size of system.img - X Style (Pure) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Dear All:
This is a fundamental / dumb question that I am not sure where to post it.
I have a Moto X Pure/Style. I have a relatively strange variant (Chinese, XT1570). But that is not the point.
I have obtained two official images from Chinese website. Version wise they are identical.
One strange difference is size of "system.img" file.
The one I choose to flash my phone with (mind you that this is the OFFICIAL stock image with no modifications) has a system.img file which is 1.36GB in size.
Another package I obtained from a different Chinese source has a system.img file of 3.99GB in size.
When I looked to my phone, system.img file of 4GB is about right, that is how much it occupied on my phone.
Why this 1.36GB system.img file worked at first place? is there a differeces?
thanks in advance.

The larger image is probably a sector/sector image of the entire partition (dd). The smaller is just the files in use.
If you want to test this, flash the smaller image and note the free space remaining. Then flash the larger. I bet the two numbers will be similar if not the same.

sector/sector image of entire partition?
gpz1100 said:
The larger image is probably a sector/sector image of the entire partition (dd). The smaller is just the files in use.
If you want to test this, flash the smaller image and note the free space remaining. Then flash the larger. I bet the two numbers will be similar if not the same.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your reply. I got a couple questions.
The large system.img file was created by clobber the sparsechunk.x file together.
What do you mean "entire partition?"
Here is what I am trying to do:
I have a Chinese version of Moto X Pure. It is the only dual-SIM version that support both AT&T and China's LTE band. However, China banned Google services thus the Chinese version contains NO Google services nor Google Service framework. What I want is to flash the XT1572 version (Rest of Asia) dual SIM Android OS while keep the modem part intact.
1. is it safe to assume all Moto X Pure|Style's partition structure is identical?
2. on Chinese web, an article stated that all I have to do is flash the boot.img AND system.img and leave everything else intact, the phone will work. Is this something I can just assume?
3. I noticed that bluetooth has its on firmware (BTFM.bin). does GPS has its own firmware as well? if it is, which image file is it? The reason I am asking this is because hardware wise, Chinese variant is different from rest of Moto X Pure in terms of navigation hardware: Chinese variant has GPS, Beidou (Chinese), and Glonass (Russian) all three receivers. and given the choice, i would like to keep that intact as well.
Thanks in advance

Entire partition as in the entire 4GB partition space. Obviously the system is not occupying all of this space, but the image created was a snapshot of the entire space including unused space.
1) I don't see why they would create different partition layouts for different regions. Usually the only difference would be in software
2) Boot.img is the kernel and system.img is the system partition. You should be fine flashing these two.
3) I don't recall ever seeing a separate gps partition. I'd think the code for it would be part of the baseband.
Whether or not the xt1572 has the right drivers for this is another matter.
Make a backup of system, boot, and data partitions, then flash the xt1572 boot and system only. You'll maybe able to boot right up or you'll have to do a factory reset from within the recovery if it bootloops on startup.

now I am confused... I see TWO system partitions in Teamwin recovery
when I tried to do a backup with Teamwin recovery, i actually see TWO "System" partition:
System (which is about 1.5GB)
and
System R/O (which is about 4GB)
what is the differences between these two system partitions?
when I do
fastboot -s XXXYYYZZZ flash system system.img
which "system" partition am I really flashing?
and when teamwin recovery said I can backup "system" partition and "system R/O" partition, how doe these two partition map to fastboot's partition? I see I can flash
partition
bootloader
modem
fsg
bluetooth
boot
recovery
system
there is only one system...
gpz1100 said:
Entire partition as in the entire 4GB partition space. Obviously the system is not occupying all of this space, but the image created was a snapshot of the entire space including unused space.
1) I don't see why they would create different partition layouts for different regions. Usually the only difference would be in software
2) Boot.img is the kernel and system.img is the system partition. You should be fine flashing these two.
3) I don't recall ever seeing a separate gps partition. I'd think the code for it would be part of the baseband.
Whether or not the xt1572 has the right drivers for this is another matter.
Make a backup of system, boot, and data partitions, then flash the xt1572 boot and system only. You'll maybe able to boot right up or you'll have to do a factory reset from within the recovery if it bootloops on startup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Strange. Which version of twrp are you using?
Can you post a pic?

Related

[Q] ClockworkMod Recovery Issues

Hi All,
I need real help with ClockworkMod Recovery. I have been installing Android on HD2 using storage card (haret.exe) method. Then I moved to NAND without any problems.
But I am not able to understand ClockworkMod Recovery at all. I looked at lots of threads and also the main thread for ClockworkMod Recovery. I know how to install it. I have installed it on my phone. But for some reason I was stuck in the loop after installing the ROM {[22 JAN] -=MDJ's CyanogenMod 7 v. 2.6 [A2SD+][GRH78C][RMNET][Kernel: MDJ S10.4 OC]}. I did exactly same as the video tutorial says. My radios and HSPL is fine. Coz I am able to use the same ROM in NAND mode. But still in ClockworkMod Recovery mode the phone kept restarting and never got to the main screen.
I also do not know what ext2, ext3, ext4 partitions are. Do I need to make them before installing the ROM? Also on the main thread for ClockworkMod Recovery, it has 3 partition files. 250MB, 350MB and 450MB. I do not know what that is. Which one to use for which ROM and what are the differences between them?
What is the use of ClockworkMod Recovery if I have to flash this partitions every time I install new ROM?
Also can someone tell me what backing up the ROM means? Does it mean I can back up my current one and flash new one, and if I do not like the new one I can restore the old one in the same state (with my APPS and SETTINGS)?
Please please help me with ClockworkMod Recovery fundamentals. I would really appreciate it.
One more thing, I would not post a question if I haven't looked around enough for answers. As you can see I have been doing this from months, but only asked one question before and this is the second one. So please do not take me for someone who does not look around for answers. I do, its just that I did not find anything real good to explain me from the bottom. So please someone help me out.
Thanks in advance.
EXT partitions can be thought of as extended partitions on your SD card. They are used to "extend" your storage capacity. Some ROMS place some of the ROM files on the SD-EXT partition. This is done particularly for the EU HD2 where it has only half the storage on-board that the TMOUS HD2 does. If you are using a ROM that requires one you do have to create the partitions before installing/flashing the ROM.
The three different flash.cfg files on the CWM thread are files used to instruct DFT how to re-partition your on-board storage (NAND). There are several partitions, up to 16 at the moment. Some ROM's use 4 partitions, some use 6 or more. Typically, non-CWM ROM's use only 4 partitions (boot, system, data, cache), whereas CWM ROM's use those same ones as well as a miscellaneous and recovery partition.
The main reason for the different files is that some ROM's use more space for the system partition. The different flash.cfg files just simply allocate more or less space to the system partition.
You don't technically have to flash new partitions every time you flash a new ROM. As long as you know how to modify the ROM to work with your current partition setup it will work. Or, get ROM's that use the same type of partition layouts. Since the release of CWM, more ROM's are becoming available for installation via the ZIP deployment method in CWM, which means they ALL use the same partition (with exception of the system partition size) setup.
If you have a TMOUS HD2 with plenty of onboard storage it's easier to just create a larger system partition and never have to worry about repartitioning. That's what I did. I have a 450 MB system partition and every time I deploy a new CWM ZIP ROM I don't have to repartition anything.
You nailed it on the head about backing up via CWM. It backs up all your partitions (boot, system, cache, sd-ext, data, etc) and saves them to your SD card. That way you can flash a new ROM or do a hard reset. Then later if you want you can do a full restore and be exactly where you left off before doing so. That is, if you flash a ROM that has the same partition layout. If you flash a ROM with a different partition layout, the restore may or may not work until you repartition the same as the original ROM was when you flashed it.
The only issue with all this is that since there isn't a set standard yet for ROM's and their partition layouts any ROM chef can define their own partition scheme which can make for a hassle when trying different ROM's. I expect that at some point there will be a standard set of partitions that will be used between all different chefs to make things easier. CWM ROM deployments and updates are definitely the future of this and how all native Android devices are handled. I imagine that will become the case down the road for the HD2 as well.
Hopefully that clears it up for you a bit. Sorry about writing a novel...
Digital Outcast said:
EXT partitions can be thought of as extended partitions on your SD card. They are used to "extend" your storage capacity. Some ROMS place some of the ROM files on the SD-EXT partition. This is done particularly for the EU HD2 where it has only half the storage on-board that the TMOUS HD2 does. If you are using a ROM that requires one you do have to create the partitions before installing/flashing the ROM.
The three different flash.cfg files on the CWM thread are files used to instruct DFT how to re-partition your on-board storage (NAND). There are several partitions, up to 16 at the moment. Some ROM's use 4 partitions, some use 6 or more. Typically, non-CWM ROM's use only 4 partitions (boot, system, data, cache), whereas CWM ROM's use those same ones as well as a miscellaneous and recovery partition.
The main reason for the different files is that some ROM's use more space for the system partition. The different flash.cfg files just simply allocate more or less space to the system partition.
You don't technically have to flash new partitions every time you flash a new ROM. As long as you know how to modify the ROM to work with your current partition setup it will work. Or, get ROM's that use the same type of partition layouts. Since the release of CWM, more ROM's are becoming available for installation via the ZIP deployment method in CWM, which means they ALL use the same partition (with exception of the system partition size) setup.
If you have a TMOUS HD2 with plenty of onboard storage it's easier to just create a larger system partition and never have to worry about repartitioning. That's what I did. I have a 450 MB system partition and every time I deploy a new CWM ZIP ROM I don't have to repartition anything.
You nailed it on the head about backing up via CWM. It backs up all your partitions (boot, system, cache, sd-ext, data, etc) and saves them to your SD card. That way you can flash a new ROM or do a hard reset. Then later if you want you can do a full restore and be exactly where you left off before doing so. That is, if you flash a ROM that has the same partition layout. If you flash a ROM with a different partition layout, the restore may or may not work until you repartition the same as the original ROM was when you flashed it.
The only issue with all this is that since there isn't a set standard yet for ROM's and their partition layouts any ROM chef can define their own partition scheme which can make for a hassle when trying different ROM's. I expect that at some point there will be a standard set of partitions that will be used between all different chefs to make things easier. CWM ROM deployments and updates are definitely the future of this and how all native Android devices are handled. I imagine that will become the case down the road for the HD2 as well.
Hopefully that clears it up for you a bit. Sorry about writing a novel...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Amazing explanation. Thanks a lottt man. Just one more question, I have TMOUS HD2 abd I did the same thing as you said. 450MB of partition. And then tried to install the MDJ's CM7 ROM. I got the message saying the ROM is successfully installed. and then I rebooted my phone. But it kept rebooting itself. Any particular reason you know of?
jalshah05 said:
Amazing explanation. Thanks a lottt man. Just one more question, I have TMOUS HD2 abd I did the same thing as you said. 450MB of partition. And then tried to install the MDJ's CM7 ROM. I got the message saying the ROM is successfully installed. and then I rebooted my phone. But it kept rebooting itself. Any particular reason you know of?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is this using the 400 MB flash.cfg file from the CWM thread? The reason I ask is that I checked that flash.cfg file and the boot partition is flagged as the bootable partition. I'm not familiar with the CM7 ROM from MDJ, but is it set to deploy via CWM with a boot folder in the ZIP file?
Also, have you run logcat (if you're familiar with that) while the issue is happening to see what is going on?
To be very frank I did not understand what you just told me sir. Only thing I can tell for sure is I downloaded the .zip file from the thread at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=877777 . And I do not know what logcat is. I am sure you must be thinking that I am an idiot. Forgive me for my ignorance.
Google is your friend!
I'm a better one: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php?title=Logcat
Edit: very interesting read by the way, Digital Outcast. Much appreciated!
Digital Outcast said:
Is this using the 400 MB flash.cfg file from the CWM thread? The reason I ask is that I checked that flash.cfg file and the boot partition is flagged as the bootable partition. I'm not familiar with the CM7 ROM from MDJ, but is it set to deploy via CWM with a boot folder in the ZIP file?
Also, have you run logcat (if you're familiar with that) while the issue is happening to see what is going on?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks a lott Digital Outcast for this amazing explanation. I hope I can get the Recovery mode working. I will try some different roms and see what can be done. meanwhile if you get chance please explain me your response "Is this using the 400 MB flash.cfg file from the CWM thread? The reason I ask is that I checked that flash.cfg file and the boot partition is flagged as the bootable partition. I'm not familiar with the CM7 ROM from MDJ, but is it set to deploy via CWM with a boot folder in the ZIP file?
Also, have you run logcat (if you're familiar with that) while the issue is happening to see what is going on?"
Thanks a lott once again.

[SOLVED] Nexus 7 32GB down to 6GB internal memory

I didn't want to trouble anyone, but I really couldn't find any thread on the same topic as this one.
Also, I don't have ten posts, so I can't post direct links. I'll have to post them in plain text.
I'm a generally disk-space conservative person.
When Android version 4.2.2 was released, I tried updating but without any luck (update failed).
So a couple of days later, I factory reset my Nexus 7, then I truly wiped it and proceeded to flash 4.2.2 and root the device.
No custom ROM:s.
Yesterday, I randomly checked my storage information, just to find that 4 gigabytes out of max 6 gigabytes storage was used.
See puu.sh/2fe9V for an image.
I'm a newcomer to both xda and Android and I followed several tutorials whilst doing this. One of them led to me bricking my device.
I wish I could, but I was only able to track up one of the ones I followed;
blog.laptopmag.com/how-to-hard-reset-a-bricked-nexus-7-with-your-pc (this is the one that was successful).
I'm guessing that I may possibly have accidentally created some other partion or something similar.
I would really appreciate some help in this (to me) confusing topic.
Re: [Q] Nexus 7 32GB down to 6GB internal memory
Sounds like you flashed an 8 gig image. Where did you get the image?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
rmm200 said:
Sounds like you flashed an 8 gig image. Where did you get the image?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. That definitely sounds like a possibility.
I got mine from developers.google.com/android/nexus/images#nakasijdq39
(Sorry again for plain text links)
Zsded said:
...
So a couple of days later, I factory reset my Nexus 7, then I truly wiped it and proceeded to flash 4.2.2 and root the device.
No custom ROM:s.
...
Yesterday, I randomly checked my storage information, just to find that 4 gigabytes out of max 6 gigabytes storage was used.
See puu.sh/2fe9V for an image.
I'm guessing that I may possibly have accidentally created some other partion or something similar.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
rmm200 said:
Sounds like you flashed an 8 gig image. Where did you get the image?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could be, but then the Google factory images do not discriminate between 8/16/32, and in this case the OP used a factory image.
@Zsded
I had this happen to me the other night (in the middle of doing something else). The long & boring story follows, but let's begin with a solution: The partitioning data did not get changed, but mysteriously the /data filesystem got created with with only about 6-7 GB of capacity. Re-creating the /data filesystem using the "Format data" operation in TWRP will create an ext4 filesystem of 29 GB or so.
You need to backup everything worth saving and re-create the /data filesystem. This can be accomplished (for instance) using the "Format data" operation in TWRP. But - again - this destroys everything in /data including everything in /sdcard. (Note it does not touch /system or /cache though - so your bare ROM is still there)
What you might want to do is the following:
1) back up everything in /sdcard that you want to save
2) make a full Nandroid backup of your current ROM
3) get copies of the TWRP Nandroid backup off the device (on to the PC)
4) perform the "format data" operation in TWRP (iirc it is in the Wipe sub-menu)
5) copy your Nandroid backup back to the tablet***
6) restore the Nandroid backup (or just the data partition if you prefer)
7) Boot into the ROM and copy the saved contents of /sdcard back onto your device from your PC
*** This is a mouthful. On a fresh /data filesystem, TWRP (v2.4.1.0, anyway) wants to find its backup folders at
/data/media/TWRP/BACKUPS/<device-id>/*
But if you use MTP with the OS to copy the nandroid backup files, you will only have access to /data/media/0/* (the "sdcard" mount point) using MTP So, you might need to copy the files and then using a root shell or the custom recovery, get a copy of your TWRP folder into /data/media/ e.g. with TWRP recovery booted:
Code:
adb shell cp -R /data/media/0/TWRP/ /data/media/
OK, now for the long and boring story.
I had something identical happen to me the other night - I have a 32G N7, and it ended up showing only 6.5 GB total in /data. Because of the sequence of events involved, I don't know the exact cause, but using TWRP to re-create the /data filesystem as explained above solved the problem.
First, some background so you will know why I don't know the cause (get a beverage, this is going to be a long post):
The other night, I decided to capture Nandroid backups of every N7 factory ROM from JZO54K through JDQ39 (4.1.2 - 4.2 - 4.2.1 - 4.2.2). My plan was to do a factory install of JZ054K (4.1.2) and then apply each of the OTAs in sequence. So, I backed everything up (including using a certain busybox version of "tar" to backup about 2.5 Gigs of stuff from the /sdcard mount point), and completely wiped the device and did a fastboot install of 4.1.2 (JZO54K) nakasi (WiFi N7) factory ROM.
The ony thing that I did not do in the initial step was flash the bootloader - I left the 4.18 bootloader in place (initially). I did not follow the factory install script; instead I used the following sequence:
Code:
fastboot erase boot
fastboot erase recovery
fastboot erase system
fastboot erase userdata
fastboot erase cache
fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
fastboot format system
fastboot format userdata
fastboot format cache
fastboot flash system system.img
fastboot flash userdata userdata.img
The above installed the JZO54K factory ROM - but with the newer 4.18 bootloader still in place.
For each of the OTA package installs & nandroid backups, I would "soft-boot" TWRP (thus leaving the factory recovery still flashed on the tablet), e.g.:
Code:
C:\foo> fastboot boot openrecovery-twrp-2.4.1.0-grouper.img
C:\foo> adb push 094f6629314a.signed-nakasi-JOP40C-from-JZO54K.094f6629.zip /cache/update.zip
C:\foo> adb shell sha1sum /cache/update.zip
C:\foo> adb shell
# cd /cache/recovery
# echo '--update_package=/cache/update.zip' > command
# exit
C:\foo> adb reboot recovery
... (OTA runs, device reboots into OS, perform shutdown, boot to bootloader) ...
C:\foo> fastboot boot openrecovery-twrp-2.4.1.0-grouper.img
... take a Nandroid backup (including recovery partition!)...
Now, as it turned out, before any of this had taken place I had noticed filesystem corruption in my /system partition. Because I was making Nandroid backups for reference/archival purposes, after each OTA install, just prior to making the nandroid backup (with TWRP soft-booted as shown above), I did a filesystem check on system and data:
Code:
adb shell e2fsck -f -n /dev/block/mmcblk0p3
adb shell e2fsck -f -n /dev/block/mmcblk0p9
(for Wifi/nakasi/grouper devices, mmcblk0p3 is /system and mmcblk0p9 is /data).
The reason I mention this is that I was focused on making sure that there were no filesystem errors (there were none). Had I been paying attention, I might have noticed that something was wrong with the allocation size. But, read on...
When I finally got finished (3 OTAs and 3 Nandroid backups) I decided to restore the contents of my 2.5 Gb tarball. Nothing should been in /data except for a couple (TWRP) Nandroid backups. So, I start restoring the tarball... and after a good long wait ... tar exits due to lack of space. WTF?
Well, /data and /sdcard were mounted (in TWRP), so I did a
Code:
adb shell df -k /data
and it showed a little over 4.5 GB used ... in a 6.5 GB partition - WTF?
Now, because I wasn't watching carefully, I can't be sure what caused the small filesystem in a big partition, but here's my theory:
Because the OTAs are designed to leave /data and /data/media/* alone (more or less), that means that the /data filesystem was only created once: it would not have been destroyed & re-created by the successive application of the 3 OTA bundles that took me from JZ054K -> JOP40C -> JOP40D -> JDQ39.
To me, that says that one of the two following initial operations was the culprit:
Code:
fastboot erase userdata
fastboot format userdata
OR
Code:
fastboot flash userdata userdata.img
What is rather shocking about this is because of the way that I did things, I had the newest bootloader on the device when I did this - v4.18. I wouldn't have been surprised if an older bootloader had a bug that got fixed... but it surprises me that the very newest bootloader seems to be implicated.
But anyway - to recap - your partition data has not been altered. AFAIK, nobody (but Asus/Google) knows how to do that as it probably requires talking to the device in APX mode. Somehow, whatever recreated your filesystem in /dev/block/platform/sdhci-tegra.3/by-name/UDA ( userdata ) mysteriously created a filesystem substantially smaller than the physical partition size.
My suspicion is that it is a bug in the bootloader.
good luck
Actually all you had to do is do a factory reset in the recovery, and reboot. BAM - all your actual storage is back
Fatal1ty_18_RUS said:
Actually all you had to do is do a factory reset in the recovery, and reboot. BAM - all your actual storage is back
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Factory Reset in the recovery does not recreate the ext4 filesystem, it only does deep removal (rm -rf) excluding /data/media. That won't solve the problem of having a tiny filesystem in a huge partition; same filesystem - same max capacity.
bftb0 said:
Factory Reset in the recovery does not recreate the ext4 filesystem, it only does deep removal (rm -rf) excluding /data/media. That won't solve the problem of having a tiny filesystem in a huge partition; same filesystem - same max capacity.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Strange. After I flashed the stock 4.2.1 after playing with some custom ROMs - I, too, had only 6GB available, but then I did either factory reset/wipe data or something else - and BOOM everything was fixed
bftb0 said:
Could be, but then the Google factory images...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Snipped to save people's screen space.
Thanks a lot! This solved my problem and I'm now back to 27 gigabytes (which should be somewhere around the promised 32 gebibytes).
I truly appreciate it. I would do more than just to thank your post, but I'm kinda out of ideas (and money).
And of course I'd like to thank everyone else for the help.
This thread can be regarded as closed.
@Fatal1ty_18_RUS
There have been a couple of other reports about "6 Gigs in a 32 GB device". I just dismissed them as folks not being aware of how much space they were using (e.g. Nandroid backups) - until it happened to me.
Enough strangeness seems to be present to make me nervous for folks that don't have a lot of *nix experience to sort things out when they get mucked up.
The other thing I didn't mention in my story was that restoring a tar file into the /sdcard mount point using a root shell in TWRP (v2.4.1.0) was sufficient to massively corrupt the ext4 filesystem on /data every time I did that (based on looking at the output of "e2fsck -f -n" in TWRP). After cleaning things up (ugh - recreating userdata ext4 from scratch means shuttling everything back onto the tablet again) I booted into the (stock) OS, and restored the same tar file into /sdcard as an unprivileged user - and no problems. No clue how/why that would happen, as tar files contain no inode information; but it suggests that there is some strangeness in the way that that emulated /sdcard mount works when a root user writes things... at least in the TWRP version of things. Very bizarre indeed.
Suffice it to say the whole exercise blew away a massive chunk of my time, even though I'm comfortable with this kind of stuff (I have used *nix systems for 30+ years). I can only imagine how folks with less experience feel when they get into a jam.
---------- Post added at 12:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:00 PM ----------
Zsded said:
Snipped to save people's screen space.
Thanks a lot! This solved my problem and I'm now back to 27 gigabytes (which should be somewhere around the promised 32 gebibytes).
I truly appreciate it. I would do more than just to thank your post, but I'm kinda out of ideas (and money).
And of course I'd like to thank everyone else for the help.
This thread can be regarded as closed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool!
Change your thread title to include the token "[SOLVED]" - maybe it can help others.
bftb0
bftb0 said:
Cool!
Change your thread title to include the token "[SOLVED]" - maybe it can help others.
bftb0
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good idea and thanks for your help!
is there any alterations in ghrese steps for CWM users? I too am having this problem after installing a stock image friom the same sources as posted above, but i used onw of the nexus 7 toolkits to help asist me with this.
Thabnks, i am leaving for a trip tomorrow, so i was sorta shpcked to see 6 gb of storage on my device.
GH0 said:
is there any alterations in ghrese steps for CWM users? I too am having this problem after installing a stock image friom the same sources as posted above, but i used onw of the nexus 7 toolkits to help asist me with this.
Thabnks, i am leaving for a trip tomorrow, so i was sorta shpcked to see 6 gb of storage on my device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, given that you need to rebuild the filesystem in the userdata partition, you may not have enough time to work on this tonight, as it means getting everything worth saving backed up to a PC, and then transferring it all back after /data is rebuilt (back to the size that it should be). At that point you can either boot the "factory reset" OS to push your backups back to the tablet, or push them with adb & the recovery running so you can restore the backup before the first time you boot.
You saw how long the TWRP post was; can't say I want to do the same thing for a CWM version. Nor do I know even the first thing about any "toolkit" or what their operational hazards are.
But basically, the bottom line is re-building the /data ext4 filesystem from scratch. Even though TWRP has "mke2fs" & "tune2fs" utilities in it's ramdisk, it appears that they use a custom-built "make_ext4fs" utility for rebuilding ext4 filesystems. CWM probably has something similar - maybe a "format data" menu pick/button or something that sounds like that.
If you think you have enough time for this, you could perform the format using fastboot, as in:
Code:
fastboot format userdata
bearing in mind that this wipes EVERYTHING in /data including the psuedo-SD card (just as will any other procedure which rebuilds /data). So, if you make a Nandroid backup before starting this process, make SURE you've got your backups in a safe place off of the tablet before the format occurs.
Not having an external SD card on the N7 sure makes everything like this a pain in the a**, especially when it's potentially 20+ Gigs of stuff to move around.
good luck
So... I currently did this:
erasing 'userdata'...
OKAY [ 9.107s]
formatting 'userdata' partition...
Creating filesystem with parameters:
Size: 30080499712
Block size: 4096
Blocks per group: 32768
Inodes per group: 8160
Inode size: 256
Journal blocks: 32768
Label:
Blocks: 7343872
Block groups: 225
Reserved block group size: 1024
Created filesystem with 11/1836000 inodes and 159268/7343872 blocks
sending 'userdata' (139157 KB)...
writing 'userdata'...
OKAY [ 30.145s]
finished. total time: 39.254s
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had to pull my CWM backup (however, doing a format data/cache using CWM didn't fix it). Eventually, the fastboot command fixed it. However, now when I try to transfer files over MTP/USB, it fails on the Internal Storage. So I am not sure why it is complaining. It doesn't give me an error, it just says the device has stopped responding, even though it is still listed and I have folders that are accessbile.
I guess I will just have to use adb push
EXT4
bftb0 said:
Factory Reset in the recovery does not recreate the ext4 filesystem, it only does deep removal (rm -rf) excluding /data/media. That won't solve the problem of having a tiny filesystem in a huge partition; same filesystem - same max capacity.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So where can u find the ext4 file to delete? I did this once, it was a while agao but i need to find it
fixed on my nexus 7 but not sure what happened
thanks to you guys I solved my problem, same thing after installing a stock image from google i got 8gb of storage instead of 32. I did format data on CWM and than i got all of the storage back...i was really worried of not finding a way to solve this a big thanks to you guys.
In case u have the same problem you need to do format data on CWM and NOT wipe data/factory reset.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------UPDATE---------------------------------------------------------------------------------​
The same problem happened again, i was not worried I did everything i did the first time but for some reason this time nothing got fixed...so after trying many things i asked myself "well what happen if I do not flash in my device the stock userdata after i erased them with the command >>fastboot erase userdata<< ?"
I tried and apparently it solved the problem i had all of my GB back. A little bit scare because during the boot in while i was on the image of the nexus logo (the X with four colors) it went back to the google screen (that one that appears when you turn on your device) but than it kept going normally. I did this two times first flashing in the stock stuff of the 4.1.2 of android and than with the 4.3 version (stock images downloaded from google)
Here the list of commands I used:
fastboot erase boot
fastboot erase cache
fastboot erase system
fastboot erase userdata
fastboot flash boot (I flashed the boot image of android 4.3)
fastboot flash system (I flashed the system image of android 4.3)
For the 4.1.2 I did the same except that i flashed in the userdata image of the 4.1.2 version I turned on the device to check the space on the settings and than i came back and used >>fastboot erase userdata<< and than turned on the device to check if there were some issues but it worked and the storage was back at full size.
I ask to someone a little bit more skilled than me to explain better what happened, and what I really did, because I'm really not sure about this I mean why not flashing the userdata image that came with the full pack from google is not creating problems and flashing it makes my device loose space? I would like to understand more about this.
Thanks bftb0 for this excellent working solution.
My Nexus 7 recently wouldn't boot (bootloop after a power off for no good reason...) and I used the Nexus Root Toolkit in force mode to put 4.4 on (I was on some older version to keep Stickmount working as it didn't work straight off the bat with new Androids). I had to use force because my bootloader is 4.18 I think and the update procedure via the Root Toolkit threw an error about bootloader version. 4.4 appeared to go on fine with force. I have no idea how to update the bootloader. Just playing with GPS apps today and putting maps on and found out I couldn't do it due to lack of space. Found the box for my Nexus 7 as I wasn't 100% what size I had but thought it was a 32G... Your solution worked fine. I didn't have to move the TWRP backups, just copied them over MTP and TWRP found them.
Hello.
This is my 1st post here. Well I have the same probelm. Just bought nexus 7 32GB and 6GB is missing...
Desperion9 said:
Hello.
This is my 1st post here. Well I have the same probelm. Just bought nexus 7 32GB and 6GB is missing...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does it say something like 27GB total? It's not at 32GB total because it needs room for the OS and everything.
NiteFang said:
Does it say something like 27GB total? It's not at 32GB total because it needs room for the OS and everything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also manufacturers advertise memory in base10 the decimal system so 1MB =1,000,000 bytes but computers don't work like that they operate in base2 the binary system so 1MB is actually 1,048,576 bytes. This is the brainchild of marketing gurus who think people can't understand binary.
On average for every GB advertised in base10 you get on average 70 mb less
Sent from my C5303 using xda app-developers app
Sorry for the slight necro
The same thing happened to me: coming from a custom rom and installing Nexus 7 4.4.4 factory image my 16gb device only showed 6.58gb total.
So i locked the bootloader (using WUG's) and unlocked it again. Result: it now shows 27.58Gb TOTAL SPACE LOL... I tried doing the data wipe in TWRP and i'm all out of ideas...
Anyone?

[Q] Questions regarding the two NST rooted with the same process

I rooted two nooks, and made tar backups of their partitions (I also got the dd image just in case). Out of curiosity, and with the goal of keeping minimal backup and increasing the partition for side-loaded contents to maximum, I tried to compare the contents of each partition. Since I followed the same process for rooting (Touch-Formatter v2, 1.2.1 update, NookManager, NTGAppsAttack - but before booting the Nook I got the backup), I guessed quite a lot of them are the same, and found some interesting results.
1. Boot partition is nearly the same except uRamdisk. I inspected the contents of the two uRamdisk files using bootutil by Renate, and they are identical.
-> Why are they different, and can one replace the other?
2. As we all know, rom partitions are different, but it looks only a few of them can meaningfully affect the operation. Anyway, it's small and I decided to leave them untouched and keep two separate copies.
-> What is the BCB file by the way? It just has zeroes inside. Is it automatically created if not there?
-> Some files in the devconf directory seem to be modified during the normal process or firmware update, notably BootCnt (four zero bytes), Bq275020Dffs (12 in the rombackup.zip, 13 after 1.2.1 update). What are these? Any idea?
3. The factory partition, I want to bust it (empty it up and resize it to the minimum), and let me know if I'm on a dangerous path. The idea is that I don't need rombackup.zip because I can revive the rom partition with my own tar backup if something bad happens, and it's out of date anyway after 1.2.1 update (some files in the rom partition are modified). Also, with Touch-Formatter and CWM, I wouldn't need the factory.zip file.
-> What are the files in the "touch" directory? One of my nook has them, but the other doesn't. Looking at the data inside they must be related to the display or touch screen. Maybe byproduct of calibration?
-> Can I use 1.2.1 update file with CWM instead of using Touch-Formatter, bringing it to a new fresh 1.2.1 Nook? According to this post, it seems possible.
4. The system partitions are identical, as expected. but with CWM recovery, we wouldn't need a backup of it, right?
5. The cache partition is way too big. I know the firmware update uses this space (when I resized it to something like 64MB, 1.2.1 update didn't work. I needed to increase it to something like 128MB to make it work). However, for normal operation, we surely don't need it that big.
-> How small can it be? I know it depends on individual's usage patterns... but in my case, I mostly use Nook for reading side-loaded contents. I've gone down to 32MB, but I guess that's still big.
-> Do we really need the cache partition? Can we just symlink it to somewhere in the data partition?
Out of curiosity, I just deleted BCB and BootCnt in the rom partition, and rebooted. First it said "Install Failed", a screen I have never seen before on Nook. So I looked into the rom partition and found that BCB file is recreated, but not BootCnt. On the subsequent boot, it said "Installing Rom", and then quickly rebooted. Now it's back to work. So, I guess these two files are essential for normal operation. Again, this time I deleted all files in the factory partition and also deleted BootCnt. Now, it tries to do the "Installing Rom" thing, but fell back to "Install Failed" screen. I opened up the rom partition again and I saw only BCB and BootCnt files, and none else. Nook surely formatted the rom partition first before trying to recreate it.
So I wonderfully bricked my Nook, and thought this is a good time to test if the rom partition backup works. I mounted the rom partition, untarred the backup, and rebooted. There we go, the Bronte Sisters are back. So the conclusion is that
1. When the BCB file's missing, it's simply recreated after a failed boot.
2. When the BootCnt file's missing, Nook thinks the rom partition is corrupted and tries to recreate it using rombackup.zip in the factory partition. I think this may have some side effects because firmware updates only change the files in the rom partition, leaving rombackup.zip untouched. So you will go back to the old rom partition after the built-in rom recovery.
3. The best rom recovery, I think, is using your manual backup of the rom partition. And maybe updating the rombackup.zip with a new one too?
BootCnt is a 32 bit little-endian count of the number of failed boots.
Once it hits eight your Nook will boot into the recovery image uRecImg, uRecRam.
You could also echo about anything to that file to make it arithmetically greater than 8.
Code:
echo 000 > /rom/devconf/BootCnt
That is 0x0a303030 > 8
Normally this is a B&N thing that asks you about factory restore.
If you replaced those two files it could be Clockwork Mod Recovery.

Partitions 1.3GB - 1.5GB

I have a small affair since CM resized the partitions, and some questions haunt me.
The system partition of my phone is in the initial format 600MB and 1.3 GB for data. As everyone will know CM changed partitions to 400MB and 1.5GB of data.
Approach: I would like to have a ROM of Ginger for sporadic use of the camera and any other issues with Nandroid saved. I understand that this requires the old system partitions that i have, and kk for regular use with current system partition, copied also with Nandroid.
The issue is if when move from one to another from the corresponding copies saved from the recovery also restores the size of the partitions or not.
If not, is it absolutely necessary to have the partitions on the current format of CM for KK?, What problems can be if left to the native format 600MB, 1.3GB?
Regards
Note: Edited to better understanding, sorry for my poor english.

Resizing /System

Hi, I just wanted do know if there's a way I can change the size of the /system becuase it uses almost half of the phone's storage.
Apparently, only the I9500 can resize its partitions, and that can only be done through use of a PIT file. However, in my opinion it's not worth doing, and on all the Qualcomm devices, impossible to do.
Hi,
Just the addition. It's impossible to resize partition. But, the only thing to know: Samsung reserves 1/8 of total storage (2 from 16 GB ) for cache partition. It's unnecessary for most people because cache partition in most devices are 200-500 MBs.
I9500 devices that shipped in all regions and in China are different. You can't use full Chinese firmware in International devices and vice versa without a PIT file (International/Chinese). Installing Chinese PIT might reserve more space for user data (11.8 GB compared to 8.9 GB in International one), but it has several disadvantages.
First, is you can't install any custom ROM that is a block-build based installer (by patching system partition). It instantly fails because mount points of International PIT and Chinese PIT are completely different.
Second, if you do a full Chinese firmware install with ODIN on International devices and you don't remove sboot.bin from the archive and re-pack it, you'll end yourself with Chinese bootloader that pretty hard to be 'vanished' in standard way of installing firmware.
Sent from my ASUS_Z00AD

Categories

Resources