[Q] Need to erase a drive/unite drives on my SD - General Questions and Answers

Hey,
Got this 8GB SD, which serves my son's Android phone (Lenovo S920, but this is off topic).
Now, for some reason, this SD is divided to two DRIVES (not partitions, drives), a 3GB drive and a 5GB drive. The phone treats the 3GB drive as its first and default drive.
Now, I want to reformat the SD in a way it'll include a single 8GB drive. Then I can repartition it the way I like.
Problem is that I couldn't find a single tool which does that. Whenever I try partitioning the SD with any of these tools, it detects 2 separate drives/devices, on which it can perform any partitioning function, but all within the drives. No tool offered the option to erase a drive or merge drives. I could also do with a tool that turns the SD blank or return it to its factory settings. I have tried Windows, Android or Linux tools with card readers or with the SD inserted in my phone (MSC mode) without any luck.
Would appreciate any help here.

Related

Any way to clone an SD card? (2 gig upgrade to 8 gig)

*I've spent a lot of time searching...all the answers I come up with involve copy and paste the folders...which is what I did...but windows doesn't show me my ext3 partition.*
I recently rooted my G1, formatted my 2 gig SD with a 32mb swap and 500mb ext3 and flashed cyanogen 4.0.1. I quickly realized that a 2 gig card was just not enough (now that I'm left with 1.1 gig...) so I purchased a class 6, 8 gig card
I plugged the phone in to my computer, copied all my files, put cyanogen recovery 1.4 on the 8 gig and booted to console, formatted the card to my 7200, 500 and 32mb partitions. Shut the phone down, stuck the card in my card reader and moved all the files that were on the 2 gig onto the 8 gig. Booted the phone...damn it...no apps!
Took a few minutes of head scratching before I remembered that cyanogen 4.0.1 does the apps to the ext3 partition! all my apps are on the 2 gig! *arg*
Is there a way to clone the 2 gig card to the 8 gig without messing up the partitions? or just copy everything from my ext3 to the new ext3?? I really don't want to go through and download all the apps I had again
I found some SD card clone software (sprite? IIRC) but that looks like its specifically for WM devices.
As I understand your SD are formatted to ext3. Best solution is download any live linux distribution (live = run from cd into ram without installing and changing anything) and copy files normally.
yeah all ubuntu iso's include a live os you can boot up in without it installing anything to your harddisk there you should be able to read ext3
Hadn't considered that...
Thanks for the help
unfortunately, even just sticking the 2gig card back in the phone none of the apps work the phone boots and I get a long list of "xxxxx encountered an error and must force close"
looks like its off to the market for me...
*sigh*
tsiah said:
unfortunately, even just sticking the 2gig card back in the phone none of the apps work the phone boots and I get a long list of "xxxxx encountered an error and must force close"
looks like its off to the market for me...
*sigh*
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just for future reference....how does one go about backing up the ext partition of the SD card so if your current card has an issue you can stick the backup card in and keep running without having to download all your apps again??? I mean...if removing the original card, then turning the phone on with a new card in there caused it to "forget" the location of all the apps when the original card was installed...how does a backup card do you any good??
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=4397141#post4397141
This thread appears to be the answer...If I ever have to get another card, I'll give this a try.
I use HDD Raw Copy, just use a partition manager to resize old partitions
http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool/
Greetings
I've used GParted from Live USB Linux (I use PuppyLinux, but any other Live Linux with GParted would do) to copy partitions between sdcards / usb drives / hard disks. It's GUI based, very simple and does the job.
Just plug both the sdcards into your computer before opening GParted,
Once open, GParted would ask option to use only one device or all devices - make sure you select all devices.
After it loads all the devices, you can select the 2GB card, right click each partition, copy and select 8GB card and paste the partition there.
Please follow the partition order so that you don't change the order in the 8GB card.
Once all the partitions are done, you can resize the partition you want to make bigger on the 8GB to fill the card.
After configuring everything, click Apply and wait for GParted to do all the magic!

SD Card Issue

Big problem. I have a Lexar 32gb sd card and today it seems to have went corrupt.
I noticed it when my ring tone change from a song to default. if i put the sd card in my PC and try to read from it it says card needs to be formated. Please tell me there is a way to recover the info on the card??? when i put the sd in the phone it says preparing then says safe to remove sd card.
TIA
JC
Hopefully just a format is all you need. I lost a 32g USB drive recently, and fortunately Corsair has great warranty service.
Sent from my Bricked Energy Sensation.
My wife's sensation did the same thing, I had to take out the SD and put it into my SD card reader on my laptop, format it and then put it back in the phone. The phone then wanted to format it again which it did and now it seems fine.
By the way, the data was intact when I put it in my SDcard reader. I was able to back up the data before I formatted it.
He said he wanted to recover the files on the SD card, not how to get the **** thing working.
You might want to check if all of the connections are clean. If they're not, a format the ****-error is likely to happen. Pure alcohol might do the trick.
If it doesn't, you could search Google or the forums for terms like 'recover corrupted micro SD'.
Good luck!
Edit: Maybe this guide does the trick?
I've an other question. I made the mistake to format my SD card with CWM and now it's only a 4 GB card (it should be 8 GB). Does someone know how I can force format it to 8 GB (with Windows or Mac OS disk utility, I can't expand the size anymore, just reformat it) ?
you can use sdformatter, a great and simple tool for those types of things, or you can download easus partition manager, its free and pretty good software for drive management.
If you want to make a linux disc, such as Ubuntu, gparted is one of the best tools available for examining, repartitioning, flagging, and fixing disks. I believe you can just download gparted and boot it from a CD or flashdrive, but I think just downloading a linux distribution is easier.

How To Use your SD Card as main storage.

The following explains one way to configure your ASUS TF300T to use your
SD Card as the main storage instead of trying to save everything to the local storage.
If you use this method you will be able to move your installed apps over from Local Storage to your External Storage (your SD Card), you can run the majority of your apps from the SD Card, and also set SD Card as the default location for downloads.
Prerequisites:
You have to have Root access on your device before you can do any of this. You have to make sure you go into settings/Developer Options on your device and Enable USB Debugging before you start any of this.
What you need for this.
1. You need to partition your Micro SD Card. I used a Micro SD to USB Adapter, and Partitioned my 32GB SD Card on a Windows 7 system as follows.
Set the 1st partition to 1GB. Set the second partition to use the remainder of the card. Download "EaseUS Partition Master Home Edition" it's free, you pull it down from www.download.com The Link 2 SD Guide I mention below shows what you need to do with this even though it references different devices, and the main partition app has a different name, the process is still the same.
2. You need a boot loader this is what that 1st/ 1GB partition is for. I used
bootice you can download it from here it's also free http://code.google.com/p/grub4dos-ireneuszp/downloads/detail?name=bootice_0.9.2011.0512.rar
This is all you need to do with this app. With your Micro SD Card Plugged into a USB port on your Windows system/Run Bootice on your Windows System, go "Parts Manage" > "ReFormat USB disk" (don't worry, it won't "format" the USB) > choose the dropdown option for your new first partition > click "Set Accessible" and it's done already! After that you can just click cancel/close/etc.
3. Download and run Link2SD from the Android Market, you can actually do this step first if you want. Also this app is free.
Here is a Guide I found online for Link2SD. http://www.xperiablog.net/2011/12/12/link2sd-guide-never-worry-about-internal-memory-limits-again/
This guide shows you how to move apps, No proprietary system apps, but those are not the ones you really have to worry about taking up space anyway. It also shows you how to go into the Link2SD settings and make your Micro SD Card your default download location from places that auto install applications like the Android Market. Very nice, this was exactly what I needed, I'm very pleased with this so far.
I have to give another thank you to jgaf for this, he pointed me in the direction of the Link 2 SD software in the first place, very much appreciated!
Good luck.
nordis
P.S.
If you need a Micro SD to USB adapter they are very cheap, and very readily available. The going rate for these things is usually from $3 dollars to $6 dollars. You can just do a general search in Google for "usb to micro sd adapter"

Corrupted my adopted SD storage during 5.1 update - is reformat my only option?

The update process hung for ages, so I restarted the device. This seems to have resulted in a corrupted sd card - which was being used as adoptable storage.
The tablet now no longer recognises that there's even an sd plugged in. If I connect it to my computer it seems like the partition table is still all there, but something fundamental has broken making it impossible to use the sd.
A brief Google seemed to suggest that, if it was even possible to recover the card, it would require reformatting. I'll do that if I have to, but I was hoping there was another option...
phunni said:
The update process hung for ages, so I restarted the device. This seems to have resulted in a corrupted sd card - which was being used as adoptable storage.
The tablet now no longer recognises that there's even an sd plugged in. If I connect it to my computer it seems like the partition table is still all there, but something fundamental has broken making it impossible to use the sd.
A brief Google seemed to suggest that, if it was even possible to recover the card, it would require reformatting. I'll do that if I have to, but I was hoping there was another option...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most probably the update was taking long because ur sdcard isnt fast. I own a shield k1 with a 32gb extreme pro sandisk sdcard as adoptable storage full of games, the whole update took like 10min including the optimising apps part. And rebooting it midway of course corrupted its data that is encrypted specifically to your device, that's why it PC cant view its data (even the parts not corrupted). So ur best choice would be to format it.
Unfortunately, I think it must be properly dead. I tried to format it - in fact I didn't even get that far. When I went to delete the partitions in order to create and format a new one, cfdisk said the write had all worked, but, in fact, the old partitions remained intact. I tried some other software to re-partition it, but the result was the same.
no problem
use this app on windows ¨HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool v2.1.8 Español (Portable)¨
sure recover it
open with administrator
ever when i use win32diskimager , i need tu use only this program to recover all gigabites of my sd and usb memorys
sorry for my english im from spain!
good luck!!

Android phone as Harddisk?

Hello,
Is there a way to mount a android phone as harddisk?
I mean NOT as removable disk, I mean recognizing by pc as real harddisk like the
pc´s built in harddisk?
Rufus0700 said:
Hello,
Is there a way to mount a android phone as harddisk?
I mean NOT as removable disk, I mean recognizing by pc as real harddisk like the
pc´s built in harddisk?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, I doubt it, but, there is an app called Drivedroid(and similar apps) that allow you to boot Windows or Linux on your PC directly from your android devices internal or external storage.
Sent from my SM-S767VL using Tapatalk
Droidriven said:
No, I doubt it, but, there is an app called Drivedroid(and similar apps) that allow you to boot Windows or Linux on your PC directly from your android devices internal or external storage.
Sent from my SM-S767VL using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But theres no way to add those functions directly inside the android system?
I dont want to start a image of a operating system, I want to start a operating system over usb who is directly
installed on the phone micro sd card (Theres no image file, the files of the system are directly on the sd card)
Why it is so hard to change the normal mass storage mode of Android to a "Harddisk mass storge mode" that would be the easiest way?
Rufus0700 said:
But theres no way to add those functions directly inside the android system?
I dont want to start a image of a operating system, I want to start a operating system over usb who is directly
installed on the phone micro sd card (Theres no image file, the files of the system are directly on the sd card)
Why it is so hard to change the normal mass storage mode of Android to a "Harddisk mass storge mode" that would be the easiest way?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because, it would require formatting the device's storage in the same way that you would to create a bootable USB, that would make the storage no longer useable by the android system. In other words, you can't have it both ways where the android device can use the storage as mass storage AND at the same time use that same storage as a bootable drive.
Sent from my SM-S767VL using Tapatalk
My problem is, I would need a tool, or something, what mounts the android SD Card on the computer with flipped RMB (Removable media bit), so its mounted as harddisk, that would be all I would need, but that seems not possible on android. The RMB of the micro SD
card is not flippable, otherwise the micro SD would become a harddisk by itself, but to flip the bit in the micro sd card controller, we would need a MPtool for the micro sd card controller, and this tool has only the micro sd manufaturer. So I would need some rt of filtering app on the android who allows mounting the micro sd on the computer, but filters the rmb to tell the computer that the micro SD is a Harddrive, but that seems not possible?
Rufus0700 said:
My problem is, I would need a tool, or something, what mounts the android SD Card on the computer with flipped RMB (Removable media bit), so its mounted as harddisk, that would be all I would need, but that seems not possible on android. The RMB of the micro SD
card is not flippable, otherwise the micro SD would become a harddisk by itself, but to flip the bit in the micro sd card controller, we would need a MPtool for the micro sd card controller, and this tool has only the micro sd manufaturer. So I would need some rt of filtering app on the android who allows mounting the micro sd on the computer, but filters the rmb to tell the computer that the micro SD is a Harddrive, but that seems not possible?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hard drives are not expensive, why not just buy a new hard drive?
The PC doesn't access the device's storage directly, it has to communicate with the storage through the device's hardware(CPU) and the device has to be powered on or the PC can't do anything with the storage, that is the roadblock that you aren't going to get past because hard drives do not work the same way. It is just a completely different animal than a hard drive or a typical USB drive. You are probably wasting your time, find a different solution because this one doesn't have much chance of working, whether you choose to accept that or not.
I could be wrong, but, I don't think that is the case.
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