Root Unable to Mount SD Card

[jeffreyabr]

Attempting to repurpose my DInc as a gaming/internet/music/tweaking device. I've removed my external SD Card and am using it in my new phone. I rooted for the first time following the instructions on this page, and everything worked fine. I noticed that I am unable to mount my internal SD Card and place any data on it. No apps are actually able to write to it, and Astro shows that it's completely empty. When I tried to copy and paste a file to it from Astro, I am told that it cannot be completed.

I am running Invisiblek's CM9 build which shouldn't have any issues with SD Card stuff. I installed CWM v5.0.2.0 and when I try to mount /sdcard through that I get "Error mounting /sdcard!" Because of this, I am incapable of mounting the USB Storage, and when I try in CWM, I get the "E: Unable to write to ums lunfile (No such file or directory)" error.

 

[sdrawkcab25]

Do you have another external SD card in the phone? If not, you will get those errors.

You can not put apps onto the internal storage (the 6.6 GB partition). That partition also isn't listed as an "SD" card in the file structure. It is called "EMMC". It is solely intended for media files (music, pictures, movies, pdf files etc).

The SD card folder you see is just the mount point for if you had a SD card inserted.

However since you are rooted, you could technically use symlinks to get the emmc partition to act as an external SD card and move apps to it.

 

[jeffreyabr]

Do you have another external SD card in the phone? If not, you will get those errors.

You can not put apps onto the internal storage (the 6.6 GB partition). That partition also isn't listed as an "SD" card in the file structure. It is called "EMMC". It is solely intended for media files (music, pictures, movies, pdf files etc).

The SD card folder you see is just the mount point for if you had a SD card inserted.

However since you are rooted, you could technically use symlinks to get the emmc partition to act as an external SD card and move apps to it.

So a few questions:

1. If EMMC, which is where I keep pushing things through adb, is only meant for media, where do app files get stored? On my other Droid phones, it has always been the sdcard directory.
2. In CWM, I see a /sdcard and /sdcardext, so is /sdcardext just a location that doesn't really exist?
3. How would I go about using symlinks to get the emmc partition to act as an external SD Card? Is that worth doing? Any benefits to it?
4. Without the external SD Card, is there a way I can put files onto the phone without having to use adb?

 

[sdrawkcab25]

So a few questions:

1. If EMMC, which is where I keep pushing things through adb, is only meant for media, where do app files get stored? On my other Droid phones, it has always been the sdcard directory.
2. In CWM, I see a /sdcard and /sdcardext, so is /sdcardext just a location that doesn't really exist?
3. How would I go about using symlinks to get the emmc partition to act as an external SD Card? Is that worth doing? Any benefits to it?
4. Without the external SD Card, is there a way I can put files onto the phone without having to use adb?

1) you wouldn't be pushing anything in adb to the emmc partition unless you were specifically mentioning the partition in adb. App files on all android phones get stored in the /system folder, which also has sub partitions(usually /data and /data/data ). Some parts of most apps do get stored on the sd card, but the phone/app requires a decent portion of the app to be stored locally(at least from its perspective).

2) those options are just default options in CWM, you will always see them, whether or not the partition exists.

4) http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1843062
And
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1750888
and
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1488351 (explains the partitioning on the incredible)
kind of heavy reading but it covers what the sdext partition would be used for and setting up symlinks for using internal storage for apps. But you would need an external sd card in the phone for it work.

You still need an external sd card in the phone with the appropriate files to trick the phone into looking at the internal storage instead.

5) I believe even without an external sd card, just simply plugging the phone into a pc should still allow you to mount the internal storage to your pc for copying files. If it doesn't, then you do need an sd card, any size will do.