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Root Couple questions

C

cashmere_cat

Well-Known Member
I have a few questions that I can't seem to find answers to...

1 - How can I see what partition I have on my SD card? (not size, but ext3 or ext4)

2 - How can I find out what class of SD card I have?

3 - Thinking that I should change from ext3 to ext4. If I understand correctly, ext4 is a better choice. It seems that a number of ROMs list ext4 as preferred. And if they list ext3, 4 will work also.
I was looking at [ROM] SUPERNOVA Xtreme Official GB SENSE 02/Dec| 2GB INTERNAL MEMORY|Optimized KERNEL - xda-developers which says: Partition Required: FAT32 Primary followed by One ext4 partition (ext2/3 if present will be auto converted to ext4)
I like the sounds of that - install a ROM and it will change the ext for me :p Any downside to doing it this way? If I wipe SuperNova off, will it automatically revert back to ext3?
 
cashmere_cat said:
ClockworkMod.. version 2.5.0.7
Click to expand...

OK, well this doesn't support ext4. What it does is it will backup /restore the ext4 partition, but will convert it back to ext3.

I would recommend first (are you s-off?) looking at this recovery: 4EXT

Myself, Rasta, Hadron, Shauny are all using this very happily and I am now in a position where (after a couple of months testing) I am happy to recommend it...
 
I did look at 4EXT Recovery but since I'm not s-off, can't use it.
So - since my ClockworkMod wont support an ext 4, I guess i don't have the option to reformat to ext4 using GParted either?
I guess s-off is all that's left..
 
SUroot said:
I think its Time CC...
Click to expand...


LOL - that made me burst out laughing -- and Im at work (oops!)
I have been trying to avoid going s-off, it just opens up too many more tinkering options. Not to mention chances of messing things up royally ;)
But I think you may be right.
So I had a look in the guides, and only see really one tiny section on s-off -- with a link to alpharev.
Is there something more to read & understand before I do this?
 
There is a replacement to alpharev which is Revolutionary. There is also a guide to that.

Alpharev used to require a rooted stock (HTC sense rom) to be installed first (something like teppic 74's rooted 2.2 stock). Not sure with Revolutionary if it requires that.

Its been a long time since I did it (Alpharev days) so we will need someone who has done it recently to clarify I think.
 
After reading through the faq’s and the documentation on Revolutionary, I have a few questions (of course! :-) )

“revolutionary will give you s-off either by a patched HBOOT or setting the secure flag to off on the device itself, this behaviour will depend on your particular device” Won’t I need to know what it has done to my particular device, so I know what hboot I have after its done?

“revolutionary will optionally replace the recovery image” Do I want to allow it to do this? Or stick with CWM recovery and only use revolutionary for the s-off part. Any advantages/disadvantages to either recovery?

“save revolutionary.zip to PC. Run revolutionary (unzip and run) and follow prompts. Congratulations, you should be s-off now”. I have a sneaky suspicion it can’t really be that easy??

“you can check by booting to Hboot and seeing if you have a nice pink Revolutionary label above your Hboot info”. I’ve read about these a few times, but am having trouble getting my head around Hboot vs. Fastboot vs. Recovery...
 
cashmere_cat said:
After reading through the faq’s and the documentation on Revolutionary, I have a few questions (of course! :-) )

“revolutionary will give you s-off either by a patched HBOOT or setting the secure flag to off on the device itself, this behaviour will depend on your particular device” Won’t I need to know what it has done to my particular device, so I know what hboot I have after its done?
Click to expand...
GSM will have a patched hboot, CDMA via a flag.
“revolutionary will optionally replace the recovery image” Do I want to allow it to do this? Or stick with CWM recovery and only use revolutionary for the s-off part. Any advantages/disadvantages to either recovery?
Click to expand...
No, don't do this.

Once S-Off you can fastboot flash the recovery of your choice. There's no advantage in using the one revolutionary installs.
“save revolutionary.zip to PC. Run revolutionary (unzip and run) and follow prompts. Congratulations, you should be s-off now”. I have a sneaky suspicion it can’t really be that easy??
Click to expand...
Well that's the question we can't answer, as we did this with alpharev which did have some other requirements. Though provided you had a compatible ROM, and once you'd created a VM/usb/CD, alpharev was pretty much that simple too, so yeah, I can believe it.
“you can check by booting to Hboot and seeing if you have a nice pink Revolutionary label above your Hboot info”. I’ve read about these a few times, but am having trouble getting my head around Hboot vs. Fastboot vs. Recovery...
Click to expand...
Recovery is the familiar recovery utility and nothing to do with the other 2.

Hboot is the bootloader. Fastboot is 2 things: (1) a mode of the bootloader (or that's how I think of it) in which you can run fastboot commands, and (2) a utility you run on your computer to perform these operations when the phone is in fastboot mode.

Dan's got a FAQ for that, of course :)
 
Wow - it really WAS 'that easy'. Took all of maybe 30 seconds, and I now have a pink Revolutionary at the top -- and it says "S-OFF". Woohoo!

Of note, I have Cyanogen7 running - encountered no problems. So it seems this method does not require a rooted stock rom...
 
SUroot said:
OK, well this doesn't support ext4. What it does is it will backup /restore the ext4 partition, but will convert it back to ext3.

I would recommend first (are you s-off?) looking at this recovery: 4EXT

Myself, Rasta, Hadron, Shauny are all using this very happily and I am now in a position where (after a couple of months testing) I am happy to recommend it...
Click to expand...

Now that I am s-off, I am back to this.. although I'm not clear on which one I should be looking at:
4EXT Recovery Control
4EXT Recovery Updater
4EXT Recovery Touch

Do any of these change my partition from ext3 to ext4? or I still need to do that manually with Gparted -- this is just an alternate recovery?
 
cashmere_cat said:
Now that I am s-off, I am back to this.. although I'm not clear on which one I should be looking at:
4EXT Recovery Control
4EXT Recovery Updater
4EXT Recovery Touch

Do any of these change my partition from ext3 to ext4? or I still need to do that manually with Gparted -- this is just an alternate recovery?
Click to expand...

Suggest using Touch. It's easy to use. Once installed, got into Recovery then use the menus to partition your SD card. I've been using 4Ext and it is very good. Remember to back your your entire SD card to your PC before doing anything. Once you partition your SD card, you can copy stuff back if you so desire.
 
Control/Updater are apps (paid/free), but these are the easiest way to get the 4EXT Touch recovery.

The Touch recovery has an option to convert ext3 to ext4. As I'm not using ext at the moment I can't comment on how well it works (I used it on my unused ext partition, but all I know is that it reports the partition as ext4 now). I'd still use GParted for any actual partitioning.
 
Does this recovery image allows you to partition an sd card? Or would you still recommend going down the gparted route?
Apologies Hadron if I'm asking a question you answered in your previous post. But you mentioned how it converted ext3 to 4 but not if it could do the initial partition.
 
It does and it doesnt use SD parted, unlike other Recoveries, however gparted always wins.
 
1st_Paladin said:
Remember to back your your entire SD card to your PC before doing anything.
Click to expand...

Is this just a simple select all and copy to a folder on my PC? does that copy over everything required? I seem to remember seeing somewhere that this was not the correct way to do this...
 
It's what i do, along with all my old nandroids. Just keep the latest one on my sd card for space saving.
 
The key thing is to ensure that you get the hidden folders, such as .android_secure. So check after copying.

I do it by just copying the top level folder and everything in it to my hard drive in a single operation. I assume something similar would work on Windows ("similar" as I use a terminal command rather than a file browser).
 
Yeah drag and drop, once hidden files are set to be shown. Or xcopy via cmd, same as cp command... well, cp and mv combined....
 
OK, thanks. Will do.

Back to 4ext touch recovery...
I downloaded it, however when I touch the screen, well this one below in particular, it only wants to change colors, not execute any of the options at the top

 
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