Database Users

[TIP] the JB leak comes with proper exfat support.

After finding exfat files in the filesystem I formatted my external sd as exfat and the phone recognized and used it with no problems.
I am currently backing up my internal sd card to do the same
Note doing a format from storage settings still uses fat32 so format the card in a computer or unmount the card in the phone and use a adb shell to run
mkfs.exfat /dev/block/mmcblk1p1
after backing it up since you are formatting.

shadowofdarkness said:
After finding exfat files in the filesystem I formatted my external sd as exfat and the phone recognized and used it with no problems.
I am currently backing up my internal sd card to do the same
Note doing a format from storage settings still uses fat32 so format the card in a computer or unmount the card in the phone and use a adb shell to run
mkfs.exfat /dev/block/mmcblk1p1
after backing it up since you are formatting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Will backup my sd and try it, have you experienced any problems?

no problems with external but don't do the internal it didn't work for me it's still hard coded for fat32

shadowofdarkness said:
no problems with external but don't do the internal it didn't work for me it's still hard coded for fat32
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know if you looked in the vold.fstab file but I noticed this code in there while I was looking at how to swap internal SD cards: -
# internal sdcard
{
ums_sys_path = /sys/class/android_usb/f_mass_storage/lun0/file
secure_format = enable
discard = enable
supported_exfat = disable
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The last line there sort of indicates that support is there but someone needs to try adjusting it I guess to test

bigdyl69 said:
I don't know if you looked in the vold.fstab file but I noticed this code in there while I was looking at how to swap internal SD cards: -
The last line there sort of indicates that support is there but someone needs to try adjusting it I guess to test
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It may be possible but I am not going to worry to much especially since I need to leave one as fat32 or else lose most CWM functionality since it doesn't support exfat.

if you format the card to exfat, does it work properly if you connect the phone in mass storage?

andreimazz said:
if you format the card to exfat, does it work properly if you connect the phone in mass storage?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had no problem using mass storage with the exfat formatted card. That is on my laptop that is running Linux with the exfat fuse modules.

shadowofdarkness said:
I had no problem using mass storage with the exfat formatted card. That is on my laptop that is running Linux with the exfat fuse modules.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
but on windows that would not work, it does not support exfat, right?

andreimazz said:
but on windows that would not work, it does not support exfat, right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
of course it would, Microsoft created exfat.

I'd love to switch to exFAT for its advantages, but I just know if I switched to it, I would have to go back to FAT32 when I use CyanogenMod, namely due to the fact that you have to get patent licenses and crap from Microsoft to be able to implement exFAT, which I assume Samsung must hold so they can use it on their phones and TVs.
What we really want is MTP fully working on Linux and for the internal and external SD cards to be in EXT2/4 or something like that, and then it would keep both Windows and Linux users happy and we would have better file size support and performance.
That's my 2 cents.

hillbeast said:
I'd love to switch to exFAT for its advantages, but I just know if I switched to it, I would have to go back to FAT32 when I use CyanogenMod, namely due to the fact that you have to get patent licenses and crap from Microsoft to be able to implement exFAT, which I assume Samsung must hold so they can use it on their phones and TVs.
What we really want is MTP fully working on Linux and for the internal and external SD cards to be in EXT2/4 or something like that, and then it would keep both Windows and Linux users happy and we would have better file size support and performance.
That's my 2 cents.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know that would be great if it happened. I know before I realized exfat worked I had mine ext4 and used a app to mount it but it had little drawbacks that this native support fixes.
Plus now I can connect my digital camera to my phone via OTG since it has a 64GB sdxc card that uses exfat which is another major plus. I always hated being out and not able to get my photos off it and passed out to other people until I got home and to a computer.

[Q] exFAT external sd card problem...

I have the strangest feeling this has already been answered somewhere...but i've scoured the internet and havent found much of anything on the topic. I've read some mixed statements saying ppls sgs4 see's an external sd card formatted as exFAT, others say it isnt working for them. I've figured out a way to get the hardfloat Kali Linux ARM gui terminal working and all applications installed running in a chrooted environment...however the image size needs to be a minimum of 6gb to install all programs. I'd like to go with 8gb just to give it a little play. I have an SGH-I337 (AT&T) and am rooted, i've tried stock rom w/ stock kernel, stock rom w/ KTweaker kernel, said it supports exFAT but did not work. Also i've tried Cyanogenmod 10.1, but havent tried the KTweaker kernel w/ cyanogenmod yet. After formatting the 16gb microsd i have to exFAT and inserting it into the phone it states "Preparing SD Card"...and immediately says "SD Card is safe to remove". Anybody have any insight as to how i can get around this 4gb filesize limitation? Any input will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Here's the deal.
All cards 32gb or less (SDHC cards) come formatted in Fat32.(Part of SDHC spec) This includes a file limit of 4gb max for a single file.
All cards 64gb or more (SDXC cards which the S4 supports) come preformatted in exFat (Part of SDXC spec). This does not have a 4gb file limitation.
The stock Samsung / AT&T Firmware supports exFat. (I bought a 64gb SDXD formatted with exFat and plugged it in and worked right away). Most recoveries do to. (TWRP does at least).
However, I flashed CM10.1 onto my S4. CM10.1 does _NOT_ support exFat. Initially I backed up and reformatted my card in Fat32. Angry with the 4gb file limitation (I have many 720p and 1080p movies over 4gb..) I actually took the microSD card out, used a adapter and hooked it up to a Linux system (Ubuntu 13.04 in my case) and used gParted to format the card to EXT4 filesystem. EXT4 is a filesystem most Linux machines use and support natively. This is actually the filesystem most newer Android device use for their internal SDCard / Data partitions! I popped the card back in, CM10.1 reads it perfectly! And I was able to copy files over 4gb to the device!
So its not a hardware thing since the S4 is SDXC compatible. Just formatting / partition time issue.

I greatly appreciate the breakdown! However i do have a question, since the sgs4 supports exFAT, why does it not see it after i reformat my 16gb to exFAT? Is it because it is an SDHC and not an SDXC? Also, does the type of recovery you have installed alter what filesystem types are recognized?

RawBrokerage said:
I greatly appreciate the breakdown! However i do have a question, since the sgs4 supports exFAT, why does it not see it after i reformat my 16gb to exFAT? Is it because it is an SDHC and not an SDXC? Also, does the type of recovery you have installed alter what filesystem types are recognized?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem!
As far as the spec goes, if it's formated in exFatand its SDHC it should still read it fine. Filesystem is just a filesystem. The spec just says what is used by default on cards.
One possible issue though, did you format your card in your phone? Sometimes the odd way these work the SD cards like to be formatted in the phones themselves. It worked formatting from a Computer for my ext4 case, however that does not work for all cards/phones/filesystems sometimes.

WoodburyMan said:
No problem!
As far as the spec goes, if it's formated in exFatand its SDHC it should still read it fine. Filesystem is just a filesystem. The spec just says what is used by default on cards.
One possible issue though, did you format your card in your phone? Sometimes the odd way these work the SD cards like to be formatted in the phones themselves. It worked formatting from a Computer for my ext4 case, however that does not work for all cards/phones/filesystems sometimes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried formatting from phone, 3 different computers (one computer running Debian), cfdisk command line as well as gparted, also window's format utility. It seems though nothing is working however after going to Cyanogenmod 10.1 last night and formatting the external to ext4 the phone only displayed "Reading SD Card" then "SD Card is blank". It works perfectly fine whenever the phone formats it, it just doesnt like any other type of filesystem. It is a polariod sd card which gave me issues in the past. Hopefully i can get this resolved and post more on it. Probably just something small i'm missing :/
Anyways, thanks a million on the input!

WoodburyMan said:
Here's the deal.
The stock Samsung / AT&T Firmware supports exFat. (I bought a 64gb SDXD formatted with exFat and plugged it in and worked right away). Most recoveries do to. (TWRP does at least).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you kindly link me/us to their (TWRP) posts verifying this?
Thanks

igotroot said:
Can you kindly link me/us to their (TWRP) posts verifying this?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As far as I know there aren't and posts saying it supports it but I've used TWRP with exFAT, Ext4, and FAT32 formatted ROMS.

roms not reading 64gb sandisk sdcard
I have the 64gb sandisk ultra class 10 sdcard... and it flat out works in stock... even when I recover. But doesnt work atall using wicked rom and a couple others. ExFat is the reason... those roms dont support it...

You can use this kernel to get exFAT support on custom ROMs such as Cyanogenmod:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2292341

[Q] NTFS, ext4 on SDCARD

I have 64GB sdcard and my phone is rooted. I lost all my data on card because of exfat file system. I have found out it is very unreliable. Reliability is worse than FAT32 system.
I would like to have NTFS or ext4 file system on it instead of exfat. I tried several apps: ezymount, NTFS mounter, Paragon NTFS & HFS+. No app was able to mount the card. Is there some way to use NTFS sdcard in galaxy s4?

Never had any problem with exFat filesystem with any samsung device I've owned. You'd better check the reliability of the card you're using!

reddwarf2300282 said:
I have 64GB sdcard and my phone is rooted. I lost all my data on card because of exfat file system. I have found out it is very unreliable. Reliability is worse than FAT32 system.
I would like to have NTFS or ext4 file system on it instead of exfat. I tried several apps: ezymount, NTFS mounter, Paragon NTFS & HFS+. No app was able to mount the card. Is there some way to use NTFS sdcard in galaxy s4?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No easy way. The kernel and modules set it up for exFAT. There is no way to change it without a significant change to the kernel and some support in the OS, initramfs etc.

[Q] Doesn't read Ext4 neither NTFS for the sdcard, wtf?

Ok, android is supposed to be just fine with Ext and NTFS right?
Well i've got S4, kitkat 4.4.2 and 64GB original super fast microsd card and guess what, i formatted it first Ext4 then NTFS because i needed more than 4GB files and for both it says "SD card is blank or has unsupported filesystem."
both times formatted under linux desktop PC
the default formatting from the phone seems to be either FAT or exfat but files over 4GB can't be written. (exfat is supposed to do over 4gb right?)
So, what i'm doing wrong?

Fking1 said:
Ok, android is supposed to be just fine with Ext and NTFS right?
Well i've got S4, kitkat 4.4.2 and 64GB original super fast microsd card and guess what, i formatted it first Ext4 then NTFS because i needed more than 4GB files and for both it says "SD card is blank or has unsupported filesystem."
both times formatted under linux desktop PC
the default formatting from the phone seems to be either FAT or exfat but files over 4GB can't be written. (exfat is supposed to do over 4gb right?)
So, what i'm doing wrong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Official Galaxy S4 doesnt support NTFS (not sure about Ext4). but there are some custom kernels that can deal with NTFS.
I found this on wikipedia:
exFat advantages: File size limit of 16 EiB–1 byte (limited by volume size), raised from 4 GiB−1 byte in a standard FAT32 filesystem.
so I guess yes it can handle files more than 4GBs, I haven't tried it myself.
Use the official SD formatter tool, it formats cards with 64 GB and larger using the exfat system.
just google: official SD formatter

DuLLaG33 said:
Official Galaxy S4 doesnt support NTFS (not sure about Ext4). but there are some custom kernels that can deal with NTFS.
I found this on wikipedia:
exFat advantages: File size limit of 16 EiB–1 byte (limited by volume size), raised from 4 GiB−1 byte in a standard FAT32 filesystem.
so I guess yes it can handle files more than 4GBs, I haven't tried it myself.
Use the official SD formatter tool, it formats cards with 64 GB and larger using the exfat system.
just google: official SD formatter
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With the build in formatting tool is what I use to format it, but then I can't write a 30GB file
in the file size limit you mention " File size limit of 16 EiB–1 byte" what's EiB?

Fking1 said:
So, what i'm doing wrong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it's a cheap and therefor most probably fake SD card this can also be a problem. Most cheap 64GB cards do not have the advertized capacity.

Fking1 said:
what's EiB?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Eib is Exabyte = a million terabyte

Pfeffernuss said:
If it's a cheap and therefor most probably fake SD card this can also be a problem. Most cheap 64GB cards do not have the advertized capacity.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nah, it's expensive and tested that it has the actual GBs

Fking1 said:
...and tested that it has the actual GBs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How?

Pfeffernuss said:
How?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
by running an sd card tester app from the market, 2 of them actually
it's real card, i've had fakes before

Fking1 said:
by running an sd card tester app from the market, 2 of them actually
it's real card, i've had fakes before
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I Always format my SD cards using Minitool (PC app). Never missed a beat.
If this doesn't work I still think it's a fake SD-card

well it's not, thanks for getting the thread in the wrong direction though!
so does the default bult-in android formatting do FAT or exFAT? It doesn't seem to be possible to tell from the phone?
So, seems like the only way forward is to format it in exFAT?

Fking1 said:
well it's not, thanks for getting the thread in the wrong direction though!
so does the default bult-in android formatting do FAT or exFAT? It doesn't seem to be possible to tell from the phone?
So, seems like the only way forward is to format it in exFAT?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am pretty sure it will only format in the style it was originally eg. Original setup of fat32 it will format fat32, if EXfat it will format EXfat.
Ext,1, 2, 3, 4 are all native to android (Linux) so ext4 shouldn't be an issue.
When I formatted my 64Gb card sd formatter did not format it to EXfat I had to do it manually. Please not that windows Xp does not directly support EXfat you need to manually install a patch and then manually format the sd card via cmd window
You'll have to confirm the command but it's something like
Format x: /fs:exfat
This is what I had to do on my old Xp box to do the job.
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
---------- Post added at 01:07 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:03 AM ----------
Oh btw ntfs is proprietary file system to micro$oft and technically it's closed source, but I read somewhere ages ago someone managed to hack something together that does work
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

formatted it to exfat and it works now
so for anyone else that wonders here is the summary of what I found
the android on Samsung S4 reads only FAT and exFAT on the SD card.
NTFS and Ext4 it does NOT recognize.
by default it formats FAT
I had to format it exfat on a PC
works now, still haven't tried with files over 4GB but shouldn't be a problem

My phone can't mount the SD card (Meizu M2 Note)

I have the Meizu M2 Note, and i have recently I bought a Samsung SDHC card 128GB.
When I first use it in my computer (with an USB adapter) i formatted it to be a NTFS (didn’t know back then that Android OS doesn’t support it), of course my phone didn’t recognise the card.
Then I formatted it to be an exFat file system and my phone couldn’t mount it either.
So I turn to use third-party softwares to turn it into FAT32 which failed as well, even tried to make partitions (4 of 32GB - FAT32) and I couldn’t do it with “Paragon” (it didn’t succeed formatting the other three partitions).
What can I do? my phone just won’t recognise my SD card!

[Removed]

OnbekendV said:
Hi,
Are you using Windows? If yes, insert your SDHC card and format it to FAT32. If this doesn't work, you probably broke your SDHC card. But you said that you bought it recently, so I think that you still have guarantee. Good luck!
Regards,
OnbekendV
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey, first I want to thank you for your quick reply, but I can't format it to FAT32 without using third party software (only has two options: exFat and NTFS), and when I tried to format it with the third party software it didn't work as well.
It can't be broken because it works just fine in my computer.

[Removed]

OnbekendV said:
Hi,
If you are using Windows, you don't need third-party software to format your SDHC card. Just insert it in your computer, since you have said that your computer recognised your SDHC card. Then open Windows Explorer -> This PC -> Right-click on your SDHC card -> Click on format -> Choose FAT32 -> Choose format. This should solve your problem. If this doesn't work, go to windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/convert-hard-disk-partition-fat32-format#1TC=windows-7 and follow these steps. Good luck.
Regards,
OnbekendV
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It gives me only two option when formatting : exFat and NTSF

Ori5800 said:
It gives me only two option when formatting : exFat and NTSF
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Download this tool (best partition manager for Windows): http://www.partitionwizard.com
Now select your SD Card and format the partition on it to ext4 and try on the phone.
If it does not work with ext4 try with ext3.
Remember that in that program when you make all the changes you want, you have to press the apply button.
If it still doesn't work try factory reseting (and backing up of course) and formating options ext4, ext3, exFAT, FAT32 in that order (they are from best to worst).

[Removed]

janekmuric said:
Download this tool
(best partition manager for Windows):
Now select your SD Card and format the partition on it to ext4 and try on the phone.
If it does not work with ext4 try with ext3.
Remember that in that program when you make all the changes you want, you have to press the apply button.
If it still doesn't work try factory reseting (and backing up of course) and formating options ext4, ext3, exFAT, FAT32 in that order (they are from best to worst).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does Android support ext4? I know windows doesn't right?

[Removed]

@Ori5800
Yes, android does support ext4.
@OnbekendV
The only reason I see to format in FAT32 is because Windows supports it. It is slower than ext4, holds smaller partition, name and any other size.
I would reccomend ext4.

[Removed]

OnbekendV said:
Hi, @janekmuric Thanks for sharing this information. Looks like I've learned something new today .
Regards,
OnbekendV
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem. Hey, instead of writing a post saying thanks, you could use the thanks button! :silly:

Ori5800 said:
I have the Meizu M2 Note, and i have recently I bought a Samsung SDHC card 128GB.
When I first use it in my computer (with an USB adapter) i formatted it to be a NTFS (didn’t know back then that Android OS doesn’t support it), of course my phone didn’t recognise the card.
Then I formatted it to be an exFat file system and my phone couldn’t mount it either.
So I turn to use third-party softwares to turn it into FAT32 which failed as well, even tried to make partitions (4 of 32GB - FAT32) and I couldn’t do it with “Paragon” (it didn’t succeed formatting the other three partitions).
What can I do? my phone just won’t recognise my SD card!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Ori5800, how about your sd card, it read with meizu now? I have Meizu M2 Note too. Plan to buy 128 GB SDXC. Thanks