How do I repartition an external sdcard on android tablet that supports only MTP? - General Questions and Answers

I have a rooted 8" KitKat tablet on which I want to install debian on a chroot using linux deploy. According to the guide, one of the first steps is to re-partition the external sdcard into two parts: one 512mb FAT32 partition, and another ext2 partition.
Is there a way to re-partition my 32gb external sdcard using an app or something on android itself? I'd prefer not having to take out the sdcard and reinsert it on another device.
Another problem is that my tablet only supports MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) when connected to a computer via USB, it does not support the typical Mass Storage Device mode. If the latter were the case, I could have easily used something like gparted on my linux computer and partitioned it, but not sure whether that could be done using MTP.
I also have a CWM boot recovery image of my tablet, so I can start using that. But is it possible to safely re-partition an external sdcard using that?

Related

[Q] Boot PC off of USB Mass Storage on Captivate

Has anyone tried setting up their sdcard to be a bootable USB Drive that oyu can boot a PC from?
Idea being:
1) Install bootable systemrescuecd or memtest on your sdcard
2) Plug your phone into the pc via usb, mount your sdcard as usb mass storage
3) Turn the computer on and have it boot systemrescuecd or memtest from the phone's sdcard.
I've tried it, but my desktop, eeepc or laptop do not see the Captivate's USB mass storage as a boot device. It has been done on a G1 (since I can't post links, google "g1 pc boot" and click the first link) and I'm trying to do the same on Captivate.
Any ideas?
I dont know, but it seems to me that you would have to make the internal sd card in it bootable. I'd try using the HP USB formatting tool. I use it all the time to make usb thumbdrives bootable. After doing that I'd think you might be able to boot from it.
I did. I didn't use the HP one, but I used multibootisos, which worked fine on my physical thumbdrive. The same process didn't work on the captivate.
Possibly a partition of the drive might work. Then you could format iit to work for your needs.
Nice idea btw
Sent from my captivate
I'm thinking there is an issue (atleast with my phone) showing up as 2 drives. I dunno, I'm fussing with it and getting nowhere.
You get two drives because you have the internal memory and external memory mounted.
When you boot you computer, you need to be able to select the specific usb device to boot off of in bios. Usually you can hit F12 during boot to select it.
Right.. as I said, it worked fine with the physical thumbdrive.
I get why the captivate shows up as 2 devices.
I know how to select the boot device and all that. I'm saying neither of the captivate drives show up as a bootable device despite being setup exactly like the physical thumbdrive that does work as a boot device.

[Q] How to Push as mass storage device in PC?

Hello all
I bought a P6200 recently! but when I connect it to PC it doesn't mount as USB drive?
As well in settings menu I couldn't find it to set it to mass storage mode!(like my Xperia neo and other Android phones) even it doesn't have USB part
Would u help me ?
It's ridiculous that can't be done!
yup... it is ridiculous because it really cant be done...
That' s not true. After connecting my Tab Plus to PC, I got new wino opened with 2 drives. One is my MC and second Phone memory so I can copy whatever I want. Try in settings-application-development...
that is in MTP mode...
The reason is because of how the GTab 7+ uses internal/external memory.
It's impossible for Android to unmount the memory because it's constantly in use. This provides a lot of benefits for performance and application space.
However, the trade off is that unmounting the partition would cause android to crash. So you can't unmount it to let a PC mount the partition. The work around for this is Android hosting the partition as an MTP device and doing file changes by proxy for the PC.
Personally, I haven't found a situation where I needed to do something on the file system that MTP prevented me from doing. At least so far...
I too have had no problems so far transfering files using MTP but its very slow. So I've used a card reader to transfer files to the sdcard when I wanted to do a quick transfer of a larger amount of files such as mp3's.
Hard to mount the sd card as a drive for use with synctoy is one example of where mtp is inconvenient at best.
Sent from my GT-P6210 using Tapatalk
Mass Storange mode is no longer available since Android3/4 deives as there is no seperate internal SD card. All Android tabs connect with MTP mode.
I use SyncToy as well to backup the whole of /sdcard. But that's for the P1000, now I can't do the same on the P6200. All the other available options are either too slow or too cumbersome to use on a daily basis.
Sent from my GT-P6200 using XDA App
Has anyone tried the "Multi Mount SD-Card" app on this device? It mounts the SD card as USB mass storage without dismounting from the android system.
I found mine mounted them both only after i inserted a micro sd card into the device.
Sent from my GT-P6210 using xda premium
I have just installed Multi Mount SD-Card v2.12 and found that it is not compatible with the device. It's disappointing.
I would suggest setting up adb and using Android commander (it is a GUI for windows)
Sent from my HTC Glacier using Tapatalk

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.
Sent from my SM-S767VL using Tapatalk

Format a Micro SD Card used as Android adopted storage (android_meta and android_extended)

I have this SanDisk 32GB MicroSD card that's ended up with two partitions -
android_meta and android_extended as result of a failed attempt to use the card as Adopted Storage in a Lenovo Phone.
Neither Windows or Android now detect the card, and I've tried quite a few methods to get the card to work. These include using diskpart, chkdsk, testdisk.exe, mounting it using a pc running linux and using a few other disk repair softwares. But, none seem to be able to format the disk.
Is there a way I can get this card back to normal. It's a blank card so data recovery does not matter.
Go to the menu that says "Settings."
Select the MicroSD card listed under Storage and USB.
Near the top right, tap the three vertical dots.
Select "format as portable" from the drop-down menu.
I've tried that before. This is that happens (see screenshots).
Trying to format it using a Windows or Linux Machine also does not work.
normanscr said:
I've tried that before. This is that happens (see screenshots).
Trying to format it using a Windows or Linux Machine also does not work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In Linux, if your distro includes gPartEd (or if it's available in your distro's repository), you can use that to delete the 2 partitions, then create a new partition and format it.
Telyx said:
In Linux, if your distro includes gPartEd (or if it's available in your distro's repository), you can use that to delete the 2 partitions, then create a new partition and format it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I couldn't use a Linux Machine, so I tried the Gparted Live USB route on a Windows 10 Machine.
Problem is, Gparted detects the partitions. But when I select delete or any other action, the operation completes without errors, and after a few seconds it'll again show up as 'unknown'. The partitions are 16MB and 29.5 GB.

Can I use my smartphone storage for both Android OS and Windows OS?

Can we ditch the HDD/SSD of PC and use smartphone storage instead?
Is it possible to create an NTFS partition in the smartphone storage that will be used as a bootable external HDD/SSD drive that can boot a PC?
Try this:
How to Recover Your PC Using an Android Device
PC won't boot? No other computer available to make a recovery USB? Here's how to create a bootable USB in Android without a PC.
www.makeuseof.com
I'm talking about using the phone's storage as the main storage also of a PC for daily use, not just for a one-time boot.
You would first have to find an old phone that has the ability to run mass storage. Then you can experiment.
You can install a Windows Emulator on your Phone.​Look inside here:
2 Best Windows Emulator for Android Phones (Working) 2023
Looking for Best Windows emulator for Android phones? Check out these 2 best Windows PC emulators for Android. (100% Working)
techonation.com
Why not on Windows PC install the Windows Subsystem for Android ( WSA ) and run Android OS natively directly on PC?
The point is to combine the phone storage and the PC storage to one storage, to be able to manage your data in one place.
Dividing the storage to (at least) 3 partitions:
1. Android OS
2. Data (Documents, Music, Video...)
3. Windows OS
You don't need to manage your Data twice.
All your Data and changes is available to you at home and on the road.
You don't need Cloud or Sync solutions.
Offline.
What you want to get achieved simply is impossible IMO: in any case a server as MITM-machine is needed.
Only to have mentioned it: both the Windows OS and the Android OS store files in incompatible filesystems.
Didn't know Windows can installed on portable drives... I feel this is mainly a Windows question. I remember there was such funny thing BartPE.
Stamimail said:
Can we ditch the HDD/SSD of PC and use smartphone storage instead?
Is it possible to create an NTFS partition in the smartphone storage that will be used as a bootable external HDD/SSD drive that can boot a PC?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I understand your question, try the Drivedroid app, it can be used to make an Android device function as a bootable drive to boot PC from the Android device.
Also, there are some methods to dual boot on Android.
I'm talking about a situation where everything happens simultaneously:
1. First partition serves the phone to run Android OS. (The phone works normally. You can have a call on the phone)
2. The second partition serves both the phone and the computer, for User Data.
3. The third partition serves the computer to run Windows OS.
@Stamimail please answer yourself first
3. have you ever installed any Windows on external usb hard disk/ssd drive? Is that even possible? Idk
Yes, a long time ago.
Also a short internet search shows that it is possible.
I see there such thing Windows to go.
https://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/index.html
probably easiest workaround is rooted android device with MicroSD card provided as UMS.
[APP][ROOT] USB MASS STORAGE Enabler v1.6
This app is to enable Mass Storage Mode for mounting your Memory Card as a USB Drive in Computer from your rooted device [Android 4.0+].. It does not mount internal storage, and it will not work if your device doesn't have External Memory Card...
forum.xda-developers.com
or try Drivedroid.
[APP][2.2+] DriveDroid - host ISO/IMG files to boot your PC from
DriveDroid allows you to boot your PC from ISO/IMG files stored on your phone. This is ideal for trying Linux distributions or always having a rescue-system on the go... without the need to burn different CDs or USB pendrives. The paid version of...
forum.xda-developers.com
In further reading, I get the impression that the big problem is that internal storage always has better performance than external storage.
I don't know why external storage can't be made to be as good as internal.
So the question now is:
If people decide it's a good idea, is it technically possible to implement this idea (that phone storage will replace computer storage)?
you can repartition userdata partition with gdisk and create another partition. this partition can be provided as UMS.
However, windows is known for dancing rumba on disk, you probably won't have much fun till emmc is weared-out.

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