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Circumventing the FAT32 4gb file limitation

I love everything about Android, other than the fact that I can't watch any of my blu ray rips because they are over 4gb. I can format my ext SD into NTFS or eXFat but then the transformer wont see the card when I put it in. Same goes with it recognizing my external hard drive.
I have tried formatting the drive into some Mac format because I read it was a work around, but it wasn't detected when formatted as a mac drive. Is there a trick that I don't know about?
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

i have not tried, but you could possibly format the card in a linux file format (ext3, ext4, etc) and then use a windows app that will allow you to read the linux file format.
or just split your larger files.

xformulax said:
i have not tried, but you could possibly format the card in a linux file format (ext3, ext4, etc) and then use a windows app that will allow you to read the linux file format.
or just split your larger files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am trying to get honeycomb to read and play the movies though. Not another comp running windows.
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i believe some of the kernels on the dev section supports ntfs if you want to go that route...
other than that, you'd have to wait for ASUS to implemente NTFS themselves (i believe they just got a license from a 3rd party co. to use their NTFS driver, for th purpose of implementing it into their android devices)
I don't need a signature.

seh6183 said:
I am trying to get honeycomb to read and play the movies though. Not another comp running windows.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
right, and honeycomb is *nix at its core and should be able to read and play the files on a linux formatted memory card... the challenge is getting windows to read that same card to load it, but that can be done with some opensource software.

xformulax said:
right, and honeycomb is *nix at its core and should be able to read and play the files on a linux formatted memory card... the challenge is getting windows to read that same card to load it, but that can be done with some opensource software.
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Click to collapse
Ah I see! Can anyone comment on this that has tried it before I go through the agony and possible waste of time?
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Not much more to comment on, there are linux (ext3) filesystem drivers you can install on windows that should let you be able to load the SD card from within windows. As Android has *nix underneath it all, it should recognize the ext3 card no problem, and ext3 doesn't have the same 4GB limitation.

it does support ntfs for external hard drives.

seh6183 said:
I love everything about Android, other than the fact that I can't watch any of my blu ray rips because they are over 4gb. I can format my ext SD into NTFS or eXFat but then the transformer wont see the card when I put it in. Same goes with it recognizing my external hard drive.
I have tried formatting the drive into some Mac format because I read it was a work around, but it wasn't detected when formatted as a mac drive. Is there a trick that I don't know about?
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In another thread i heard NTFS works, but i personally couldnt get it to work with my MicroSD cards
you might want to check out this thread also
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1069360
My best guess is to root and install a kernel that supports NTFS
Or format to ext3 or ext4 and give that a try
I use this to access ext3 and ext 4 partitions on my Windows 7 machine
http://www.ext2fsd.com/
Works pretty well

i have a USB flash drive with NTFS. tried harry potter 720p mkv at 6.7GB and though it did see and load the file, it lagged to the point where it was unwatchable. This was on 3.01 and 3.1

I've played a 6 GB mkv off of my 320GB NTFS formatted hard drive, so shouldnt be an issue off of a card.
I'l try it later with one of my 8gb cards.

Anonnie said:
I've played a 6 GB mkv off of my 320GB NTFS formatted hard drive, so shouldnt be an issue off of a card.
I'l try it later with one of my 8gb cards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well NTFS support from a usb HDD is different from having NTFS support on the internal card reader... could also depend if NTFS is built into your kernel.

my TF works with a 8gb usb pendrive and my 750gb and 3tb external usb drive formated with windows 7 and plays dvd under 4gb
but did locked up when i opened a folder with a 9gb bluray file in it

Hmm I hope the file system for the TF isn't fat32, because like the previous poster said it would allow me to open my blu ray rips. Or would it? If the 6gb movie was located on another drive I don't see why it wouldn't play straight off the secondary drive.
I also can confirm that ntfs works just fine with external hard drives and usb thumb drives. Just not external SD cards.
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seh6183 said:
Hmm I hope the file system for the TF isn't fat32, because like the previous poster said it would allow me to open my blu ray rips. Or would it? If the 6gb movie was located on another drive I don't see why it wouldn't play straight off the secondary drive.
I also can confirm that ntfs works just fine with external hard drives and usb thumb drives. Just not external SD cards.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the file system for the TF isn't fat32.... but it formats the uSD to fat32 for compatibility between the tablet and windows.
ntfs support for uSD and for external HDD are 2 different things.

NTFS and HFS+ filesystem support
I have recently tried this:
Paragon NTFS & HFS+
(can't post link as I am a noob :| so google it up or find it in the App Store)
It is free and it seems to work well with both Win (NTFS) and Mac (HFS+) disks. As far as I know it looks like an Android implementation of FUSE.

SD card partition for cross-platform - FAT32 or exFAT?

I have a 64GB microSDXC and I want to use this between my Surface, Nexus 7 tablet, Windows 7 and OSX. What is the recommended partition I need to format the SD card?
I have MacDrive for Windows 7 (can read Mac partition in Windows) and NTFS Drive for OSX (can read NTFS in Mac). Obviously Android cannot read NTFS, so I am down to FAT32 (cannot read file larger than 32GB) or exFAT.
Is exFAT compatible with Android and OSX?

SDXC uses exFAT, so if your devices are SDXC-compatible, they should be able to read (and hopefully write) exFAT. However, unless you need to move files bigger than 4GB (which happens on occasion, but not *very* often) I'd go with FAT32; *everything* supports that.
Another option is UDF (which is a format intended for re-writable CDs and DVDs, mostly, but can be used on anything). Linux (and therefore hopefully Android) has supported that for years. I don't know if it has a 4GB or similar file size limit, though. I don't really know what filesystems Android supports, though... it might actually be able to handle NTFS, especially if you root it and install (an ARM compile of) the Linux NTFS drivers (either as a kernel filesystem, or using FUSE and ntfs-3g, which is how I'd recommend doing it if FUSE is available for Android).

Since when does the nexus 7 have a sdcard slot?

omaropa said:
Since when does the nexus 7 have a sdcard slot?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use USB TO GO cable to connect a mini Micro SD card reader.

You should be able to get an NTFS driver for the N7 (I had one on my last Android tablet), though Fat32 will give the best compatibility. Fat32 can be on disks larger than 32GB, Windows just won't let you format them to that. Format them on the Mac or on the Android tablet.

[Q] List of ROMS that support micro sdhc cards?

I'm a regular user of XDA roms for flashing, but I ran into a problem that I think should be included in every rom listing, which is the type of micro SD card supported by that particular rom. I flashed a rom a few months back that, I thought at the time, had made my Sandisk 64gb microsdhc card unuseable. The Samsung Galaxy S3 has native support for these cards and the exFat file system. I ended up recovering my data on a PC, but I sent 2 cards back to Sandisk thinking they were somehow corrupt. I eventually switched to Scott's Roms which recognized the cards just fine. My humble advice is for developers to please state which types of microsd cards are supported so that others avoid this problem thinking that their sdcards are bad. Thanks .

Why not just format it to fat32? That's what I did to mine. Also cwm does not support exfat (I found out the hard way)
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

cabalja said:
I'm a regular user of XDA roms for flashing, but I ran into a problem that I think should be included in every rom listing, which is the type of micro SD card supported by that particular rom. I flashed a rom a few months back that, I thought at the time,had made my Sandisk 64gb microsdhc card unuseable. The Samsung Galaxy S3 has native support for these cards and the exFat file system. I ended up recovering my data on a PC, but I sent 2 cards back to Sandisk thing they were somehow corrupt. I eventually switched to Scott's Roms which recognized the cards just fine. My humble advice is for developers to please stay which types if microsd cards are supported so that others avoid this problem thinking that their sdcards are bad. Thanks .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is not a ROM issue this is a Samsung issue. If you search for microsd error or microsd no longer working you will find people having this issue. The consensus I got from researching is that it has to do with how Samsung handles exFAT and that you should go with FAT32 over exFAT. I had a microSD UHS-1 Class 10 card just stop working and didn't work anywhere and I was using CleanROM.

Cards using the exFAT file system cannot be read by open-source ROMs like Cyanogenmod because Microsoft owns the exFAT file system and in order to support it, Microsoft would have to be paid a licensing fee. Touchwiz-based ROMs can read them because the support is baked into Samsung's software.
If you want your card to work with all ROMs, you have to format it with the FAT32 file system. Additionally, not all formatting utilities seem to do it right for SDXC cards. I used the GUIFORMAT program detailed in this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1773735. Unfortunately this means that you won't be able to store files larger than 4GB on your SD card.

Jacquestrapp said:
Cards using the exFAT file system cannot be read by open-source ROMs like Cyanogenmod because Microsoft owns the exFAT file system and in order to support it, Microsoft would have to be paid a licensing fee. Touchwiz-based ROMs can read them because the support is baked into Samsung's software.
If you want your card to work with all ROMs, you have to format it with the FAT32 file system. Additionally, not all formatting utilities seem to do it right for SDXC cards. I used the GUIFORMAT program detailed in this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1773735. Unfortunately this means that you won't be able to store files larger than 4GB on your SD card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was my understanding of the Touchwiz roms, but I just installed Galaxy MOD RLS11 and it is giving me that error "SD card safe to remove". I know there are some utilities that will format cards above the 32gb limit, but the 4gb file size is a pain for some of the movies,etc. I get with Adownloader. I have the 32gb S3 and the 64gb Ashcroft which makes me want to never own a Nexus device . No issues on Scott's rom, but it isn't as fast and it doesn't have the 4.2 camera or gallery, which I really like.

cabalja said:
That was my understanding of the Touchwiz roms, but I just installed Galaxy MOD RLS11 and it is giving me that error "SD card safe to remove". I know there are some utilities that will format cards above the 32gb limit, but the 4gb file size is a pain for some of the movies,etc. I get with Adownloader. I have the 32gb S3 and the 64gb Ashcroft which makes me want to never own a Nexus device . No issues on Scott's rom, but it isn't as fast and it doesn't have the 4.2 camera or gallery, which I really like.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Kernel has to support ExFat also so if using stock kernel and modules are still in rom should work.

Please post questions in Q&A
Thread moved

[Q] which file system for new micro sd card?

So my micro sd card just fried. It was a cheap $30 Wintec 16gb Class 10 that I picked up from Fry's Electronics during the summer of 2012. Over the last 6 months that I had it, I used it as ntfs file format so that I could play .mkv movies >4gb.
I plan on ordering http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Mobil...166&sr=8-4&keywords=sandisk+mobile+ultra+32gb in the 32gb version.
1) Can anyone recommend a better micro sd card?
I will be using my micro sd card to be recording a lot of 1080p sports videos, storing .mkv movies bigger than 4gb, and hold hundreds of mp3's, pictures, and movie clips. Based on my preliminary research on the forums, I would need something with higher random read/write speeds instead of sequential for the thousands of small files to load faster on my phone. Can anyone confirm this?
2) What file format should i be using? Is there a way to combine fat32 and ntfs?
With my old micro sd card, I was using ntfs file format to store my .mkv movies to watch at work, but the card would become corrupt at least once a month, so I would have to plug the card into my desktop and run a chkdsk /f /r command. I assume that over time this killed my micro sd card... the drawback to this was that I had to create my nandroid backups to the internal memory.... I would much rather have it on the external sd card
I would love to format the card in fat32 so that I could put the nandroid backup on the external sd card, but then i would not be able to put movies >4gb on the card.
Someone in another forum suggested that I partition my sd card, one partition in fat32 for nandroid backups, and one in exfat or ntfs for my movies... My question is,
3) how does clockworkmod know which partition to select? Will it be automatic or will I need to point it there?
That's all I have for now. I hope I gave enough details for good answer.

You need to format exFat. That format supports >4gb files and is natively supported on this device.
Some custom roms however do not support exFat, if you install a Rom that doesn't it will just tell you that your storage is removed in the drop down when you boot.
Some recoveries don't support exFat but it's not a huge deal because you can use your internal storage to flash roms and mods
If you want your recovery to use your external as exFat just search these forums for the proper one. I believe the newer twrp recoveries support it
Via my Google Galaxy S3 running magic beans

Slightly off topic.... But it would be great if android media players could play 4Gb+ movies stored in multi-part RAR archives. I do that on Windows all the time using VLC and it's very convenient.

neh4pres said:
You need to format exFat. That format supports >4gb files and is natively supported on this device.
Some custom roms however do not support exFat, if you install a Rom that doesn't it will just tell you that your storage is removed in the drop down when you boot.
Some recoveries don't support exFat but it's not a huge deal because you can use your internal storage to flash roms and mods
If you want your recovery to use your external as exFat just search these forums for the proper one. I believe the newer twrp recoveries support it
Via my Google Galaxy S3 running magic beans
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I ended up buying the 64gb Sandisk Ultra Micro SDXC Class 10 UHS-I card, but the ROM and CWM Recovery I am using does not recognize exFat. I put the sd card in my friends stock s3 and her phone recognized the exFat format.
Does anyone know which touchwiz roms will support exFat? I need to have a touchwiz ROM because I convinced all my friends and co workers to get the s3 together and we use S-Beam to bump pictures daily.
I will try to flash TWRP and see how that goes.
Current Rom that does not support exFAT: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...3b0BEdAvvRN9lxKYjeAM7nw&bvm=bv.41524429,d.cGE

I think you are going to be out of luck trying to find a custom rom that supports it and very doubtful that it ever will.

It is not ROM it is ur kernel find one that supports ur filesystem and install it!
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

Probably you can try paragon's hfs ntfs and exfat system drivers app...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.paragon.mounter
But they mentioned it is not compatible with 4.2

I would use Hyperdrive. It's a the best TW Custom ROM and is 4.1.2. So it would work with the driver posted above. Also update your TWRP (GooManager is perfect for this) and you will be all set!
Edit just realized how old this thread is. Why did you guys bump this thread????
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

Adopting internal storage results in corrupt storage

I have recently got a Shield Tablet and I have attempted to add a 128GB to the internal storage but every time I go through the adoption process to bring it into internal, it formats it and results in it being corrupted? The sdcard is brand new.
Tablet is on Marshmallow.

HeroXx said:
I have recently got a Shield Tablet and I have attempted to add a 128GB to the internal storage but every time I go through the adoption process to bring it into internal, it formats it and results in it being corrupted? The sdcard is brand new.
Tablet is on Marshmallow.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am having the same issue with the Shield tablet and a 128g sd card. I can use as portable, but trying to adopt as internal storage always returns the "damaged" partition after formatting and starting the moving process. I have tried formatting as ext4 in a PC first as recommended by others to no avail. If anyone is able to get this working please post your fix.

Found the below "Notes" on Nvidia's site. Looks like you'll have to format NTFS on your PC. Some PCs will not allow you that option out of the box, but you can easily change Windows' built-in formatter's options to allow it to format NTFS. The settings are somewhat hidden. To enable it, open up Device Manager and find your micro-SD card, go to the Properties -> Policies tab and then choose "Optimize for performance". Once you've done this, you'll see the NTFS option in the format dialog. Just make sure you "Eject" the card properly, as it seems it's more easily corrupted if not ejected properly.
NOTES:
The ability to move data to SD card is variable for select*apps*and games. Onlyapps*that developers have opted in as moveable to external storage can be moved.
The SHIELD tablet K1 only supports writing to FAT32 and NTFS formatted cards.
64*GB*(or higher) microSD cards – Android does not support the exFAT file system out-of-the-box. Because the standard FAT32 file system does NOT support partitions greater than 32*GB*by default, 64*GB*cards come pre-formatted as exFAT. If you want to use a 64*GB*microSD with the SHIELD tablet K1, it has to be converted to a file system format that is supported by stock Android, which in this case is NTFS. This can be done using a PC.
Android KitKat significantly changes the way applications are allowed to use SD cards. If you use SD Card to store data, please read here for further details."

Hey, I have a similar problem but wanted some opinions.
Received my new K1 and updated to MM and everything is cool. Installed PNY 64GB (10 class) and chose the integrated storage option. The K1 sees the storage and I'm able to move apps to it. My problem is that new apps cannot download due to no storage. The message "whatever app cannot be downloaded. Install a SD CARD......something, something" (sorry, I'm at work).
Will formatting my sd card to FAT32 or NTFS fix this or is there something else wrong? I haven't seen any messages or errors regarding corruption and the sd card is working.
Thanks for any helpful suggestions!

When my 64Gb card was formatted exFat as it came stock, i had the same issue. I'm on LP. I had an almost empty card inserted, other than some mp3 files, and kept getting the message that my storage was full and that i need to delete some apps. I've since formatted it NTFS but i have not checked to see if items are being sent to the external SD. Don't have my tablet with me right now to check, but i wanted to reply to you that you were not alone in seeing the out of room message.
Sent from my LG-E980 using XDA Free mobile app

I had my PNY 64GB formatted with exFAT and it worked ok. I've switched to adopted storage and that worked too. But I saw other glitches with internal storage, such as MTP not seeing all files/folders even after reboot. I think "adopted storage" is buggy in general currently. It's also quite slow. Not impressed.
I prefer the Move to SD of Lollipop and Kitkat.

Do we already have a fix/workaround for this? I have a K1 (with the latest OTA 1.2) and 64GV Samsung Evo, formatting the sd card as adoptive storage still says corrupted. I already tried formatting it as Fat32/NTFS but to no avail.

I also couldn't get adopted storage to work.
The best fix for me is not using adopted storage
Instead I use an app called FolderMount which simply creates a symbolic link (is this the correcton term?) on the device's internal storage for whatever folder/file you like. It integrates moving data and managing it as well making the process as easy as it gets though you can of course do the same thing manually as it's using linux operations to do these things.
After you make the symbolic link when apps look for the data in the usual place on internal storage they "see" it but the data is actually whereever the symbolic link points to ie. on your external SD card.

Not found any real workaround for this it makes the tablet a bit of a dud
Sent from my SHIELD Tablet K1 using XDA-Developers mobile app

diji1 said:
I also couldn't get adopted storage to work.
The best fix for me is not using adopted storage
Instead I use an app called FolderMount which simply creates a symbolic link (is this the correcton term?) on the device's internal storage for whatever folder/file you like. It integrates moving data and managing it as well making the process as easy as it gets though you can of course do the same thing manually as it's using linux operations to do these things.
After you make the symbolic link when apps look for the data in the usual place on internal storage they "see" it but the data is actually whereever the symbolic link points to ie. on your external SD card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've read about the FolderMount app before but I thought that it works only for lollipop. I'll give this a try. Thanks!

NinjaCoool said:
I've read about the FolderMount app before but I thought that it works only for lollipop. I'll give this a try. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Caveats: I actually haven't tried it on Marshmallow since I went back to LP however I cannot see any reason that FolderMount will not work as it's using underlying Linux operations to do all the work. But YMMV.
I like this approach since you can move any folder from internal storage to microSD which makes it very flexible. For example you could move:
/Download
/Images/DCIM
/Android/obb
/Android/data
/where you store recorded videos/
and never worry about internal storage again (until you run out of microSD of course lel)
Or whatever you wanted.

diji1 said:
Caveats: I actually haven't tried it on Marshmallow since I went back to LP however I cannot see any reason that FolderMount will not work as it's using underlying Linux operations to do all the work. But YMMV.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FolderMount from the Play Store is not working on MM due to security changes.
There is a beta version that fixes it for some devices. Best to read the official thread here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2192122
Sent from my SGH-I337M using XDA Free mobile app

There's a problem with cards 64GB and up. I managed to format as internal storage a 32GB one, had no succes with 64 and 128 ones

I couldn't get portable storage to work on the stock MM RoW LTE rom. It works perfectly fine on all the custom roms I've tried (Bliss, Temasek, RR, etc) but none of those have LTE so for me it's either or if I want to use a MM rom. Otherwise, I'd have to use a LP rom for both to work...

I've hit this issue using the RR rom with my 128gb SD. But then if I keep the card in portable mode, I have those permission issues with my emulators. Has anyone got any suggestions or recommendations?
I've so far tried xInternalSD, SDFix and FolderMount with no success and I don't want to do that solution where I have to adjust the permission xml of all my apps. Its micromanagement I don't want.

I just have to use fat32 to get my 128gb card to work.

gqukyo said:
I just have to use fat32 to get my 128gb card to work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To work as adopted storage or portable storage? Because mine is working in portable mode, just has write to SD permissions issues for any apps not updated to deal with MM's new OTT security requirements on External SD's (which is most apps to be honest).

Adopted storage, I only tried it once but didn't like it so using portable.

gqukyo said:
Adopted storage, I only tried it once but didn't like it so using portable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Being Fat32 initially shouldn't have made a difference, because the card is reformatted to ext4 when its made into adopted storage and the tablet just seems incapable of reading an ext4 encrypted SD Card, so it comes up as corrupted.
What brand and model is your 128gb micro sd? And was it the stock rom you did it on? I'm using a Sandisk Ultra myself, and this definately does not work.

It's been awhile so I don't recall all the things I've tried nor the roms. All I know is I got it to it to work once. Think I have a SanDisk something. Just wasn't worth it in the end to me. If you're trying to get it to work, doesn't hurt to try. Stranger things have worked to fix issues in android.