Root [International] Rooting for the first time

[CDPlant]

Cwm wont wipe internal sd. Factory reset within android will

I was wondering about that, thanks for clearing it up for me

 

[SUroot]

any time

 

[CDPlant]

I was wondering about that, thanks for clearing it up for me

Actually, I have another question - if it doesn't wipe your internal sd card when you do a full wipe (factory reset/wipe data), what does it wipe? Is there a certain partition that it wipes?

I should really know all this but coming from HTC devices it's a bit different. Once i've got the basics down i'll be helping out in no time

 

[Rastaman-FB]

Actually, I have another question - if it doesn't wipe your internal sd card when you do a full wipe (factory reset/wipe data), what does it wipe? Is there a certain partition that it wipes?

I should really know all this but coming from HTC devices it's a bit different. Once i've got the basics down i'll be helping out in no time

it wipes the userdata or "data" "cache" and sometimes "dalvic" parts of the phone

user data/data contains configuration data\ user downloaded and installed apps\ personal data like phone, contacts, messages, emails, security passcodes etc. basically how it is out of the box
it intentionally doesnt touch sdcard or external SD as you will lose your rom flash files and other things that android isnt concerned about

 

[SUroot]

Actually, I have another question - if it doesn't wipe your internal sd card when you do a full wipe (factory reset/wipe data), what does it wipe? Is there a certain partition that it wipes?

I should really know all this but coming from HTC devices it's a bit different. Once i've got the basics down i'll be helping out in no time

I'll try to give you the maximum understanding for the smallest effort. Some of this you know, but i'm writing this for a larger audience

Normally (other android phones) have an internal memory chip. Usually called NAND flash.

This would be partitioned with /system partition for the ROM and a /data partition for user apps, data, settings etc. You would also have /sdcard which is a removable sd card

A normal factory reset wipes / reformats the /data partition.


The SGS3 is the same but different. Whether its an actual internal sd card or built in flash memory is not relevant

So this internal memory is partitioned with /system and /data as before. But the internal memory is huge. If that was all /data, you'd never fill it and you'd still need an external sd card....

So what they did is put /system on there (and all the other little partitions irrelevant to this post) then used the fuser (file system provider) to share /data and /sdcard in the same space.

So those 2 "partitions" (more accurately called mount points) of /data and /sdcard actually share the same ext4 file system. So when you format the /data partition, you format the /sdcard too.

Recovery for the sgs3 has worked out how not to do this though.

A lot of it is terminology as /sdcard is referred to as internal sd, but its a partition of the built in memory so its not truly an sdcard in itself.

I think its clever but also a downfall