Help New SD Card Automatically Created /Android/data ?

[TRS-80]

Phone is Galaxy s5, running CM 12.1 (Android 5.1.1) and has 16GB internal storage.

Which was filling up rapidly, so I went out and purchased an additional 32GB Micro SD card. I didn't have time to mess with it, so I just stuck it in the phone and went about my business.

So then I was getting ready to format the card and start using it (I wanted to format in ext4) but now I see all this directory structure appearing on the card, even though I have not copied nor written anything to the card whatsoever?

Under sdcard1, I now have /Android/data/ and then under that there are 19 sub directories like:

com.a1dev.sdbench
com.android.calendar
com.android.camera2
com.cyanogenmod.eleven
etc., etc...

Again, I created none of these. Did the OS create them itself? Or are they just some sort of symlinks or something?

My understanding is sdcard1 is the new external, as I also have an sdcard0 which I assume is the original internal. There are also obviously a few different ways to get to each through symlinks like /mnt, /sdcard, /extSdCard, etc...

I obviously didn't want to move forward with formatting anything, until I found out what was going on. Therefore any insights would be appreciated.

 

[Pugs1957]

It's perfectly normal behaviour and as you say, created by the OS

 

[TRS-80]

Thanks for quick reply!

So, how can I move this stuff back off there, in order to format the card?

Are they symlinks, or actual files?

What would happen if I were to unmount and remove the sd card, would those apps not work then?

I hate when software does things automatically, without asking your permission, nor informing you what it is doing. Terrible design.

I'm just trying to understand this. I've been searching and searching, but can't seem to find any useful information.

 

[Pugs1957]

I believe they are system files so the card is supported. You can copy and paste to PC, format and transfer back. It shouldn't be an issue to format without backing up provided you have no media/data stored.

 

[TRS-80]

Oh wow, I've just noticed something.

I went into ES File Explorer, pulled up properties on the root /Android folder, and learned that it contains a total of 99 subfolders, total size 0 bytes!

Poking around the directory structure further, all the sub folders seem to be empty, most named /cache and/or /files, but all empty... Hmm...

So it seems I wouldn't actually be losing anything by deleting them.

OK, so next question... Which utility or program to use to format the card now, in ext4? I've read a lot of conflicting information. I think I tried once in TWRP already, and IIRC, it failed for some reason.

I'm ok with doing it via command line, and I do have a terminal installed, if someone could point me in the direction of a guide (I like to learn)?

Doing things "the hard way" is not a problem for me, in fact, I prefer to do things "the right way." Especially when formatting...

 

[Pugs1957]

From what I have read ext4 support is manufacturer dependent. I personally don't use it. I have an old S4 with a 32GB card formatted to FAT32 and no need for one in my Edge. I have never used a phone to format a card, just Windows so I can't help on that score, sorry.

 

[TRS-80]

My understanding is that CM supports ext4. But then I have read about possible permission issues, when moving Apps to SD. That entire situation is quite confusing and messy actually. But I only intend to store media and perhaps some other stored data on the SD, so I figure I'll be alright. But, we shall see...

At any rate, thanks for your replies and help!

I'm still reading up in other tabs, in the meantime, can anyone else suggest the best tool to format Micro SD card? I'm pretty sure I don't have any sort of internal nor external reader for any of my PCs, so we are talking about tools either within Android, or via recovery, or ADB, etc...

 

[saltire]

For formatting/partitioning with ext2/3/4 and other formats then probably recommend Gparted, but it's been a long while since I've used it and had it running the iso through VMware on my Win laptop. Can I ask why you want to format it as ext4 in the first place, if it's only for storing media though?