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[Q] [DEV][Android Platform]Creating partitions through script in init.rc

Context/Resume:
-I´m changing the android platform to create two partitions in a SD Card. I need to do this as early as possible. I´m currently trying at init.rc
-It would be nice to obfuscate the access to one of the partitions. If i could keep ithidden would be better
And...the long story:
I´m trying to create new partitions in a sdcard in a device, and i need to be done as early as possible. I thought that the init.rc should be the best location for this, so i tried to add a script call to perform the task, but i´m unable to create these partitions ( or get information of the reason of fail ) First of all, is this premiss valid? Should i be able to do this?
I call the script by:
service myscript /system/bin/logwrapper /system/bin/myscript.sh
disabled
oneshot
at init-time
And the content´s of the .sh file is
fdisk /dev/sdcard < mykeys.input
where "mykeys.input" is the sequence os keys used to perform the taks of create the partitions.
Well, is this the recommended way to do this?
thanks!

Not to sure bout the boot order and its effect on what you are trying to achieve. What phone and os? You might want to look at your phones logs to see in what order what/which/where is going on when. As that could explain your issues a bit more clearly and possibly even provide the mystery errors. If not try running it in an emulator where you can make the boot up verbose and boot log it.
As for hiding the partition have you tried formatting the sdcard outside the phone environment. The hiding ability should be able to be gotten if you were to format in gparted I.e. Format it how you want size wise and format wise, then for the partition you want hidden flag it lba. Not sure if lba hides from your phone or not, but worth a shot.
*edit* what are you trying to achieve again? Dual booting os on phone? If so, I would take a look more towards the /dev/loop and chmod approach. Also keep in mind if this is what you are aiming at you might want to make 3 partitions as a swap partition would be beneficial.
Sent while wearin my foam helmet ridin the short bus.

Hy blackadept:
What i want: Ensure that there is two partitions in a sdcard as early as possible. ( i must create them if needed ). My focus now is in how to create. The logic of "if/when" todo a will deal later.
Why i want this: Project requirement. Not negotiable.
What will be stored: Part1 : User acessible. Nothinf special. Part2: Special Data user by an apk.
"Phone model": It´s a tablet. STI´s tablet. Android 2.2

Well the partitions will be there just from formatting the card, as to whether or not the init sees that I am not sure. I'm one of them poor simple folk who ain't got no money....aka I don't have the fun fancy toys like a tablet. haha. Only reason I bring that up is for the fact that being as I am not around them, literally haven't even seen one let alone hold lmao, not sure how it's boot up goes.
Have you tried creating a partition and formatting it with various flags such as lba to hide it from the OS? If we are talking small sizes here then I'd think you could hide it within such a flagged partition surrounded by fluff. Throw some encryption into the mix and your gtg. At that point all that's left for you to do would be writing script to navigate the maze and unlock it. If that would work then it would be a fairly easy out.
Otherwise we could go back to the "dual booting" that I brought up in the last post. Being as my phone can't mnt to bin *droid x.....hate u Motorola* I have done all of my dual and triple boots via looping thru /dev. This could work for you as well, tho again I'm not familiar with the tablets. If you did that tho..... well you could hide it in a myriad of ways.... flags, encryption, straight up "Where's Waldo" type shenanigans....
Have you ever put an ARM OS onto an android device before? If so, maybe give it a shot and let me know? Only question I'm wondering, tho, is android's ability to see the flag and be able to handle it. Also as to the level of root that particular device has (regular not-so-super user like my phone or is it completely unlockable?) would determine a game plan too in a way. If you have full access then you could just format the card thrice (sorry always wanted to use that in a sentence and feel all smert), making a special ext3 partition with the flags or encryption, make note in the root mnt's of it's existence thru your init script (tho just giving physical note to it.... not size or content). Write your .apk or specialized script with the UUID or GUID or w/e the *beep* android uses this week, and again you win at android....
Sorry for the long winded verbal response....lately I always seem to post when I ain't slept for 2-3 days as opposed to when I ain't delirious...

Phone Encryption on Android 8 (oreo) on Huawei Mate 10 Lite

Hello,
I have a rather interesting question, if someone (expert only please) can help, it would be very much appreciated
I have bought a new phone (Huawei Mate 10 Lite) which already has the preinstalled Android 7 OS.
After I turned it on, I've upgraded it to Android 8 (and EMUI 8) via the Software Updater.
So now, I am running Android 8 on Huawei Mate 10 Lite.
Until here, everything works like charm
The problem starts here: I'm used to having my ENTIRE user data partition (phone/device, call it as you wish) ENCRYPTED.
I am using my phone very much in different environments and if I accidentally loose it or it gets stolen, I want to ensure that nobody can access my private data by any possible means.
So, when I go to the classical place for encrypting phones: Settings -> Security & Privacy, I noticed that the "Encrypt Phone" option is MISSING.
I have only "Encrypt SD Card", but I do not have an SD Card, nor do I use one. I use only the internal flashdisk memory.
I even turned on the Developer mode and searched for that specific setting, but I cannot find it.
I googled about this problem and what I found even deepens the mystery, as there are some contradicting information and it doesn't paint a clear picture on how the hell encryption works on Android 7/8...
- In one place, it says that starting with Android 6 phones, the option of encrypting the entire phone is no longer available, as all phones with Android 6+ preinstalled are already encrypted !
Bump ! Really ?
- Somewhere else, someone says that the Full Disk Encryption (FDE) has been replaced with File Encryption and Google is slowly marking full disk encryption as obsolete...
I found the File Encryption on my phone and I have the possibility to create a file encryption "folder" or "vault" or what is that, but I do NOT want that, as I want the entire partition to be encrypted !
I am using VPNs, SSH keys, Pictures, E-mail accounts, Web browsers with stored passwords, basically the entire user partition contains secrets ! I cannot move everything to a secure container... maybe I forget something, and that something remains unencrypted ?
I cannot move everything to a secure SD Card or to put it in that encrypted "folder", because some secrets are files, some secrets are particular app settings or credentials.
Yes, I read about the fact that in Full Disk Encryption mode, a PIN is required for startup (as I had with my previous phone, which was great for me, by the way), and that PIN can prevent the booting of some basic functions of the device or the functioning alarms or something like that.
To tell you honestly, I don't care about those functions. I only want ENTIRE device encryption with one single PIN code.
I have already changed my SIM PIN (which is another thing, it doesn't relate to this), and I generated a phone PIN & Fingerprint on my phone, and set my phone to Lock after 15 seconds.
For everyday usage, the PIN/Fingerprint is enough to keep others from accessing my content, but what about plain disk access (using some other tools that read the flash disk) if I loose my phone or if my phone gets stolen ?
I liked the previous encryption method.
So, basically, I want to encrypt ENTIRE partition (FDE encryption) with one PIN, not SD Card encryption, not other file encryption solutions, not special vaults, not other stuff... I want my classic encryption back !
Please explain me:
1. Are all the new phones starting from Android 6 already encrypted ?
1.1. If so, why is there a file encryption tool to further encrypt particular files if the user partition is already encrypted ?
1.2. If so, what is the encryption key ? or what kind of encryption is that which does not require a PIN or something ? that means that the key is stored in plain text ? (if I don't offer it a PIN, it means that it must read the key from other places in order to decrypt the data (key that can be read by a thief, too?))
2. If Android 6+ phones are not encrypted, how can I implement full device encryption, and why the hell does Google abandon this kind of full, quick and not-giving-extra-security-thoughts encryption ?
I would kindly ask only experts to reply me.
If you are an expert or you know these things for sure, please reply.
I need a correct, documented (if possible), answer, because the security of my phone depends on it !
Thank you !

Well... anyone ??? Is this really such a hard question ???

I was getting so excited when I read your question, because I am looking for the exact same answer. But then I saw there aren't any answers.
Please can someone who knows about this answer this for us?

Mar0615 said:
I was getting so excited when I read your question, because I am looking for the exact same answer. But then I saw there aren't any answers.
Please can someone who knows about this answer this for us?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not an "expert" but I can tell you your data is safe & encrypted by default, that is why you can't find an encryption setting.
As I understand it
1. Yes (Google makes manufacturers sign agreement)
1.1 The data is encrypted on phone but you may choose not to lock it. Also you may allow some other people access to your phone even if you set screen lock or it's possible somebody may get your phone before it automatically locks, that is why here is a separate encryption system that some people may want ho use to encrypt certain files. (I'm assuming this is what you are referring to as I have never used Huawei)
1.2 Yes the system can generate it's own key from it's internal information automatically (note also, if you put in a simple passcode it is just one element the phone will use to generate a long key, so hackers can't crack a simple passkey to get into your phone as it also uses it's internal data to generate the key)
2, All your data is encrypted, ok maybe not all eg if you consider an alarm time your data, as some apps may be able to access limited data eg alarm times.
A quick search produced these two articles that are not overly technical & also show the numerous security improvements that all go to make your phone more secure. I hope it puts your mind at rest (though of course nothing can be guaranteed 100% secure if a well resourced group has physical access to your phone eg a government)
https://m.androidcentral.com/how-android-n-addresses-security
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3220446/android/android-8-oreo-security.html

Can non Rooted Pixel 2 XL use ADB to dump image of drive for picture recovery? help

I am willing to go through setting up ADB on my PC if I can then dump the phones internal storage. Does anyone know if I can do that with a Verizon Pixel XL 2 that is NOT rooted? My understanding is I am unable to root a verizon Pixel 2 XL.
We are pregnant due to IVF and I have ultrasound and other important pictures on my phone. This morning I had been in my "camera" folder within the stock photo app and it was responding very slowly. I had not restarted in sometime so I exited the app and went back to my main screen. I then used the power button and selected restart on my phone.
Upon restart I have no "Camera" folder at all within the app. Internal storage went from ~2GB to over 23GB. I checked trash and while there are pictures I had recently deleted within the trash folder the Camera folder or its contents were not in that folder. I checked Archives as well as I checked photos.google.com I had previously not used the google cloud backup so didn't expect them to be there and they were not, lesson learned.
I downloaded disk digger and was able to pull thumbnails of a lot of these pictures, which makes me believe if I could create an image of the internal memory I may be able to use photorec or similar to find the pictures.
I am not versed in this area, but am willing to learn and read etc to attempt to recover these pictures.
We went through a lot to get to the 4.5 month pregnancy mark and I have no idea why the entire folder was deleted, I presume my restart must have caused that file to be deleted somehow. I have had my phone off for most of the day while at work to eliminate the overwriting of data in my attempt to preserve as much prior data as possible.
Any and all help is appreciated. At this point I am thinking I can dump an image of my internal memory and then use photorec to get to it, but since this is a verizon variant I am reading I am unable to root, so I am hoping I can still somehow dump an image to try to recover these photos.
Does anyone know if I can do that with ADB or similar program and then use photorec on the image?

Very sorry to hear that as those are truly irreplaceable pictures.
ADB will do nothing for the type of work you want to do. It has no capability to dump anything, only execute commands on the Android OS from a connected debugger. Attempting to recover deleted/missing items requires low level access to the storage hardware and is even more difficult on flash storage than it is on magnetic storage. What you're talking about would likely require physically removing the flash storage and accessing it with specialized hardware.

Need advice to data recovery for android phone.

Phone: Xiaomi Mi Note 3 (Rooted / EU Rom)​Used Softwares:​
Tenorshare UltData​
dr.fone​
FoneLab Android Data Recovery​
PhoneRescue for Android (Worst)​
FonePaw for Android​
DiskDigger​
But none of these worked, they just indexing existing files. (And they're all scams.)
I need your advices...

Every week at least one time this question is asked on this forum.
The answer is: Forget it, the data aren't recoverable unless you have the forensic tools needed. Contact authorized service center.

Worse one or more of those apps likely encrypted the data they "found" and possibly overwrote or destroyed the original data.
If so it's a lost cause now.
Even if you recover data it will have no folder structure. That's gone forever.
Jpegs with no Exif info; no prevoius pic number or time stamp... just the jpeg.
You can sort by file type/size but that's it for all recovered files. Hundreds of thousands files and fragments in a juxtaposed jigsaw puzzle that's impossible to reassemble. You'll spend huge amounts of time just trying to find the jpegs you want. Recovering anything else will be like a never ending joke from hell.
Meh... always redundantly backup critical data.

recover data from factory reset android and Dr Fone eraser

my android device was quite maltreated by someone
i think that phone was not ecrypted
it was first factory reset
then Dr fone was able to recover some data
so Dr Fone eraser was applied
and as a finish screen was broken
screen replacement is usually easy
what about the possibility to recover some data from that phone ?
using recuva
minitool
autopsy ?

It's gone, gone, gone.
Even if you do recover anything the folder structure was destroyed. An ocean of juxtaposed files. Jpegs with no exif data.
A complete mess like a 747 slamming into a mountain side... that would be easier to reconstruct.
Plus Drfone encrypts the data; you got all you're going to get. Never use this app if you really need the data, take it to a data recovery $pecialist.

thank you for your answer
I did not do anything on that phone. Someone did with quite some succes
the folder structure is something that can be rebuilt with time
what would be interesting to recover even partially is :
call history
contacts
text messages
whatsapp messages
gps locations history
pictures could be nice
i you recommend a data recovery specialist.
what sort of tool they will be using ? autopsy ?
I also asked an offer from data recovery specialist

Android's internal folder structure ( read: layout ) always is left intact, a wipe operation - as a Factory Reset does - only marks any wiped content as re-useable by Android, hence it can get overwritten at any time.
If your phone's Android got rooted, you can establish an ADB connection with phone, then you can achieve a bitwise copy of the "unreadable" wiped data ( storage space ) by means of Android's dd command and later on try to read this copy by forensic tools.

thank you for information
I understood that factory reset only mark existing files as free space and that several tools can recover the files.
even Dr Fone could do at first.
but what does an eraser tool like Dr fone eraser ?
is the data really destroyed after this ? or still some tool could be used ?
autopsy maybe ? other suggestion ?

I think I clearly expressed what is to do.
FYI:
Wiped data isn't destroyed ( nulled out or similar ), it physically still exists.
File data is only really deleted when this storage space is needed by something else.
BTW:
Don't know anything about Dr.fone eraser app. But I think it overwrites data stored in Android's user-space with zeros or blanks.

I think it overwrites data stored in Android's user-space with zeros or blanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
in that case maybe the data is really destroyed/unreadable right ?
or still something could be retrieved ?

jwoegerbauer said:
I think I clearly expressed what is to do.
FYI:
Wiped data isn't destroyed ( nulled out or similar ), it physically still exists.
File data is only really deleted when this storage space is needed by something else.
BTW:
Don't know anything about Dr.fone eraser app. But I think it overwrites data stored in Android's user-space with zeros or blanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True. What can be recovered and how it's indexed is another story. I have severe doubts the folders are still intact and it's probably worse than just that.
I use Drfone over a decade ago, it encrypted the found data but showed pieces of it. You had to pay for the encryption key.
You're right about it zero filling too I think. After running that app all that was left was Drfone's encrypted partition, folder, whatever and nothing else. It takes forever.