Help Problem with partitioning external sd card and using Link2SD

[svrsmiley]

Hi,

I have a Samsung Galaxy POP GT-S5570. Due to its limited internal memory, I've been trying for the last 2 days to partition the sd card and use link2sd on the 2nd partition. Once I do this, I'm unable to get my Windows 7 PC to recognize the sd card... Here's the full detail of what I did. I'm a novice, and the first time I went through this process a couple of days back, I screwed up my phone royally, and had to visit the Samsung service center to get a factory reset done. So, yeah, my phone is in virginal mode as I start these steps.

1. Rooted my phone as per instructions (I had no problems here)
2. Installed the CWM recovery module as per the instructions. CWM also appears to be running fine, I seem to have no problems here.
3. Used CWM to partition the sd card. Did it successfully.
4. Installed Link2SD. It seems to recognize the 2nd partition.
5. At this point, if I connect my phone to my Windows 7 PC, even after enabling USB mass storage mode on the phone, it does not show up as a drive on my PC.
6. I unmounted the SD card, loaded it into my card reader, and loaded into the PC. It recognized the card, but said the card needed to be formatted before use.
7. Not knowing what else to do, I tried using MiniTools to format the SD card on the PC. No effect, windows explorer still said the drive needed to be formatted. So I used windows explorer format option to do a full format on the sd card.
8. After this, the PC recognized the card, but when I loaded it back in the phone, the phone could not detect the 2nd partition (probably wiped out??). I used CWM to re-partition the drive. Now Link2SD recognized the partition, but it has also brought me back to Steps 5/6. My comp will not recognize the card.

Ultimately, I absolutely have to be able to transfer files from my PC to sd card, and have it working on phone. How do I fix this issue?

 

[beerwolf]

it sounds like it could be due to drivers for the phone not installed on pc, have you tried using a different sd card? is partition ext4?

 

[svrsmiley]

Hi. Thanks for the response. I fixed the problem :smokingsomb:

It was not drivers on the pc, since other android phones were getting recognized just fine. Partition is ext2, I believe.

Anyhow, just to record for posterity, here are the steps I followed for recovery:

Note: At the start of this process, my phone basically had Samsung factory settings + root access + cwm recovery module. Nothing else.

1. I used the Samsung OS format tool to format the sd card. This removed the previously created partition. It also allowed the computer to recognize the sd card.
2. Booted the phone into CWM recover module. Used CWM to format the SD card again.
3. Before doing anything else, I hooked up to the pc, it still recognized the main partition of the sd card.
4. Now I installed Link2SD. It recognized the 2nd partition.
5. At this point, all was well with the world . I went ahead and installed all my other apps and started using the phone.

I think the problem occurred because, initially, I had used Minitool to partition my SD card. Whatever it did created a situation where only one of the two devices (phone or pc) would recognize the card. CWM could not fix this situation.

Not sure exactly, but I would guess the fix was reinstalling Samsung factory settings on the phone (i.e. not using the options on the phone. I actually had to go to the Samsung service center and have them erase everthing and restore the phone to its virginal state), and formatting the sd card using the Samsung default ROM. These were the only things I hadn't tried before.

Ever since, my phone has been working well. I now have all the memory I need for apps, and am happy to say that I escalated beyond the original phone internal memory limitation within 10 mins of setting up Link2SD . It seems to run a weee bit slower, but I can live with that. Price of purchasing a lower range phone, I guess...

 

[beerwolf]

glad to hear you got it sorted

 

[bhagerty]

I had a similar problem with my SD card and Link2SD, and I couldn't solve it by using Minitool on the PC. I ended up installing Aparted from the app store and formatting the card in the phone. That seems to have worked. I post this for other folks who might run into the same problem.

 

[Phillip21]

I had a similar problem with my SD card and Link2SD, and I couldn't solve it by using Minitool on the PC. I ended up installing Aparted from the app store and formatting the card in the phone. That seems to have worked. I post this for other folks who might run into the same problem.

I found all the advice on this forum extremely useful, and am most grateful. I would only add one thing (apologies if it has been stated before and I have missed it): when you partition your SD card with AParted, make sure that if you set up a data partition (FAT32) and a second partition for apps (eg, ext2) the data partition should be the first created - ie Partition 1. I did it the other way round at first and found that my android tablet would not mount the card. When I reformatted with the data partition as Partition 1 it worked fine!