can't change the fstab it seems, whatever I change it to gets over written everytime either Clockwork or the Rom starts. It's weird, I know I'm missing something and I don't know much about CWMod. (had Amon_Ra on the N1, which had the nifty fsupgrade script)
The 2nd last entry there is the file system type.
Likely, this would have solved your problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm quite familiar with unix style fs and fstab, it's the stubbornness I'm not used to. I'm also spoiled by vi and nano. CW has some nice scripts built in as well though.
Hellow everybody.
Running android revolver 3 i connect my external usb hard drive, wich is formated in ext4, and is not mounted automatically, looking at dmesg i see that the system tries to mount it as ntfs drive so it fails, but i can manually mount it through a terminal emulator.
Does anybody know how can i correct this?
I have no experience in android systems. I thought i could add a line to the fstab identifying the disk by uuid but there is no fstab, there is vold.fstab but i don't underestand so well the syntax of that file.
is there in the other way something like udev rules or something like that in android?
Thanks
Did you ever find out how to use the vold.fstab correctly?
It might help me.
I'm trying to have a fixed mount point for some external usb disks on my mk808 (without much luck) and found my ext3 usb drive also doesn't mount automatically.
shaola said:
Hellow everybody.
Running android revolver 3 i connect my external usb hard drive, wich is formated in ext4, and is not mounted automatically, looking at dmesg i see that the system tries to mount it as ntfs drive so it fails, but i can manually mount it through a terminal emulator.
Does anybody know how can i correct this?
I have no experience in android systems. I thought i could add a line to the fstab identifying the disk by uuid but there is no fstab, there is vold.fstab but i don't underestand so well the syntax of that file.
is there in the other way something like udev rules or something like that in android?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
after flashing the TWRP-3.1.0.0. recovery, USB-OTG refused to recognize two "standard" 8-Gbyte USB-sticks which were normally accepted by my MOTO-G (X1032).
After testing others sticks it appeared that some USB-stickes were mountable by USB-OTG and some not (all FAT32 formatted). The solution was to DELETE the one partition present and recreate + format it again with NON-STANDARD windows utility "MiniTool Partition Wizard". The root-cause / difference in partition definition is not further investigated, but maybe it helps others.
This is a very annoying issue but I have not found any thread about it.
I'm trying to upgrade my external/removable sdcard for an android 6 device.
The new sdcard gets mounted to /mnt/media_rw/XXXX-XXXX (i.e. not 0123-4567), so no app works as files can't be found.
The linux way (ln) wont work. Simply creating /mnt/media/0123-4567 causes bad bootloop on my device. This suggests that FolderMount app or Magisk modules such as fbind are a bad idea. selinux is enforcing.
It appears that Android assigns different mount points are to different sdcards and the first sdcard always gets 0123-4567. It that's right, Android probably stores sdcards' identifiers so as to know which mount point to use at boot time. So, deleting the identifiers database would probably mean that the next card inserted would get 0123-4567 as mount point.
I have looked at the data of com.android.externalstorage, but there is nothing there. I don't see other obvious candidate apps.
Where is this ext sdcard data stored?
I was wrong. Android sets mount points matching sdcard uuid
How to change vfat partition UUID?
How do I change the UUID of a vfat partition? For ext2 / ext3 / ext4, this is done with a simple: tune2fs -U <new-uuid> /dev/<partition> Is there a similar command for vfat partitions?
superuser.com
I've been trying to partition my SD card, but all steps I take to try and diagnose why I am unable to partition the card is getting me nowhere.
Initially, I used gparted on my laptop to partition the SD card with a v-fat partition and a f2fs partition, both primary partitiond. This was when I found out that no matter what I do the second partition on the SD card, it doesn't seem like the format actually takes. Whatever tool I use complete the partitioning and formatting steps successfully by all appearances but it doesn't seem like the partition is ever actually formatted. What I mean by that is that no matter what the second partition is it never mounts. I get an invalid argument error or bad super blocks and so forth. I can make the first partition anything I want: fat, v-fat, f2fs, ext4 and so forth and that will mount in my terminal without issue, but no matter what I do the 2nd partition always fails to mount. I've also noticed that blkid never has any fs info for the second partition. It gives me the partition UUID and that's all, while the first partition has both part UUID & fs UUID.
I've even gone so far as to just recently get a brand new SD card thinking that perhaps the first SD card was corrupted but I'm still getting the exact same behavior. Also of note is that in gparted when I try to create a secondary partition, I'm unable to mount the second partition so I don't think it has anything to do with my device. I've tried using fdisk, gdisk, parted in the terminal and I've tried using extended partitions and logical partitions and only primary partitions. I've done this before in the past so I know that it is possible.
It almost seems like the SD cards that I have are simply not capable of being partitioned in any way but it's strange that I now have two 512 GB SD cards and they're both giving the exact same behavior so I'm thinking that I'm missing something obvious. Any help anyone could provide as far as trying to figure this out or debug what's going on what I'm doing wrong would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Ryan
only the first partition is mounted from vold. that is normal behaviour on every device. if you want have all partitions mounted automatically install LineageOS.
furthermore, although sdcardfs supports ext4, f2fs, for file transfer via USB MTP afaik fat32, exfat or ntfs is required.
what do you need f2fs partition for? maybe I can point you to workaround.
aIecxs said:
only the first partition is mounted from vold. that is normal behaviour on every device. if you want have all partitions mounted automatically install LineageOS.
furthermore, although sdcardfs supports ext4, f2fs, for file transfer via USB MTP afaik fat32, exfat or ntfs is required.
what do you need f2fs partition for? maybe I can point you to workaround.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't need anything to mount automatically. I'm saying I can't manually mount these partitions. I also don't need f2fs, that was just an example. I've tried multiple partitions that are just fat, ext4 and many other combinations. Under no partition scheme can I get anything other than the first partition to mount--using the mount command as root.
can you please try gdisk binary from here
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/...-on-qmobile-z8-with-bricked-dead-emmc.3712171
please post the result of partitioning and formatting.
if you're interested in alternative solution, you can actually format the whole MicroSD card as exfat, and create ext4 partition image on top as regular file. I have done that for my mothers Huawei for Link2SD because it doesn't support adoptable storage.
aIecxs said:
can you please try gdisk binary from here
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/...-on-qmobile-z8-with-bricked-dead-emmc.3712171
please post the result of partitioning and formatting.
if you're interested in alternative solution, you can actually format the whole MicroSD card as exfat, and create ext4 partition image on top as regular file. I have done that for my mothers Huawei for Link2SD because it doesn't support adoptable storage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tried with gdisk but I can try with that specific version and report back. I understand we can create imaged file systems, but one of the main reasons I do this is that I find fat partitions are fickle and can easily be corrupted where the whole partition requires wiped. By having a non fat partition I use that as a better backup option where I find it's easier to recover data in case of corruption or other issues. For such use, being tied to the fat FS would still incur the possibility of data loss so that doesn't work for my purpose.
Thanks and I'll report back,
Ryan
oh I wouldn't rely on f2fs for backups it still has bugs and there are no recovery tools for f2fs
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/4550931
https://android.stackexchange.com/q/250389
alecxs said:
oh I wouldn't rely on f2fs for backups it still has bugs and there are no recovery tools for f2fs
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/4550931
https://android.stackexchange.com/q/250389
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the suggestion to use gdisk. I downloaded the version you linked, but I still get the same behavior. I believe it is related to the fact that only the first partition gets a filesystem UUID in blkid. I'm not sure what this means, but it seems clear that the second filesystem isn't being properly created no matter what I do.
that's strange, especially the fact you tried on PC too. on the phone, can you create partitions inside a blank disk image just for double check to rule out kernel issue?
I'll give that a try and report back
alecxs said:
that's strange, especially the fact you tried on PC too. on the phone, can you create partitions inside a blank disk image just for double check to rule out kernel issue?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I'm able to create an image, partition it into a vfat & ext4, then mount both of those partitions.
can you dd the file into mmcblk1 for testing purposes?
alecxs said:
can you dd the file into mmcblk1 for testing purposes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry this isn't clear to me. What am I using to dd into the partition, and do you mean mmcblk1p1/2? As mmcblk1 is the whole disk.
Thanks,
Ryan
yes, I meant the whole disk you created a test file that contains MBR or GPT and two partitions including UUIDs and file systems? If you dd it into the mmcblk1 it should create 1:1 copy of that disk image with two partitions including partition table.
Well I'll be:
Code:
/dev/block/mmcblk1p2 on /data/data/com.termux/files/home/i2 type ext4 (rw,relatime,seclabel) /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 on /data/data/com.termux/files/home/i2 type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)
Code:
/dev/block/mmcblk1p2 23M 46K 23M 1% /data/data/com.termux/files/home/i2 /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 4.9M 0 4.9M 0% /data/data/com.termux/files/home/i1
I can possibly use gparted to just resize those! Any thoughts on what was going on, why this method worked? Hrmm looks like resizing fat could be a challenge, but this certainly gets me closer!
there is also parted binary you can use on phone
I have it and I'm playing around with it, thanks for all your help