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Help please! Lost SDcard Partition!

Hey fellow devs,
I have been trying to configure my partitions on my 4GB SDcard for around 7 hours now..... it's currently 4:43am CST and I've lost it.
I researched and researched to find out the best way to create the FAT32/EXT2 partitions for my SDcard and i believed i had it and now I'm left with only 2.2GB/4GB available to me from my FAT32 SDcard! I can't create an EXT2 partition anymore or another FAT32 because there is no space allocated. I've been using Partition Manager 9.0 for the process but I'm kinda really freaked out now. Someone please tell me that i haven't friend my SDcard.
What I have been working on is trying to get my apps & caches saved to my SDcard so i have save my internal memory and stay away from Lag spikes. I currently have JFv1.42_RC_33 Modded created by LucidREM. It is supposed to auto save all apps/caches to the SDcard but of course you have to first have the FAT32/EXT2 combo. Well i thought i had it so i went and flashed my G1 with that Modified build.
1. Formatted SDcard after having FAT32/EXT2 partitions created because i was trying to follow the new auto updated from another post by using Android SDK(ADB) and running appsToSD.bat which failed.
Note: I'm not sure but i think that is where i went wrong by formatting the SDcard after the partitions and not before.
2. Went for LucidREM's method right after.....
3. Powered down > Booted from Camera+Power > Updated from update.zip(JFv1.42_RC_33 Modded > Home+Back for reboot.
4. Got back to home screen and all my old stuff is still there. Apps and all because they were saved to the phone's internal memory(Phew)
5. Went to Terminal and did
a. $su
b. #copy.sh app
c. #copy.sh data (OPTIONAL)
Failed.
So lastly i decided to check my partitions in Partition Manager 9.0 and found that my EXT2 partition is completely gone and the 1.5GB memory went with it!!
So now I'm stuck with 2.5GB FAT32 SDcard. Can't rollback or create EXT2 since all primary slots are taken up.
I know this is a long post but I'm like at the end of my rope. I know my G1 is pretty safe but I have no clue about my SDcard.
Please Advise.............
P.S I'm gonna go to sleep now.....Lol..... 7 hrs is too long to be focused.....
Thanks Devs
Stringbeanz
[email protected]

beanz,
sleep deprivation is never a good thing when playing with partitions. first of all. Secondly, i feel your frustrations... i have been there recently. So here is where i offer help.
You are in a good spot because your g1 still has all the apps / data untouched
As far as the sd card goes. i would back up any information you have on it that you dont want to loose. here are a few tricks you can try.
- i dont know if your running Paragon Partition Manager from windows or not but i would make a bootable cd and run it from outside windows. it worked exponentially better for me that way.
-i would also suggest making your ext2 partition no bigger than 500mb. even if you download 100 apps you wont fill that up. and it seems to have less issues the smaller it is.
-also if your card is not a class 6 lucidRem doesnt advise moving the data.
hope this helps

Perdid0,
Thanks for your prompt response to my post. I have just a few Q&A to your response.
1. I am running Partition Manager 9.0 on Windows XP SP3
2. My 4GB SD card only has 2.2GB on 1 partition (FAT32)
3. I'm not able to add another partition such as an EXT2 because there is no primary spot available or allocated space. That is what Partition Manager 9.0 told me.
So.......
1. How do I check if my SD card is Class 6? App or prog?
2. Since I can't create a partition on it now is it trashed?
3. I'm thinkin just to wait and get a 16GB Class 6 or 8 if I find one.
4. But until then if I am able to undo the damage to my current one that would be great.
Thanks for ur help with my Questions.
Stringbeanz

Samsung Galaxy Young , SD problem.[Solved]

Hi, i'd like to share this piece of work that took me 2 days to figure out.
I am a fresh owner of a Samsung Galaxy Young. Very nice piece of hardware for the price, if i might say.
Since i like tuning, and shaping my computer, i started doing that on my device. Keep in mind, i own the European version of the phone(i'm italian.)
So everything started when i tried to upgrade to 2.3.6. No european firmware yet.
So i downloaded some asian version with English support and flashed through odin.
Everything was fine, except that my 8gb microsd seemed dead.
after many tries, i manage to make it up and running trough an usb micro-sd reader on an xp laptop, and seem to have solved the problem by running a very deep chkdsk.
A few days later(about a week) Dang! here we go again, the sd is dead again.
Strange thing was, that on my older phone (gt-s5230) it seemed to work just fine. So why wasn't it working on android or windows either?
There we go: somehow it seems that the sectors of my sd where corrupted in a very bad way, because once loaded the sd on linux( i used a virtualbox VM in conjunction with Gparted, but it worked fine since the controller uses a usb mass storage driver and not a mmc one.) dmesg showed me a very long list of errors from trying to read it's sectors.
This explains, by the way, why with the older phone it worked fine: it didn't care.
So gparted wasn't working, stuck on trying to read the partition table of the sd;
then i decided to try a crazy thing: a simple command line program:
dd if=/dev/sr0 of=/dev/sdb
It overwrote completely whatever remained of the bad sectors,along with the partition table and completely restored the sd to functionality; Just to be sure i formatted it in windows, fat32 FULL format(not the quick one).
Long story short, if you can't recover an sd, load it on linux, than launch this command:
dd if= (whatever file sufficiently long, say at least 400-700MBs, i used the cdrom because it was the fastest way in that occasion.) of=/dev/SDCARD (whatever device is the sd)
Then, full format under windows.
VERY IMPORTANT: if there is something that looks like /dev/SDCARD ,/dev/SDCARD1 or /dev/SDCARD2, do not put ANY number after the name of the device. we are going to do a brutal overwrite from sector zero; if you put in the number of the first partion or the second, you overwrite the partion without touching the sectors that our phones usually tries to read first, locking the sd.

[Q] Reboot loop

I bought a new Kingston 32gb class10 microsdcard, because i decided to test Data2sd on my tf700.
I installed data2sd zip from recovery and when I booted up it said "Encryption unsuccessful", and I can only reset tablet.
I cant make a factory reset as it just reboots and displays "Encryption unsuccessful" again. I can go into recovery TWRP but all my files on my internal storage is gone, so I cant flash CROMI again.
So I copied the CROMI rom on my 32GB fat32 formatted card, but in TWRP console it says E: Unable to mount '/external_sdcard'
I should have never done this
Can anyone help please?

Apparently you didn't partition or format your card correctly - did you use gparted?

This indeed sounds like yo uare one of the many many, many that still used MiniTool, our warnings notwithstanding. Try Gparted.
Furthermore, if you can access any other storage partition in TWRP and would like to copy your backup(s) so you can reinstall you can do so with the AROMAFile Manager found here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1646108
Boot into recovery, flash the AFM zip file and it will start the file manager. It's a convenient option to have, but it does take a little getting used to.

I used minitool. Any gparted alternative on windows machines? I have ubuntu on my virtual machine but it cant see the internal card reader :/
TWRP couldnt recognize my Kingston 32gb, thats why it was unable to mount it. I used a old 512mb sd card and I have managed to install CROMI again. Awesome!
One thing I find confusing reading the Data2SD thread (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1962507)
I am confused as to whether I need 2 partitions or 1. I always transfer files between my tablet and computer via USB cable. So should I make one 32gb ext4 partition? Or make a small 8mb fat32 partition and the second as my ext4 partition?

Allright got my questions answered else where.
I am using the Gparted CD to boot up from and format my SD card.
To anyone else do not use MiniTool as it doesnt work!
Thanks guys.

r4yburn said:
Allright got my questions answered else where.
I am using the Gparted CD to boot up from and format my SD card.
To anyone else do not use MiniTool as it doesnt work!
Thanks guys.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I'd come ina bit sooner, I'd had advised youthe route you haven taken so props for your self-sufficiency. :victory:
I have already taken up the issue with MiniTool still being recommended with a senior moderator.

MartyHulskemper said:
If I'd come ina bit sooner, I'd had advised youthe route you haven taken so props for your self-sufficiency. :victory:
I have already taken up the issue with MiniTool still being recommended with a senior moderator.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah saw your post on Data2sd thread. The post Muffin has made should be edited, as ppl tend to read the first 3 posts from the op and not the replies... Oh well no harm other than many posts from users. For a second I thought I turned my tablet to a brick..

r4yburn said:
Yeah saw your post on Data2sd thread. The post Muffin has made should be edited, as ppl tend to read the first 3 posts from the op and not the replies... Oh well no harm other than many posts from users. For a second I thought I turned my tablet to a brick..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, the latter effect is what I'm trying to stop: I was in the same situation, with the added bonus of nobody having figured out how to recover. It took me an entire evening and a lot of stress to get back my microSD card after it stopped working altogether. Once a thread gets more than, say, 300 posts you can't really blame a new reader for not going through all of them -- the OP should be updated, however, when an issue is as clearly established as this one is.

[Howto] Dualboot Xubuntu (13.04) and Chromix 5.4 (Rom2SD) from microSD Card

This was the 6th post in the thread. I swapped it with the original first, because this one contains the instructions on how to get dualbooting to work.
@brewmeister:
Thanks, I've got it working, since Graiden05 added the support for it. ^^
@f69m:
I'm stalking your thread, ready to pounce once sd cards and linux are supported. If you see a shadow in the corner of your eye, while writing a post in your thread, then that's most likely me.
@Trigger911 and everyone else interested:
It's quite easy now. But takes a while, if you're doing it for the first time. Note that I'm talking about the MicroSD card slot in the tablet. This won't work with the slot in the Dock. Also you need to have your tablet unlocked, a 4.2 Bootloader and a custom recovery, like TWRP 2.5.0.0-42. See the Cromi-X thread in the developer forum:
forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2425390
The rootfs is a bit dated. It's xubuntu 13.04. There are instructions on how to create your own roots in the 2nd post of the xubuntu thread in the dev forum. We'll just use the dated one.
Also webdoctors wrote a nice post about just installing xubuntu. There are links to the rootfs, installer script v2.2.9 and the modules needed:
forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=48947306&postcount=342
Download the installer script and Cromi-X to the internal storage of your tablet.
To get both Cromi-X and xubuntu booting from the sdcard you need to partition it:
Create four patitions on your card. The order is important and don't forget to make a backup! All data on the card will be lost during the process:
1st: vfat (any size you want, there was a technical reason, that the first partition needs to be vfat, but I can't remember)
2nd: ext4 (will be the data partition for your apps and stuff, as big as possible)
3rd: ext4 (system, for cromi-x, 1GiB, more would be a waste of space)
4th: ext4 (rootfs, for xubuntu, at least 4GiB, made mine 10GiB, on a 64GiB card)
Detailed Instructions on how to partition a sd card can be found at the end of the 2nd post of sdbags' Cromi-X thread.
Installing Cromi-X:
Get Cromi-X 5.4 and flash it with the ROM2SD Option selected. Instructions on how to install Cromi-X are in the 1st post.
Cromi-X will use the 2nd and 3rd Partition.
Once the installation is done, reboot and check if it is working. During the boot you will see Penguins and some text below. If at the end of it there's something like "setting up for Rom2SD", then it's working and booting from the card.
Installing xubuntu:
For the next steps I use Ubuntud. It might work on a rooted phone/tablet too, if you use a terminal app, like Terminal IDE or Terminal Emulator. But you might need to use su instead of sudo and use another folder than /media.
Follow these instructions and enter the commands in a terminal. If you want to learn more about what a command is doing type "man" followed by the command, e.g. "man sudo" or "man mkdir":
1. Create mountpoints for the rootfs-partition and the downloaded rootfs-image:
sudo mkdir /media/xubuntu
sudo mkdir /media/rootimage
2. Determining the path of your sd card under Linux. Don't play with this! fdisk you can wreak havoc to your harddisk. The -l option tells fdisk to show you a list of all partitions of storage mediums connected to your pc:
sudo fdisk -l
3. Mount the rootfs partition of the sdcard. Assuming the path to the sd card is /dev/sdd, then the 4th partition is adressed as /dev/sdd4. Change it accordingly:
sudo mount -t ext4 /dev/sdd4 /media/xubuntu
4. Download the rootfs. Use the link in webdoctors post.
5. Extract the image from the file.
6. Mount the image, so you can copy it's content to the rootfs partition on the card. You need to change the path to match your situation. Here I simply downloaded it to my Downloads folder and extracted it there:
sudo mount -o loop /home/<username>/Downloads/xubuntu_13.04.img /media/rootimage
8. Now we can copy the files in the image to our root partition. We use the options -pr, which will (p)reserve access rights, owner, group, etc. and copy (r)ecursivly the contents of all directories in the image:
sudo cp -pr /media/rootimage/* /media/xubuntu/
9. Wait till it's done copying, then unmount both the image and root partition:
sudo umount /media/xubuntu
sudo umount /media/rootimage
10. Put the SD card in the tablet and boot to recovery: Press Volume Down and keep holding it. Press Power for a second and release it, while keeping Volume Down pressed. Once you see three icons, with RCK blinking, release Volume Down and Press Volume Up.
11. Now it's time to flash the installer script. Doing this will enable us to boot xubuntu, but we will loose wifi in Android. We will fix this afterwards. In TWRP chose install, locate the V2.2.9.zip and flash it. The tablet will reboot, show a blue bar and reboot again.
12. You will be greeted by a new bootmenu. Waiting for 10 seconds or hitting 1 will boot xubuntu, pressing Volume Down or 2 will boot Cromi-X. For now we want to boot to xubuntu.
13. On the login screen just hit login.
Fixing WiFi in Android
Now we need the mod_update.zip from Graiden05.
1. Get it from: forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=47990253&postcount=311
2. Unzip it and open the mod_update.sh file in an editor.
3. The script assumes, that we've installed Android to the internal storage, which we did not. So we need to change a line and point it at the right direction.
In the 3rd line we need to change "/dev/mmcblk0p1" to "/dev/mmcblk1p3". Now the script will mount the system partition of the sd card and not the one from internal storage.
Save and quit.
4. Open a terminal and navigate to the folder containing the script.
5. Run the script by typing:
sudo sh ./mod_update.sh
6. Done! Sit back, relax and enjoy dualbooting your TF300T!
Add swap to xubuntu:
Stop relaxing and get back to work! We ain't done yet. *cracks a whip*
We're gonna add a swap file for xubuntu to use because: "If you don't setup a swap space, programs will randomly get killed when you run out of RAM, which is kinda annoying if you want a stable and fast system." (shamelessly stolen from webdoctors' post)
And because we already got four primary partitions on the card, we can't add another one. We could try using extended/logical partitions, but I'm not sure if those are supported on a card and haven't tried it. The only disadvantage will be, that we can't use the swapfile while running Cromi-X... Or can we? Hmmm, mount the xubuntu partition and simply use the swapfile? Got to think about/try it.
Anyways, a good description on how to setup swap is here: http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/08/how-to-add-swap-space/ (again shamelessly stolen from webdoctors' post).
Use the second method and don't forget to add "sudo" to the beginning of every line. Also change the value for count in the dd command according to your needs, e.g. count=512 instead of count=1024 to use 512MiB of swap instead of 1GiB.
Ok, it is possible to use the swapfile on the xubuntu partition while running Cromi-X. I don't know how to make these changes permanently yet, so you'll have to mount the partition (step 3) and activate the swapfile (step 4) on every boot to Cromi-X. Also note that using the card for swap will increase it's wear.
With that said, let's get it on! *dingding*
1. Start a terminal app and get root right. In Terminal Emulator just type "su" and hit enter.
2. Create a directory to mount to:
mkdir /sdcard/xubuntu
3. Mount the xubuntu partition:
mount -t ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk1p4 /sdcard/xubuntu
4. Activate swap. If you didn't follow the guide and created it in another directory or under another name, then you have to change the path accordingly:
swapon /sdcard/xubuntu/root/myswapfile
5. Check that it's working. The first number after swap should be anything but 0:
free -k
6. Done! Stop working and get back to relaxing! *cracks a whip*
Things to note:
Suspend is not working. Don't use or you'll have to hard power down the tablet (pressing power for 7? 10? seconds). This is bad and you don't want do that. Always shut the tablet down, when you're done. Booting to xubuntu only takes about a minute.
Doing a distribution upgrade in xubuntu is not working. I tried and had to use a backup for the rootfs.
I'm not sure if this is related to making the tablet dualboot. But sometimes, when I used Android and put the tablet to sleep for some hours, it won't wake up and the battery in the dock took quite a hit. The cause for this could be anything; The modules used, kernel, a badly programmed app, bug in Cromi-X, corrupted partition, cosmic rays blasting my tablet or the tablet's just like me and doesn't like being woken early.

I can try to build GRIMLOCK based kernel which should make it possible. But there is one problem left to solve - choosing partition to boot certain OS.

Really hope to see this happen can only find solutions for 4.1

try v2.2.9
Try the updated kernel and rootfs from xubuntu thread, if i remember right, data2sd was implemented in v2.2.6 kernel, latest kernel is 2.2.9.
Look at the 2nd or 3rd thread(I think?) on pg 35 of xubuntu thread. Also consider setting up a linux swap partition at the end of your sd card.
Hope you get it working, good luck.

The official MultiROM has quite flexible support for dual-booting different Linux systems, but that is disabled in my early TF300T port due to lack of time. I am currently concentrating on Ubuntu Touch.
If someone is willing to try, I am happy to provide experimental MultiROM builds and some support. All I am asking in return are some howto docs to include in the MultiROM thread.
Sent from my TF300T using Tapatalk

This was originally the 1st post.
Hi,
I am trying to get dualboot to work with Xubuntu and Chromix 5.2a from an external SD-Card.
Since I can't post in the Dev-forum yet, I have to do it here instead of the corresponding thread.
Hardware/Software infos:
My Tablet is an Asus TF300T with 4.2 Bootloader (Asus Firmware WW 10.6.1.27.5 -> Chromix 5.2a Deodexed), TWRP 2.5.0.0, Nvflash enabled, ADB and fastboot access.
There is Chromix 5.2a with _that-v6 Kernel installed to both internal memory and SD-Card (Rom2SD). The Xubuntu rootfs is on the card too.
The card is a Samsung MB-MGCGBEU Class 10 microSDXC Pro 64GB and got these partitions:
/dev/mmcblk1p1 8GB vfat
/dev/mmcblk1p2 40GB ext4, data partition
/dev/mmcblk1p3 1GB ext4, system partition
/dev/mmcblk1p4 10GB ext4, rootfs for xubuntu
Journaling is disabled for the ext4 partitions, to keep the wear down for the card.
Rom2SD requires the first three partitions.
Goal and Problem:
What I am trying to do is being able to boot both Android and Xubuntu from the external SD-Card.
Also I want to keep Chromix on the internal memory as a fallback, in case the card gets damaged/lost/stolen by aliens and misused in weird experiments.
Right now I can only access either Android or Xubuntu from the card, but not the other:
When I flash Chromix 5.2a via TWRP, I can boot to Android from the card but have no access to Xubuntu.
Flashing Graiden05's testV2.2.4.zip from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=47649660&postcount=265&nocache=1&z=7287232739506702 I can boot to Android from internal memory and Xubuntu form the card.
I know that the installers don't know anything about each other and hope it's only a matter of modifying them or some boot scripts.
Maybe change the installers so they use their own partition and don't overwrite each other. And then extend _that's dualboot method (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2501129) to multiple OS on an external sdcard.
Something like: (Note: I've only got some vague ideas about what's going on during installation or booting)
1. Add a 5th partition to the sdcard.
2. Install Chromix with Rom2SD.
3. Change the testV2.2.4.zip to do it's xubuntu magic on the 5th partition and not overwrite the Rom2SD stuff
4. Modify _that's dualboot method to include xubuntu and wait for VolUp or VolDown to select what to boot.
5. ???
6. Profit!
7. ???
8. World domination!
I hope someone can help me with this problem. It would really rock to be able to boot this baby with multiple OS from a fast SD-Card!

nice
glad your up and running and thanks for the details. this would be a good post to reference for those wanting to try this (along with web doctors post in the xubuntu thread) - I would however set up a fifth partition for linux swap and set it up as detailed in the link in webdrs thread. How is cromi running with rom2sd? right now i've got mine set up with cromi on data2sd and xubuntu on internal. all I have is a 16 gb micro and i'm thinking of switching my setup once i get a bigger card. does cromi run any better from the card? anyways thanks again and a huge thanks to all those that have made this possible (graiden, join the realms, fm69, shrdlu and anyone else that i may have missed)
also got to give a huge thanks to sbdags for his awesome cromix rom

brewmeister said:
glad your up and running and thanks for the details. this would be a good post to reference for those wanting to try this (along with web doctors post in the xubuntu thread) - I would however set up a fifth partition for linux swap and set it up as detailed in the link in webdrs thread. How is cromi running with rom2sd? right now i've got mine set up with cromi on data2sd and xubuntu on internal. all I have is a 16 gb micro and i'm thinking of switching my setup once i get a bigger card. does cromi run any better from the card? anyways thanks again and a huge thanks to all those that have made this possible (graiden, join the realms, fm69, shrdlu and anyone else that i may have missed)
also got to give a huge thanks to sbdags for his awesome cromix rom
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah yes right, I forgot about the swap part. Gonna add it.
Performancewise I'm happy with running Cromi-X from card. To be honest, I haven't booted from internal memory for some months now. Then again, it all depends on the card. If you've got a fast one, I'd say give it a try. If it's not fast enough for you, you can just power down, remove the card and the bootloader from the v2.2.9 script will simply boot from your internal memory.

Can somebody help me a little? Because after mod update (on rootfs 12.10 tried also files from installer.tar.gz) I can't start xubuntu
Currently I have latest kernel 2.2.9 from dev thread and CROMi-X. Tried also rootfs for 13.04 but i won't start anyway. Using 12.10 I can at least login to the system.

I partially figured it out. My problem was caused because of wireless kernel modules. I can again run xubuntu but without wi-fi. Unfortunately modules from dev thread doesn't work for me

Does 3G work on tf300TG while in Xubuntu?

Can't boot into windows (only Linux works) Help!

Long story short, I did the fall creators update and it bsod my machine. It would NOT let me boot from any usb. I ensured usb was the first boot priority, I ensured it was formatted as fat32 and or a GPT partition. I tried a 16gb flash drive, a 32gb flash drive and a 256gb flash drive. No matter what I do, I can not get the surface to boot with any windows ISO or recovery image or files. However, I can boot from linux distro's perfectly fine from the flash drives. I decided to install linux mint completely to the nvme drive and it seems to be working well. However, I need windows back.
To clarify, this is on the new surface 2017 model 1796, not that it matters but it's the core i5 model with 128gb nvme storage and 4gb of ram.
TLDR: Only linux will boot from flash drives, windows PE won't boot, windows won't boot etc. They all just bsod.
If anyone can help me solve this, I will literally PAY you.
Last resort is driving the 6 hour round trip drive to Microsoft. I plan on doing that this Saturday if I can't fix it before then. If you have any ideas / tips / suggestions, please let me know. I've put about 15 hours into this machine with no luck thus far!

SurfaceHelp said:
Long story short, I did the fall creators update and it bsod my machine. It would NOT let me boot from any usb. I ensured usb was the first boot priority, I ensured it was formatted as fat32 and or a GPT partition. I tried a 16gb flash drive, a 32gb flash drive and a 256gb flash drive. No matter what I do, I can not get the surface to boot with any windows ISO or recovery image or files. However, I can boot from linux distro's perfectly fine from the flash drives. I decided to install linux mint completely to the nvme drive and it seems to be working well. However, I need windows back.
To clarify, this is on the new surface 2017 model 1796, not that it matters but it's the core i5 model with 128gb nvme storage and 4gb of ram.
TLDR: Only linux will boot from flash drives, windows PE won't boot, windows won't boot etc. They all just bsod.
If anyone can help me solve this, I will literally PAY you.
Last resort is driving the 6 hour round trip drive to Microsoft. I plan on doing that this Saturday if I can't fix it before then. If you have any ideas / tips / suggestions, please let me know. I've put about 15 hours into this machine with no luck thus far!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You want to back to Windows 10 on your Surface?
Download Windows 10 creation tool on your another PC: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO, and follow the instructions in YouTube videos.
You can install Windows 10 to your Surface (install to NVMe drive, not on external storage/drive) using USB flash drive.