yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Nook Color Android Development] dcharleyultra:
pk74, let's get some info on some things:

What NookColor Software version are you running (info is at settings->About Your NOOKcolor)?

What version of the Size-agnostic SD Card installer did you dl?

Which version of CM7 did you put on the sdcard boot partition?

(I cannot help you with an emmc install.)
[Nook Color Android Development] lschroeder:
Using version 1.2.1, I mounted partition 1, boot, using NookColorUtilities. Copied the lastest version of this installer, 1.3, to boot. Booted somehow into black screen update. Checked with NookColorUtilities and could see that install went ok since 1.3 installer was removed from boot. Have had the black screen update before for recent nightlies and kernel updates. Using windows and mounted boot partition, I copied the uRecImg and uRecRam and renamed to uAltImg and uAltRam. Not sure when it happened but now have Green logo at nook boot up.

Mounted boot, copied nightly 122 to it, and used nightly 108 that was on the nook to choose power off option of reboot into recovery. This time I had the penguin. Did same thing with Dal's 6/30 OC kernel. Again I had the penguin.

Is power off option of reboot into recovery the method I should use rather than the Vol + and Vol - keys... power on? Well I always see the penguin from now on when updating nightlies or kernels? Is the Vol + and Vol - keys... power on just a backup incase something goes wrong?
[Nook Color Android Development] DizzyDen:
It looks to me like the issue in the installer VG talked about back in v1.1 made it into the newer stuff... that's why I copied the original uRecImg and uRecRam to uALtImg and uAltRam.... just so I would always be able to access the penguin.... lol... actually so I could SEE what was going on during updates.

It seems that somehow uRecImg and uRecRam is being overwritten during install... causing the system to have black screen recovery mode.... but by using alternate mode... you can always avoid black screen.

Maybe it was just my NC that did this... I guess I could copy uAlt* to uRec* and see if it gets modified again.... what the hell... not much going on today... will do that and report back again.
[Nook Color Android Development] verygreen:
In fact if uRecRam is overwritten you'd get no "black screen" install. The black screen usually comes from just overwritten uRecImg.

Now I fixed an overwriting bug and I believe this is finally fixed since overwriting does not happen in my testing. Would be interesting to see if you really have uRecRam that matches uRecRam from 1.3 update zip (and uImage from 1.3 installer image).
[Nook Color Android Development] lschroeder:
Thanks for the explanation! With VG's sdcard, since I copied and renamed in windows both uRec* files to uALT* files, Vol + and Vol - keys... power on always will be safe, great.

I basically have 3 OS's going: MN rooted emmc stock 1.2, VG's 1.3 sdcard nightly 122, and Rack's sdcard phiremod v7 Test.

Question on sdcard boot procedure. VG 1.3 sdcard nightly has the green boot logo and Rack's sdcard has the count down 5 sec boot. Do both of these work the same way and have the same options? I use the 5 sec count down with "n" to launch my MN rooted emmc stock 1.2. Is that the procedure with green boot logo as well?
[Nook Color Android Development] DizzyDen:
I understand... am doing some testing... this may be carry over from early builds... do know that I have seen black screen recovery mode and came up with the fix for it I mentioned... I will let you know what I discover.

They should work the same way... but I don't know 100% certain whether VG's includes alternate boot in same way.

My method was to ensure that anything going on with CM7 wouldn't impact my ability to use VG's recovery mode.

OK... did some testing... apparantly the uRec* issue was due to using the update.zip file for 1.3 over a 1.1 install... it did not overwrite the OLD uRec files... so the black screen recovery mode was still present.

I am still sticking with my uAlt* method for now.... just in case... plus it makes it easier to get into VG's recovery mode by holding vol+/- and powering on.. instead of going through menus.
[Nook Color Android Development] lschroeder:
I guess, since when I used update.zip for 1.3 over a 1.2.1 install... it must of over write the OLD uREC files... I had left over from my 1.2.1 install over 1.1... thus the black screen recovery mode was present when I was using 1.2.1 but got fixed when I used the update.zip file for 1.3 over a 1.2.1 install. Thus now no black screen recovery mode. I will have to try vol+/- and power on with my next upgrade of nightly or Dal's OC kernel.

I copied the uRecImg and uRecRam and renamed to uAltImg and uAltRam. Should I recopy these files now since my copies might have been of 1.2.1 which could have actually been 1.1? Since my 1.3 is working perfectly these files would now be good for sure, correct, and thus good to copy and rename?
[Nook Color Android Development] DizzyDen:
There is no reason to undo the uAlt* files unless you want to set up another boot on the SD.... it will always ensure you have a method to get to recovery that shows what's happening... as well as a method to access it without having to use the newer uBoot.bin menu's.

If you have the black screen update with next go round with vol+/- + power... then copy the newer uRec* files to uAlt*
[Nook Color Android Development] Character Zero:
So the first post mentions "unmodified" CM7 builds. Will this work with modified builds, I want to play around with CM7 and want to know if I can use this method to load my builds. Nothing big just modifying xml and such. Learning my way around roms. Since I can load to SD I feel I can't mess it up too much.
[Nook Color Android Development] verygreen:
The unmodified means that no special changes to allow sdcard booting are required (it used to be that you had to use special "modified for sdboot" builds in the past and it is still the case for CWM).

Of course builds that you did yourself would still work (that's how I test my own builds too).

Suggest a better wording while we are at it and I'll update the first post.
[Nook Color Android Development] Character Zero:
I think just add that explanation below that part. It explains it well. Thanks for putting the guide together. One more question. Does this present a boot menu. Or is it SD inserted = boot to CM, SD card out=boot to stock? I guess I am asking if you can boot to stock with a CM7 SD card inserted.
[Nook Color Android Development] verygreen:
The boot menu is a feature of late nighties (I think the modified u-boot was already committed, though I am not totally sure).

If you use CM7.0.3 and prior releases then the menu is totally not there and not supported.
[Nook Color Android Development] Homer_S_xda:
Thanks for this, very concise!

OK, does vold.fstab support some logic? If so, can we make this fancy?

- If exist SD partition 4, mount sdcard as 4

- Else, mount sdcard as auto

That way, the stock behaves as normal, but if you are switching your boot from your CM7 card, they share data. I guess the only issue would be that if you boot EMMC from your SD card and then want to switch to a normal card, you would lose SD card altogether.

Homer
[Nook Color Android Development] allerretour38:
Whoops. In wrong thread.
[Nook Color Android Development] lschroeder:
I have a question. I was doing this fine (auto changed to 4) with VG sdcard nightly 122, OC 06/18. I have music and video on my 16GB class 4 Sandisk VG nightly 122 OC 06/30 sdcard. My MN rooted stock 1.2 play it backed fine. Before VG sdcard with nightly 122 I had another 16GB class 4 Sandisk data/music/video card. The auto in the file worked here.

Before installing Dal's OC kernel 06/30 I went to ROM manager to backup current ROM (procedure I had used with my data 16GB card). It usually booted into my emmc CMW recovery wrote the file that I named in ROM manager to data 16GB sdcard and rebooted. Instead ROM Manager booted into VG recovery.

To make the story short, I used boot menu to boot into emmc CMW recovery and the CWM that automatically wrote my backup without me doing anything.

It then rebooted, I used the "n" to get back to MN rooted stock 1.2. Placed my data 16GB card and it said it was corrupt. Do I want to reformat it. I took 16GB data card to my pc with a usb card reader. It ran it fine, but I still backup all my data to a pc hard drive.

I then used root explorer to change 4 back to auto, inserted the 16GB data sdcard and everything was fine. I then back it up again using ROM manager with no problems to emmc CWM recovery. I also then rebooted into emmc CWM recovery and install the new OC 06/30.

Sorry for the long post, now my question do I need to change between auto and 4 depending on whether I have a data/music/video sdcard or an OS on the sdcard such as VG sdcard?
[Nook Color Android Development] DizzyDen:
You could create 3 extrememly small paetitions before the big one and leave mount set to 4... or change back and forth.

YCGIYWG
[Nook Color Android Development] lschroeder:
Thanks DizzyDen, your answers are always right on! Nice solution of creating three extremely small partitions on data/music/video sdcard so that partition 4 is where the real files are. No editing of auto to 4 and 4 to auto would be a plus.

From my above long post, I have another question. Would the programs like ROM manager doing a ROM backup with the proposed partition 4 data disk automatically write the backup in its launch of CWM recovery to the 4th partition? For the interaction of programs is this a reason to manually switch the auto to 4 and 4 to auto depending on witch sdcard we are using. CWM recovery in my above post wrote the file somewhere but ROM manager could not find it. Booting into CWM recovery it could locate it.

Edit: I found it, I used NookColorUtility to locate the backup on the boot partition. That is why CWM recovery was able to find it, but ROM Manager could not. I guess I answered my own question with no, it would still write it to the 1st partition of the sdcard. I guess I need to manually delete the the file and the clockworksmod directory structure from my boot partition, since I have a more recent backup when I changed the 4 back to auto with data sdcard inserted.

It looks to me that manual is way to go (auto to 4 and 4 to auto), since applying logic would be too difficult for all possible multi-program interaction plus the boot recovery issue. A win for human over the computer, thanks Hal, I mean nook.
[Nook Color Android Development] DizzyDen:
I would think CWM is an exception... or are you using backup from previous run? I'd think the partitioning is the best way to go for normal apps... and just have to be aware that some low level apps like CWM will put files in the first partition... you might want to make sure partition 1 is big enough for apps like that....

You might want to edit CWM files to mount partition 4 also.... remember... they have their own vold.fstab files in their img file also.

In any event.. that's the beauty of all of this... the options are always available.
[Nook Color Android Development] lschroeder:
I knew Hal's creators, would come up with some solutions and options. DizzyDen and you other developers have created Hal, I mean nook, and Dave (me) been told you can't do that, But Hal, I mean the nook can.
[Nook Color Android Development] Character Zero:
So can I use this method to create a bootable SD card, install CWM, and then flash whatever I want?

What I mean is, follow the instructions to create a bootable CM7 on the SD card. Then install Rom Manager and install CWM. And then from there use CWM to install a HoneyComb ROM or Phirmod, or even the MIUI that is coming and it all be bootable from the SD card and leave EMMC untouched?

Or does this only work for CM7, and in that case can I install CWM and use it to update CM7? (I like to wipe stuff sometimes when going to brand new builds)

Ok so I am having issues. I burned the SD card. I then put the latest CM nightly on the SD card. the install seemed to go ok. it powered off. Now when I power on I see the penguin again and it looks like it is trying to load an update file. It won't boot into CM7.

Nevermind, got it. Rebooted with the file copied over and it installed.
[Nook Color Android Development] evilvoice:
First, I want to say that I have read through most of this topic...maybe not every post, but most of them.

verygreen, what you have done is awesome. I do have one question. How are the partitions created? What I mean is what makes certain partitions a certain size. The reason I ask this is because on a 1gb card, there is no 4th partition. I understand that the card is very small, but I believe a 4th partition can be made. I own a HTC Hero and have fiddled with Firerats CustomMTD to make the data partition larger. As I understand it, the system partition (once CM7, gapps, and OC Kernel are installed) will never increase in size, or that the size would not increase more than 10mb more. So, having a 300mb system partition is a little more than what is needed - 200 should be more than enough. Also, data is large, as it should be for most things, but in the interest of getting a 4th partition, I think this can be shrunk to around 300mb, this would in turn free up around 400mb (boot partition could probably lose 20mb or so since you dont recommend putting the zips for cm7, oc kernel and gapps together).

Please know that I am not asking you to change anything. Your file works perfectly. I just want to know where the partitions are getting created so I can maybe change their size at creation time and not after (gparted complains when I resize system and then move data over to the unused space after system saying that it could corrupt the system...while this may not be true, I really dont want to chance it and have to create the card again). Also, I am on windows 7, I mention gparted as that seems to be the only thing capable of resizing the sdcard in my laptop. EASEUS does not see the card, even though windows device management does; MiniTool Partition Wizard Free cant resize Ext4 (not even from iso which doesnt even see the card). I am thinking there has to be something to specify the size as the partitions are different depending on the size of the card. Anyways, any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
[Nook Color Android Development] verygreen:
There is uRamdisk file in the image, if you strip first 64 bytes off, that would give you gzipped ext2 filesystem image. Ungzip it and in there in /etc/init.d/S90... you can see the partition creation code, you can change it to whatever you want.

after you are done gzip the ext2 image again and run mkimage from u-boot tools to create another uRamdisk that you would put on the sdcard instead of the one you had.
[Nook Color Android Development] wwejr4540:
The latest free version of EASEUS, v8.0.1, does see my SD cards, the previous versions did not.
[Nook Color Android Development] evilvoice:
Unless it came out today, which it could have, it does not see mine. The issue is either my driver for the reader built in to my laptop, or the reader itself. EASEUS had a post on their forums a while back about this and seemed to fix it, it just doesnt work for me. No biggie, Im used to things not working for me. In fact, the way verygreen and jtbnet say to write their respective img file to the sdcard did not work (winimage for vg and win32diskimager for jtb), so I had to use flashnul.
[Nook Color Android Development] doncaruana:
Sorry if this is obvious or otherwise answered, but I can't get my nook to boot off of the uSD card with this new version.

I previously used this procedure with no issues using 1.21 of the boot image. That was on a non-sandisk and I wanted to try it on an 8GB class 4 sandisk.

So I went back to this thread and started at the beginning with my new card, this time using the 1.3 image. But it will not boot at all. It sees the card (puts all the nook stuff on it after booting into rooted stock). And it still sees the one I previously did, so I know my nook is still booting okay from sd. But I can't get it to boot off of this one.

Any suggestions on this?

Solved: Use win32diskimager instead of winimage on my win7x64 machine. The 64 bit of winimage ignores the drive selected and the 32 bit version obviously doesn't write it correctly.
[Nook Color Android Development] fatfingered:
Thank you. These instructions worked perfectly. I used a Sandisk 8gb c4 card. The cm7.0.3 I used would not boot into recovery mode with neither method. I ended up rebuilding it with the newest nightly build. That allowed me to get into recovery to install gapp.
[Nook Color Android Development] evilvoice:
I have tried numerous times to do this and I can not get past the final phase. A list in order of command issued.

sudo mkdir /mnt/tmp

sudo mount -t auto -o loop,offset=$((63*512)) generic-sdcard.img /mnt/tmp

(copy /mnt/tmp/uRamdisk to workin dir)

sudo dd if=uRamdisk of=uRamdisk.cpio.gz bs=1 skip=64

gunzip uRamdisk.cpio.gz

cpio -i -F uRamdisk.cpio (this outputs a bunch of errors and never extracts anything)

I have also tried changing the extension from cpio to gz and gunzip which tells me it is not a gzip file. If you have any instructions for me, it would be greatly appreciated. I was doing this on Windows and got the errors, so I decided to boot my live ubuntu and test there. There is definitely something I am doing wrong. Also, the u-tools looks to be linux based, so I knew/know that I will end up finishing on ubuntu, but was just trying to get the editing done on windows.
[Nook Color Android Development] verygreen:
Well, like I said, the image is not a cpio archive, it's an ext2 image.

So instead of the cpio step you do something like

mount uRamdisk.cpio /mnt -o loop

(of course not to confuse yourself later better copy and unpack the image into uRamdisk.ext2)

Then do the edits on the files in /mnt

then umount /mnt

then pack uRamdisk.ext2 and mkimage it and you are done.
[Nook Color Android Development] evilvoice:
verygreen, thank you very much with all your help. I got it setup up roughly how I want it and everything seems good. I want to thank you for walking me through the steps as I definitely would have been lost without them. 400+MB for 4th partition now...still havent messed with the boot partition, but I figured it was fine as it is since CM7 has to fit
[Nook Color Android Development] smully1:
can someone post easy, step by step instructions for increasing partition size? I am trying to follow the posted instructions, but they are over my head.
[Nook Color Android Development] danvee:
I'd also be interested in this: I'd like to increase the size of the system partition on the SD card from the nominal 1G, as I'm using a 16G SD card.

I've no experience at all with Linux: I started back in the "old days" with TRS-DOS and then MS DOS, and now Windows (Vista and 7-32 bit versions).

I can use the standard partition managing software to resize the FAT32 partition, but not the others.

Any "simple" advice would be appreciated.......:)

Thanks!
[Nook Color Android Development] evilvoice:
to smully1 and danvee, are you wanting to just resize the partition, or are you wanting the partition created when you set up the card (ie. Do you already have the system set to your liking and dont want to redo the whole thing - this would be the first option, or do you not mind starting over from the very first step in the OP and having the partitions created when you first put the sdcard in the nook and boot - this would happen when it installs CM7 the first time).

Edit:

For the first option, I would create a Ubuntu Live USB...boot from the USB stick and choose non-persistent (if that is not an option, choose the one that says "Try" or "Live". Make sure your memory card is plugged into the computer. Once it boots, there will be a taskbar on the left (usually), if you hover your mouse over the icons, it will tell you what it is. Find the icon that says applications. When that comes up, type gparted. Open the program and it should scan your drives. Select your memory card, and you can make changes from there. It will probably prompt you saying it could destroy data - it did me. It is up to you whether you want to continue or not.

I will try to write the instructions for the 2nd option in a way most people will understand...but it probably wont be for a few hours.
[Nook Color Android Development] slider2828:
God this things is awesome!!! Just saw the instructions, followed and done... Less than 30 minutes for the whole process.... It was just crazy that everything is done in the loader like applying updates and stuff like that...

Like what danzee is saying, now the system partition is 1GB... Is there an advantage to increasing the system partition to say 2GB?
[Nook Color Android Development] danvee:
Thanks EV!

The thumbdrive method sounds interesting: never tried it.

I really like the idea of modifying the original image/installer so the partitions are created in the desired size from the start.

Another option, as I have an image of all of my SD installs: would that also allow me to edit THAT image so, when written to an SD card via Winimage, the partitions will be "correct"?

Thanks very much for your help!
[Nook Color Android Development] verygreen:
You can download "GRUB rescue CD" (cannot find a good url offhand) and it will resize ext3/4 partitions I believe.

Or you can boot off ubuntu usbstick/CD and that one should have GRUB that can resize ext3/4 partitions too.
[Nook Color Android Development] danvee:
Thanks VG,

I can deal with a graphical interface just fine, but I'm not too sure that I can do anything that requires command line use. It's been a LONG time.....:rolleyes:
[Nook Color Android Development] jim3002:
I need help "sorry"

"After done with writing, eject and then re-insert the uSD card into your computer.:

IT NOW COMES UP UNFORMATED AND UNABLE TO FORMAT WITH OUT A NAME. I CAN NOT COPY ANYTHING TO IT UNTILL ITS FORMATED ( I AM SORRY I DIDN'T THINK I WAS THIS BAD AT THIS) I HAVE DONE THIS ON WINXP COMPUTER AND HAVE TRIED ON OSX ALSO THANK YOU FOR YOU HELP

JIM
[Nook Color Android Development] dcharleyultra:
How did you eject? What OS are you using?

Swyped from my Evo 4G using Tapatalk
[Nook Color Android Development] jim3002:
re needing help

ok i downloaded the new win image and was able to do this.... now I copy CM7 nightly to the 4gig usd card, place the card in the Nook it runs and comes up with "Error! Unexpected lack of boot partition on the SDCARD! . I put the card back into the computer and it says I still have a alot of open space... now what did i do wrong?

thank you

Jim

my computer Mac OSX Lion, dual boot Win XP
[Nook Color Android Development] jim3002:
re needing help
[Nook Color Android Development] b.roid:
ok i tried this and rebooted and got a blank screen. i held power button in for up 2 a minute and got it to boot back in to stock nook.

could things i think might have gone wrong.

1. i used windows xp and winimage in virtual box. it seemed to to write fine? has anyone tried this? im using ubuntu.

2. i put sd card in while nook was on. then turned off and back on. i thought it was off to start with, but was on screen saver.

i used latest nightly.

any ideas? i was getting a little nervous when i got the blank screen :eek:
[Nook Color Android Development] b.roid:
ok i went ahead and gave it another shot. made sure it was completely off this time and still same results with a blank screen. nothing?

is there something i should be hitting? or should it load right up?

i checked the card and all the files are loaded. after i take the card back out there are extra folders on the card so i assume it did something?
[Nook Color Android Development] jim3002:
re needing help

OK (I'm a IDIOT) all my cards are scandisk except the one i have been trying to use it is a PQI and it doesn't work....... I used a scan Disk and it works now still having trouble with WIFI not wanting to work but I can handle that....

Thank you all